”From the modest interiors of their jail cells, beyond the noise of electioneering, South Africa’s 185 000 prisoners will join every other eligible South African voter next month to make their cross.
On Wednesday the Constitutional Court ruled in favour of prisoners’ right to vote, after an urgent application brought by the National Institute for Crime Prevention and the Reintegration of Offenders (Nicro) and two prisoners serving sentences without the option of a fine. The respondent was the minister of home affairs.
Days before the Constitutional Court delivered its ruling, 13 prisoners, all in the maximum-security section of a prison in Gauteng, shared with the Mail & Guardian their delights and disappointments about 10 years of freedom, shanty towns, President Thabo Mbeki, drugs, destitution, Nelson Mandela, guns and God.
The prisoners cannot be named. All of them are men, one is white, six are political prisoners, and the other seven are serving sentences for murder, robbery or rape. Eleven are first-time offenders, two are second-time offenders and three have been in prison since before 1994. All of them are serving 25- to 40-year sentences.
”He is an Africanist, a world leader and a careerist. He is too careful and unpredictable and as a consequence, slow to deliver,” said one prisoner about Mbeki.
But, said another, ”Mbeki is my man because he is the man of his own word. He is not shaken by circumstances.”
”Nothing has changed since 1994, people are still struggling,” said a third. There are ”no jobs, no water, a high crime rate. The prisons are full because guns are so [freely] available. The ANC [African National Congress] is rubbish, maybe the DA [Democratic Alliance] would be better.”
Most of the prisoners are disillusioned about the gap between the people in power and the people themselves. They feel the ANC has betrayed them.
”Democracy is good but the government should stop telling lies to people and do what they promised so long ago. They don’t care about the people, but only about feeding their families,” said one prisoner.
”Most of us feel betrayed by the ANC government,” said another. ”Some feel that there should be a vote of no confidence.”
”I preferred Nelson Mandela, at least he experienced incarceration so he could relate to it,” said another.
None of the prisoners is obdurate — they express regret and explain their crimes but do not justify them.
”It’s because I failed to challenge life in a right way [that] I decided to commit a crime,” said one man.
”[If I could talk to Mbeki] I would tell him that people commit crimes because of poverty, especially in the squatter camps. I would tell him to stop selling guns, because every time when a crime is committed guns are always involved,” said another.
”We always tell each other that crime doesn’t pay because we have ruined our lives behind bars. So we have to change our minds so that when we get out we can start our own businesses,” said another prisoner.
All 13 prisoners were emphatic about their right to vote and said that despite being behind bars their right to choose their leader cannot be stripped from them.
”A prisoner is a human being and also a member of society. The fact that [we] are imprisoned doesn’t mean that [we] cannot make proper decisions about national issues,” said one.
”We cannot be alienated as we are also human beings, we have feelings, we are not all ‘hardened criminals’,” said another.
Of South Africa’s 185 000 prisoners, 134 000 have been sentenced and 51 000 remain unsentenced. The total capacity of the country’s prisons is 112 000, which means they are vastly overcrowded, according to Nicro. The largest slice of prisoners are male (181 000), compared with females at 4 000. There are 4 000 children in prison; of these 1 800 have been sentenced and 2 200 are unsentenced. There are 228 ”infants in prison with their mothers”, according to Nicro.
While most of the prisoners believe that democratic South Africa is not comparable to the apartheid government in terms of freedom, some disagree.
”The new democratic South Africa is worse. The old South Africa was better because people were working, there were jobs, but now crime is high because of a lack of jobs, which results in poverty and Aids.”
Another prisoner said: ”The policing was effective and efficient under the old South Africa.”
”There is no new and old South Africa. All these terms are political philosophies that are misleading. What is important is that people must be united in Christ and the country will be a better place to live,” said one man.
While there is an acceptance among these men that they are unlikely to be granted amnesty, their ferment of ideas and their debate about life beyond the prison walls — the possibility of adding substance to their vote — stems any sense of resignation.
”[When I get out] I am going to seek permission to teach school children the consequences of using alcohol and drugs that leads to crime and HIV/Aids,” said one prisoner.
”I will apply for tenders from the government so that I can create more job opportunities for the unemployed people,” said another.