National Afrikaans Sunday newspaper Rapport editor Tim du Plessis says voter apathy among Afrikaans speakers is reflected in newspaper sales when lead stories focus on political issues.
Speaking in the After Eight Debate led by John Perlman of SAfM on Wednesday — which debated a recent SABC/Markinor survey showing that whites, in particular, were less likely to vote in the 2004 election — Du Plessis said that sales dipped when his newspaper wrote about the split in the official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA).
Sales, however, rose when the paper led on such matters as the Springboks winning a rugby test. He noted his readership was drawn almost entirely from white and coloured Afrikaans-speaking minority communities.
Former Vrye Weekblad editor Max du Preez, now a roving columnist, said that there was a dangerous tendency among some commentators that if they could not change the future, they attempted to alter the past. This had been reflected in Professor Herman Giliomee’s book The Afrikaners and by Leopold Scholtz, assistant editor of the Burger, whom he quoted as saying that ”we have the task to show the world that apartheid wasn’t all that bad”.
Du Preez said the SABC/Markinor poll was bad news for the opposition — in particular for DA leader Tony Leon. ”If I were Tony Leon I would be seriously concerned; this is his primary base. The DA has high hopes in terms of growth [in the next election]. This has serious implications for opposition politics.”
Henry Boshoff of the Institute for Security Studies said the poll reflected a feeling in the white community ”that even if they vote it will make no change in the political dispensation”. He did not feel that the alienation would be articulated through violence, however.
A white caller from Grahamstown said that he would not vote as he had no interest in what the political parties were doing. He had also been let down by ”the government in power”. Nobody represented his interests. He said he would like to elect someone who represented him and ”the people around me” — indicating a concern about the lack of geographical constituencies at national level.
Du Plessis concurred that the issue was a matter of concern and backed the Van Zyl Slabbert commission which recently recommended to government that a mixed proportional representation and constituency system be implemented instead of the current proportional system only.
A black caller suggested that the DA — predominant in the white community — in particular had fed into the despondency among white people ”because of its ‘fight back’ campaign”. Another black caller said the apathy reflected ”the cultural arrogance” of many in the white community.
One of the ways of resolving the detachment from politics by white voters — although coloured and Indian apathy is also at high levels — was to involve them in the political process by voting African National Congress (ANC). This was suggested by Du Preez who said that the real opposition to government was housed within the ANC.
He noted there were more differences between Finance Minister Trevor Manuel and South African Communist Party leader Blade Nzimande than between Manuel and Leon. He went further by suggesting whites should involve themselves in their local branch of the ANC.
In a poll conducted among 3 500 potential voters in April, it showed that 21% of white voters definitely did not want to vote or did ”not really” want to vote in next year’s national election. This compared to just 12% for black voters in these two categories.
The poll added that 19% of Coloureds and Indians did not really want to vote or would not vote. – I-Net Bridge