Mbeki: ANC won’t change Constitution

President Thabo Mbeki has again said the African National Congress will not seek to make any changes to the country’s Constitution. The ANC looks set to get a two-thirds majority, which has sparked fears in some quarters that the party may seek to change the Constitution.

Responding to a question posed by a reporter at the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) headquarters on Friday, the president said the ANC doesn’t ”visualise any changes to the Constitution”.

Mbeki said that none of the issues and promises that the ANC raised in its election manifesto warrant any changes.

”So there is no issue about doing any constitutional changes,” he said.

Mbeki, flanked by Deputy President Jacob Zuma, went on a walkabout at the IEC’s results centre and worked his way around the political party tables, speaking to the various leaders and members of the parties and congratulating some on their election performances.

Mbeki was surrounded by a mob of journalists and photographers jostling to get the best picture as he walked over to the ANC table to survey the results on an IEC computer.

He then spoke to Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille, United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa, members of the Pan Africanist Congress and Azanian People’s Organisation, and National Action leader Cassie Aucamp.

Brent Meersman, spokesperson for De Lille, told the Mail & Guardian Online that Mbeki had welcomed ”the new kid on the block”.

Meersman said Mbeki had told De Lille that she now had a number of people with her and that she would be able to ”cause trouble at Parliament”.

De Lille then laughed and asked those standing near to her to remember what Mbeki had said.

At a brief press conference Mbeki said the poll had been free and fair and he thanked the people of South Africa for their role in the elections. He said it was quite clear that the ”ANC has the overwhelming support of all South Africans” and said that the challenge is now for the ANC to do what it committed itself to.

KZN ‘on a knife edge’

Meanwhile, the election result in KwaZulu-Natal is now on a knife-edge — with both the Inkatha Freedom Party/Democratic Alliance partnership and the ANC and its supporting parties just short of achieving a ruling majority.

With more than 600 voting districts still to report — including in Nongoma, a traditional IFP stronghold — the ANC has emerged as the strongest party in the traditionally IFP-ruled province with 46,23%. With the support of Amichand Rajbansi’s Minority Front at 2,64% it can count on 48,8% of the seats in the 80-member chamber.

The DA’s 8,09% can be added to the IFP’s 37,71%, making a total of 46,8%.

Possibly the tally of the UDM’s 0,77% could be added to the opposition tally — if it wins a seat with a large fraction of the 1,25% required for a seat — and the African Christian Democratic Party may also side with the opposition to the ANC with 1,8%. This should give it a seat in the new legislature.

The New National Party will only win a seat if it has the largest leftover percentage of the vote, having gained just 0,53%. This will go with the ANC.

Mbeki open to coalition govt in KwaZulu-Natal

Mbeki said on Friday the ANC is open to entering into a coalition government in KwaZulu-Natal for the sake of peace, stability and nation-building.

However, the form of the coalition government would depend on the total number of votes political parties in the province obtained by final count.

”We want to look at the final figure in KwaZulu-Natal and I hope that by later today [Friday] that will be clear. We will then discuss the matter after,” Mbeki told reporters at the IEC.

IFP spokesperson Musa Zondi said that his party was keen — and had been keen before the knife-edge result became known — to include the ANC in the provincial government. He did not expect that his party leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, would be included in national government.

However, talk at the national elections centre is that Mbeki may call Buthelezi back to the national Cabinet in some role other than Home Affairs Minister. He could take up another portfolio such as deputy president while the incumbent ANC deputy president would move in as premier of the KwaZulu-Natal administration.

Whether this would include both the IFP and the DA is likely to be the result of tight bargaining between the various parties.

DA’s Leon acknowledges poll’s strong ANC mandate

DA leader Tony Leon has acknowledged that the results of the election has given the ruling ANC a strong mandate, and has sounded a conciliatory note by congratulating Mbeki on the ANC victory and a well-run campaign.

The election saw the DA improve its support from the 1999 national election, where it won 9,56% of the vote and 38 seats in the National Assembly. Should the latest results from the 2004 poll stand, the DA will increase its National Assembly seats to about 50 out of the total of 400.

Writing in the DA’s weekly South Africa Today newsletter on Friday, Leon said the DA had earned the right to celebrate.

”We have achieved an historic result — one that lays the foundation for a strong, positive alternative government to the ANC in South Africa. Our support has increased dramatically from the 1999 election. Then, we won 9,56% of the national vote or 1 527 337 votes. Five years later, we have increased our support substantially.

”This is, in itself, a significant milestone. Afro-pessimists will be confounded by the fact of a growing and viable opposition. We project that we will add 500 000 votes to the 1999 national tally, and break through the two million mark — an increase of roughly 33%.”

