We hope that the private response of African National Congress leaders to the results of Tuesday’s local government elections is more sober than the unconcern they have affected in public. The poll registered serious murmurings of dissatisfaction with the ruling party among its traditional support base. The party’s share of the vote is down on last year. Millions of its supporters three out of every five could not be bothered to travel to the polls. And the share of the vote won by the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance, rose five percentage points, as it made small but potentially highly significant gains in black townships. Opinion polls and anecdotal evidence had long pointed to this kind of result. ANC leaders, however, are not our major concern. Those who do concern us are the millions in the townships and rural areas who have been disappointed by the ruling party. Six years into democracy, these people are still without clean running water, electricity, decent roads, security, a passable education, basic health care and most important of all without jobs. Worse, 18 months into the presidency of Thabo Mbeki, who has sought to project himself as Mr Delivery, there is little sign that he is managing to implement the eloquent phrases and promises in which he has regularly found refuge when he has addressed Parliament and the nation. This past year has been a period of, at times, near paralysis in government. Mbeki has allowed his attention to wander into areas like the HIV/Aids controversy in which he has nothing to offer. He has been diverted by incessant, and often unnecessary, travel from the urgent tasks and managerial follow-through that have needed doing at home. He has, at crucial moments, retreated into a defensive mindset, leaving the country crying out in vain for bold practical leadership and inspiration. And many of his colleagues have seemed more concerned about the trappings and status of office than about the job they have been elected to do. Tuesday’s local government elections are Mbeki’s second warning in three months. In October, an Idasa opinion poll, backed up by other surveys, showed a sharp fall in his approval rating among South Africans. There have, however, been one or two encouraging signs in recent weeks. Mbeki has been getting out and about more, mixing with people, and has seemed, at times, almost to be enjoying others’ company. His office has been making fewer ill-considered, bellicose statements. He has toned down on his racial rhetoric. And an impression of some calm has returned. We hope this augurs well for the new year. The vast majority of South Africans still place their faith in Mbeki and the ANC. They deserve and they know they deserve far better than what he and his party have been giving them. More than that, they are realising in significant numbers that there is, now, an alternative to the ANC emerging. This is a wake-up call, Mr President. Business of apartheid We welcome the call for big business to be called to account for its role in enforcing apartheid as long as it does not lapse into rhetoric. At a recent conference in Bonn, Germany, a collection of NGOs, including our own crusaders from Jubilee 2000, called on German, British and Swiss companies to cough up apartheid reparations. While the aims of the conference are self-evidently laudable, the campaigners’ efforts so far smack of amateurism. Companies approached for comment this week expressed indignation that they had not made the conference invitation list, let alone been approached to discuss the thorny issue of reparations. That said, the conference has spotlighted the shortcomings of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which only scratched the surface of the impact of apartheid on South African life. The truth body was instead preoccupied with chronicling the murder and mayhem that characterised the rule of the National Party government. While these probes provided a crucial education for many South Africans, there was much more that needed examination. Other than fleeting hearings into areas such as business and the media, which provided only a cursory glimpse of the wider impact of apartheid, the commission’s exploration of these more subtle areas never amounted to much. The TRC hearings on the role played by the country’s multinationals, particularly the mining houses, in oiling the wheels of the Nats’ machinery, could hardly be described as a success. Their sole achievement was a collection of skimpy, half-hearted acknowledgements that apartheid was “wrong”.
It is also remarkable how local companies have got away with their past other than having to pay a measly transition levy following the transition to democracy in 1994. It is, of course, highly likely that the current government with its emphasis on luring foreign investors will consider approaching multinationals to discuss paying for their apartheid sins. But the conference and any subsequent debate about reparations will at least serve to remind foreign businesses who cashed in on apartheid of their obligations to the new South Africa. For if such commitments are not made, these companies, like white South Africa, will have gotten away with it.