Swellendam, the picturesque town deep in the Overberg, is a harbinger of things to come in the Western Cape during next year’s election. It is there, against the backdrop of the Langeberg mountains, that the consequences of defections are stark and that a suprising political shift is revealing itself.
It’s a shift that does not shore up the Democratic Alliance assertion that it is on a winning path.
Instead, events in Swellendam suggest that the African National Congress could be the victor in the Western Cape in the 2004 poll, putting it in a position to jettison its junior cooperative governance partner, the New National Party. It mopped up the coloured vote, and the agreement, which gave the Western Cape to the ANC-NNP last June, is strained after the defection of three NNP provincial legislators in the March floor-crossing that gave the ANC an overall majority.
Although the parties decided to stick to their agreement, the talk is now of keeping it only until the 2004 election. A senior Western Cape NNP insider confirmed the agreement would be reviewed at that time. An ANC counterpart explained: “The reality is cooperation does not mean we do not test each other in by-elections or other elections.” Political observers say the point of pacts is for parties not to compete against each other.
While the town is tourist-pretty, Swellendam’s dusty township streets are typical of the Overberg — which is one of the poorest areas in the region. Job hunger is deep; the local advice office deals with a steady stream of unfairly dismissed or illegally evicted farm workers.
The ANC, NNP and DA competed in the Swellendam municipal ward in March — all of them on jobs tickets to cater to the majority working-class coloured residents. In the other Swellendam council ward of Barrydale, the ANC stood against an independent and the Pan Africanist Congress — to contest a ward where farm workers are a majority.
In the Western and Northern Cape, the coloured vote will hold the key to victory and here again Swellendam is a predictor of how this pool may go. Come 2004 it is estimated that coloured voters will form 56% of the electorate, African voters about 25% and white voters 18%.
This voting bloc was previously dominated by the NNP, but the ANC has made inroads in recent years through its “African-coloured working-class solidarity strategy”, which is aimed at bridging the racial divide by emphasising the shared experience of discrimination and low access to services. As government, the ANC can also use its resources to deliver to voters its targets.
In the Swellendam poll the ANC won 70% support among coloured voters and hiked its showing among whites. It clinched Barrydale with 74,7%, significantly up from the 52% scored in a similar turnout during the December 2000 municipal poll.
The DA recaptured its presence in the Swellendam ward — lost during the municipal defections — but with just 572 votes (40%), down from the 61,8% in 2000. The ANC came second with 507 votes (36%) and the NNP third with 298 votes (21%).
In the aftermath the ANC has emphasised that it closed the gap in the race with the DA. This is bad news for the official opposition, which bases its 2004 calculations on maintaining support among coloureds. The DA now grapples with voter schizophrenia: those who say “Ek is ’n Nat [I am NNP]” support DA policies when questioned, says Western Cape DA leader Theuns Botha.
The NNP stoically maintains its performance was not an omen, while the ANC says the DA has become the party of the “white right”.
Says ANC Overberg coordinator Cameron Dugmore: “The DA is unashamedly the party of the white right.”