He did not kiss the babies. But President Thabo Mbeki tested kids’ toys, competed with them to count up to 100 and basically surrendered himself to the small, affluent community of the Bishops Court townhouse complex in Kempton Park.
Some say this is not quite vintage Mbeki and more of an election strategy for a president concerned with his international stature. But Mbeki as ”a man of the people” appears to be paying off for the African National Congress.
Mbeki has been on a whirlwind tour of the country and almost everywhere he has gone the masses have poured in a with a show of strength for the ANC. The organisation says it has no secret strategy for the elections — other than to consolidate its strength through direct voter contact with most communities, as opposed to its old strategy of holding mass rallies.
The strategy has also consisted of completely ignoring the opposition — to the point of pretending they don’t exist. But that has not worked completely, as evidenced by the controversy generated after Mbeki reportedly commented that he would beat his sister if she were to marry African Christian Democratic Party leader Kenneth Meshoe.
A senior ANC strategist who preferred to remain unnamed said: ”We never even mention any opposition by name. We lump them together. All the president has said by way of mentioning them is: ‘There will be others who will come here and ask you to vote for them. But they have no track record.’ We are running a positive campaign.”
He pointed out that the timing of the elections suited the ANC strategy. ”This is the first decade of freedom. That environment, that atmosphere of celebrating freedom is very useful.”
He noted also third party endorsements, where people who are leaders of different strands in society (such as celebrities and business people) have come out to say that the past 10 years have been good for them.
Significantly, the ANC slogan ”People’s Contract to Create Work and Fight Poverty” does not mention Aids, despite the government moving rapidly to provide a comprehensive treatment plan for people living with the disease.
”The slogan was chosen on the basis of research, which said the most critical issues facing our people are unemployment and poverty. Our slogan is also consistent with our last one, which said ‘together fighting for change’. The emphasis was always that people should help government to deliver.”
ANC head of presidency Smuts Ngonyama says the organisation is wary of predictions that the ANC already has the election in the bag. ”We want to prove the point that we will not be flattered by surveys and be lulled into a slumber. No, no; the actual survey will be April 14 when the masses got out in their numbers to vote. We must have confidence in what the people say rather than in what the surveys say the people say about the ANC.
”Also we are using the people’s voices to plan for the next decade ahead of us. We are drawing a programme of action and that will be based on the empirical evidence of what the people say they want.”
Ngonyama admitted that while the ANC had pleaded poverty at the start of its campaign it has spent massively on advertising. ”Even now we are operating on a shoe-string budget. But because of the commitment of all our members who have contributed in many ways, we have not struggled.
”We had members who volunteered to print T-shirts, some to make posters and so on. We fundraised properly and avoided all unsavoury behaviour, which may open us to charges of corruption as the ruling party,” he said.
Despite the conspicuous absence of ANC veteran Winnie Madikizela-Mandela from the campaign so far, Ngonyama insisted that she was part of it. ”She is ANC to the core.”
Ngonyama said the ANC had paid a lot of attention to recruiting ”non-traditional ANC voters” such as farmers and all minorities. Mbeki had last week met with members of the Greek, Italian and Portuguese communities. ”He has tried to break new ground and assured the affluent members of society that once the needs of the poor are attended to it creates fewer problems for everyone.”