The reaction by the office of Peter Marais, the Democratic Alliance mayor of Cape Town, to the Mail & Guardian’s expos of fraudulent vote rigging in his campaign to rename two city streets is unsurprising. Marais and his acolytes have claimed that political opponents planted the forged votes with the M&G to discredit him and his pet plan.
Without waiting for any formal inquiry into the scam, they have hatched this spurious conspiracy theory. The theory would be amusing if it was not so eloquent on the shortage of quality among opposition politicians. There is, however, nothing else that Marais and his cronies could say.
The DA has meanwhile made mixed noises about the scandal. The DA’s provincial leadership, with national backing, has set up a three-person inquiry to be headed by Piet Marais (no relation), formerly a New National Party MP and lawyer from Stellenbosch. This Marais, however, had, by Thursday afternoon, received no confirmation of his appointment a fact that does little for our confidence in the inquiry. Even less reassuring is the attitude of others in the DA who appear willing to let the mayor of Cape Town peddle his defensive explanations.
It would be far better for the residents of Cape Town indeed, for honourable members of the DA as well if the inquiry were to be conducted by impartial outsiders. We believe the scam also merits a police investigation. Getting the ineffectual 12-person, cross-party city council subcommittee on the renaming of streets to investigate the fraud over the next three weeks as allies of Mayor Marais managed to organise on Thursday is a ridiculous response that merely broadens the scope for a cover-up. We shall see, and we shall find out.
Mayor Marais and his team have shown little regard for fact or consistency in spinning their defence. The SABC reported Marais as saying the forged petitions in the possession of the M&G were leaked at “precisely” the same moment they were delivered to the council. Marais has no idea when “precisely” the M&G received its documents, but he could have read our article for clues. We said we took possession of the “signed” petitions and form letters last week. The papers in question landed at the council on May 21. Either way, Marais’s office sat on these forgeries and, we believe, many others from May 21 until being exposed.
Mayor Marais’s office also stands accused of using the old National Party electoral machinery to solicit backing for his plan. He has already made use of the forged votes, when talking of “overwhelming” public support. It is difficult for Marais to argue he and his team did not know what was afoot. If his officials counted the votes, they should have detected, as any child would, the blatant forgeries. One of the reasons they gave for denying us access to the votes before the scandal broke was that they were being sorted.
Under the National Party, South Africa became a haven for cheating, disinformation, lies and conspiracy theories. The Democratic Party took a considerable risk when it swallowed the party. The fraud we exposed last week has provided a crucial test for the DA, a party that constantly professes its commitment to clean government. Will it opt for a cover-up, or will it do the right thing by ensuring that heads roll and criminal charges stick for a shameful fraud?
Lest we forget
June 16 is a commemoration of both death and rebirth. On this day, we remember the bitter deaths of thousands of our youth who initiated the rebirth of hope in our country. The youth dealt white minority domination a devastating blow. After they took to the streets in 1976, the apartheid regime never recovered its equilibrium. Wave after wave of popular revolt that followed in subsequent years further loosened apartheid’s grip both on state power and on our national consciousness. The democracy we enjoy today is, to a significant degree, the fruit of the courage of the 1976 generation and their successors.
We cannot compare the challenges faced in 1976 with those we face today. They differ radically. But the scale of these two sets of challenges is comparable: in as much as apartheid threatened the lives and welfare of the majority of South Africans then, today HIV/Aids, poverty, crime, and unresolved educational and welfare problems pose as big, if not a greater, threat to our people. Already, HIV/Aids is devastating communities across the country. And it is quite apparent that we are nowhere near bringing the deadly syndrome under some sort of control.
In our young democracy, there should be no need for violence to confront these enormous problems. We have in place the democratic institutions capable of sensitivity to the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable among us. It is a moot question, however, whether we have as a nation woken up to the scale of the disaster that threatens us. We may well need a rebirth of our national consciousness on the scale achieved in 1976 if we are to mobilise the effort that is required of us.
For many South Africans this is a day of painful remembrance and tribute. For perhaps as many it is merely another public holiday on which to go to the beach, listen to music or watch sport. The beauty of our democracy is that it allows us this choice.
The choice we would urge is some moments of meditation on the scale of the challenges before us as a nation and on our capacity to meet them. Previous generations managed to do so. Not least that of 1976. Lest we forget.