South Africans confounded widespread predictions of apathy on Wednesday by queuing in their millions to vote in the country’s third general election since the fall of apartheid.
Despite the high turnout and the ANC’s apparent victory, there was a sense of growing impatience among many voters for the better life that they were promised after apartheid’s fall.
”The radio and TV told us if we vote we would get jobs. So I voted today. Do you think my suffering will stop soon?” asked Prescilla Mamabolo (32).
Like Mamabolo, many of those emerging from the polling station in Soweto had voted a third consecutive time for the ANC, but the headiness of 1994 and 1999 was gone.
”The same government. Over and over again. Let’s hope the service delivery gets faster,” said Benson Sibisi (21) looking at the hundreds of people queuing in the morning sunshine to enter voting booths erected in the African Congregational Church.
The electoral commission reported a strong turnout at most of the country’s 17 000 polling stations and few glitches, confirmation that South Africa has mastered democracy’s logistics.
In some areas people had queued from 3am.
Of the 20-million registered to vote, opinion polls suggested that more than 65% would choose the ruling party, perhaps giving it a two-thirds majority in the 400-seat national assembly.
”I feel elated that I can assert my right as a citizen,” said the former president Nelson Mandela as he voted near his home in a Johannesburg suburb.
So confident of free and fair balloting were the EU and UN that they declined invitations from South Africa’s government to send observers.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu said the vitality of institutions such as the country’s constitutional court as well as civic society meant that democracy was safe, even if the ANC’s majority exceeded two-thirds, conferring power to amend the constitution.
”Often they say the first election after democracy is the last. Many countries degenerate into dictatorships. We are disproving that,” he said. However the Democratic Alliance and the Inkatha Freedom party, the biggest opposition parties, warned of an unhealthy hegemony, especially if the ANC scooped all nine provincial legislatures. The Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal were the only provinces where the opposition stood any chance.
In the Johannesburg suburb of Melville, Rory and Midge Doepela, a white couple in their early 60s, said they had voted for the Democratic Alliance because they did not want a one-party state.
After casting his vote in Pretoria, President Thabo Mbeki, poised for a second five-year term, said that the politicians had been doing a lot of talking and now it was time for the people to speak.
In Soweto they spoke of their gratitude for better housing, cleaner water and electricity, but also of their concerns about unemployment, poverty and crime, and how their patience was not eternal.
”I don’t know why I’m here. I’ve no reason to vote. Six in my family and none with a job,” said Thembi Gumede (18). Yet vote she did, for the ANC, hoping it might somehow help her to become an air hostess.
Those with jobs were cheerier, but still critical. ”There is room for improvement, but the country can’t be perfect in 10 years,” said Naledi Maaroganye (27) who works in the police service. ”Give them [ANC] at least 30 years, then we can complain.”
Her friend Precious Kgamedi (26) was worried about crime and government corruption, but was backing the ANC, partly from gratitude that it had led the liberation struggle which enabled her to become an IT consultant.
The election result was a foregone conclusion, but Thabo Maweza (70) said he was willing to queue for two hours to push up the turnout percentage which underpinned democracy. But he did so with resignation. ”I’m an ex-friend of the government. Too many empty promises,” he said.
In the shade of a petrol station across the street, Victor Myeza (25) watched the proceedings, one of the seven million eligible as voters who chose not to register. He had voted in 1999, but his family was still broke. ”It changes nothing.” – Guardian Unlimited Â