Academics, political analysts and the media are waiting with keen anticipation for the results of the 2004 election, to see whether racial motivations will continue to be important in defining and explaining voting behaviour in South Africa.
This has been the preoccupation in interpreting South African electoral behaviour since 1994 and predictably this will be the gist of most analyses of the elections result.
That is, to see whether black voters will vote for ”black” parties and white voters will vote for ”white” parties.
But this angle of inquiry is limited, tired and has long lost any steam and relevance. For the fact of the matter is that voting patterns are still going to remain along racial lines in the foreseeable future.
Thus it is time to move debate beyond this focus and obsession with racial patterns.
In the coming election, the most open secret is that most black voters are going to vote for the African National Congress and most white voters for the Democratic Alliance.
The relevant question to ask is: why do these voting patterns continue to be resilient?
The simple reason is that South African political parties are led by an elite, middle-class leadership that is using race to fulfil its political ambitions. Of course the level to which this is done differs from party to party.
The alliance between the ANC and the New National Party, for example, operates on a common elite perspective that is based on moving to the centre of the political spectrum.
Thus, Afrikaner and black middle-class groups that are dominant in these parties are coming together and their ideas are coalescing around a common objective — entrenching their class interests.
Similarly, the core of the alliance between the DA and Inkatha Freedom Party is also middle-class (Afrikaner/English-black/Zulu), but this one espousing right-wing positions and politics.
The difference between the two groups is on an ideological level, where the former are moderate and the latter are conservative.
Both of them are relying of the support of the lower and working classes and are using identity politics to canvass support.
The ANC/NNP alliance is using the powerful slogan of holding on to their black and Afrikaner/coloured classes respectively, by arguing that they want to make ”South Africa work”. And the opposition is accused of trying to carry the country backwards.
On the other hand the DA/IFP alliance is attracting support of their working and poor classes by ”keeping out these radicals”. Thus, the ANC and NNP are portrayed as power-hungry mongers.
But the reality is quite different: this is just a contest of two powerful blocs of one coin — a middle class that is pursuing its class interests. And to deracialise society, this will have to change.
Ironically, the middle class has transcended its racial backgrounds, but is using the very same point to split the poor and working classes.
Admittedly, the ANC/NNP alliance has tinges of progressive positions while the DA/IFP can be said to be reactionary, but this is not the point: both formations are manipulating the majority — the working and poor classes.
And this is not unique to South Africa: it happens all over the world, especially in developing countries, from Central and South America to Africa and South-East Asia.
And as long as race is used in South Africa to justify policies — whether ”progressive” or ”reactionary” — South African politics are still going to be trapped in racial tones.
The tragedy is that the majority of South African voters, the lower and working classes — black, white, coloured and Indian — are not in control of these parties and hence these alliances.
In this milieu they are the losers, as policies are being pursued supposedly on their ”racial behalf” whereas the prime objective lies elsewhere.
Current South African politics — like in most states undergoing transition — is largely a contest between middle-class protagonists.
Because they lack an effective voice within these organisations, poor and working classes are relegated to opposing sides of the political divide, when they should actually be on the same side.
Clearly, white and black working-class and poor supporters of the DA/IFP and ANC/NNP, beyond their race, have more in common with each other than their leadership, but are trapped and bolted to these parties because of so-called racial solidarity.
And it is only when these other classes realise their common interest beyond race — and form their own political organisations — that South African politics will finally be deracialised.
True debate and opposition in South Africa and hence the further consolidation of democracy will only surface when workers and other marginalised groups see through this opaque screen and start acting in their own interests — concrete economic interests.
What the country will experience will be clear positions with the poor and workers having their own party on the left, the ANC/NNP in the centre and the DA/IFP to the right — thus blurring racial backgrounds emphatically.
Dr Thabisi Hoeane is a lecturer in the Department of Political and International Studies at Rhodes University Grahamstown. He contributes regularly to national print media. His PhD was on South African Electoral Studies and Democratisation.