The DA had improved its results in every province, added Leon.

Leon said the election results have highlighted that there are now only two major political forces in South Africa: the DA and its allies, and the ANC and its allies. Both of these appear to have increased their national percentages by about 3% of the total.

Speaking for the DA, he said he ”looked forward to sincere, vigorous and sensible debates between our two parties over the next five years about the issues that matter most”.

Commenting on the results of the NNP, he said: ”As we predicted, the voters have dealt the NNP a fatal blow. They have been reduced to less than 2% nationwide. In the Western Cape they are hovering at around 10%. They sold out the voters, and the voters have taken their revenge.”

”Our mission is to build an alternative to the ANC government. Not because we dislike the ANC; they are our political rivals, not our enemies. Indeed, I am sure that our maturing democracy requires a sensible and balanced relationship between the government and the opposition,” Leon added.

”We also remain committed to our continued relationship with the Inkatha Freedom Party — our partners in the Coalition for Change. Together, we will drive forward our agenda for positive change by creating jobs, fighting crime, combating HIV/Aids and lifting people out of poverty,” Leon concluded.

ANC will not disappoint, says Mbeki

Mbeki on Friday praised the millions of South Africans who voted for the ANC on Wednesday, and pledged the party would not disappoint them.

Writing in the ANC’s online publication, ANC Today, Mbeki said the people had voted overwhelmingly for national unity and reconciliation.

”They voted to unite in action in a people’s contract, together to create jobs, to fight poverty and build a better life for all,” he said.

”Through the ballot box, they have spoken out loudly against all attempts to persuade them that they belong to separate compartments, with competing interests.

”They have spoken loudly and said they have understood the truths the ANC has communicated to them, and understood the falsehoods that others have told.”

The ANC’s detractors, by trying to obliterate the memory of the racist past and denying its sustained impact on the present and the future, attempted to attribute to the ANC and the democratic order all the problems inherited from the past.

”Unashamedly, they pretend that these problems, that are many centuries old, could have been solved in a mere 10 years, and that failure to solve them constitutes an avoidable failure of our movement,” he said.

The ANC will continue working to eradicate the poverty and under-development still being experienced by the poor, which was the legacy of colonialism and apartheid, and could not be solved in 10 years.

This includes creating more jobs; reducing poverty; building a non-racial and non-sexist South Africa, with sustained reduction of

the racial and gender disparities; reinforcing national unity and reconciliation; and further extending the frontiers of knowledge and culture.

The ANC will also work for a heightened contribution to the ”victory of the African renaissance and the emergence of a just world”.

Ballot boxes ‘fell off a truck’

One of the two ballot boxes found dumped at two different places in KwaZulu-Natal this week seem to have fallen from a truck transporting them to IEC offices in the area, an IEC official said on Friday.

IEC deputy chief electoral officer Mosotho Moepya said one of the two boxes was found on the side of the road and it had marks that indicated it had fallen from the truck.

The condition of the second box was at this stage unclear.

”The police need to help us to dispel any major irregularities,” Moepya said, adding that police investigations into the matter were still continuing.

He said one box could hold up to 1 700 ballot papers depending on the manner in which they were folded.

The IEC wants to count all the votes cast as more than 1% of the total votes so far were spoilt and a possible 24% of the electorate seems not to have voted in this election.

”We solve matters, not unilaterally, but in consultation with the political parties contesting this election,” he said.

IEC chief electoral officer Pansy Tlakula told reporters on Thursday that an area manager and a presiding officer were facing criminal charges after two sealed ballot boxes were found dumped at Ixopo and Msinga in KwaZulu-Natal — the hotly contested province in this election.

Director Bala Naidoo, the police spokesperson in the province, on Thursday said the police were investigating the theft of two ballot boxes at Creighton in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. The two boxes contained special votes and went missing after polls closed.

Mosotho said if it could be proved that the boxes were not tampered with it was most likely that the IEC would count them, but that too would depend on the outcome of talks between the IEC and political parties on this matter.

He said all outstanding disputes were satisfactorily resolved, including those raised by the IFP. But the IFP’s Zondi denied this.

”None of the complaints we have raised with the IEC were responded to us. We hear these things from the media conferences here in Pretoria and in Durban,” Zondi said. He said the electoral law requires the IEC to investigate and respond to complaints in writing, but said the IEC has not — orally or in writing — answered the IFP on all the complaints it had raised.

”Our lawyers should press ahead and insist that we are going to play by the rules and we will make the game more difficult for them,” he said.

IFP national chairperson Lionel Mtshali wrote to the IEC on Good Friday and after that complaining about a number of things, including the appointment as presiding officers of people suspected of having a bias toward the ANC. — Sapa, I-Net Bridge