Workers interviewed by the Mail & Guardian this week generally supported the idea that the South African Communist Party should field its own candidates in elections, while expressing growing impatience with the ruling African National Congress.
The M&G survey followed an SACP central committee meeting at the weekend, where party leaders discussed the option of going it alone in elections. They decided to circulate a document on the issue to members before the SACP congress in July next year.
SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande said, however, that the party’s alliance with the ANC would continue to operate as usual.
• William Phalatse, a building worker on government construction projects in Soweto, told the M&G that he has been waiting for a long while for the SACP to contest elections.
”If a party says it represents the workers, I think all workers should vote for it because it is theirs,” he said.
Phalatse said workers had to contend with terrible conditions, and were increasingly marginalised by the ANC government.
”The ANC tried all it could in the past years but it was not enough. I think we should give other parties a chance, especially the SACP, because it represents poor people.”
Darkie Dazane, Phalatse’s colleague, complained that the ANC no longer represented his needs as a black person, but rather ”the elite”.
Dazane said the SACP was in tune with what ”real” citizens of South Africa wanted and that it deserved support and trust from the working classes. ”We want a party that listens to our complaints and addresses them quickly. As workers we want to feel protected by government, not victimised by it,” he said.
He added, the ANC was not the only [political] party in the country. It had failed South Africa, especially the poor and the workers.
Sandra Hlongwane, who lives in Pimville, Soweto, and works in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs, said she did not really care who led the country. But she expressed bitterness at being misled by the ANC for her vote.
Hlongwane was unsure about the SACP’s credentials, but said she would vote for any party other than the ANC. ”I don’t really mind trying the SACP. We have given the ANC enough time to prove itself and they have failed.”
• Johannesburg shoemaker Jacob Ngkapele said he had no party preferences. ”Government is full of crooks; no one is better than the other.”
Vanderbijlpark security guards John Mokhele and Petros Lebusa emphasised what they saw as growing corruption in government.
Mokhele said many workers were disappointed with the ruling party, but would continue to vote for it because the opposition parties were no better.
”We are poor but our tax money is used to make other people rich. We are also struggling to feed our families because we earn peanuts,” he said.
Both men believed that the SACP would offer serious competition for the ANC if it detached itself from the ruling alliance.
A common theme of workers interviewed was disappointment about perceived unfulfilled promises of free housing.
Lebusa and Hlongwane said they had applied for government housing in 1996 but were still living in shacks. ”I applied and they [the government] only built the toilet,” Lebusa said.
However, support for the SACP was not unanimous. Soweto petrol pump attendant Themba Nkonyane said he remained a staunch follower of the ANC, and believed all black South Africans should follow the party and forget its rivals.
”When I grew up there was only one party we followed, but today people are [hopping] from party to party.
”For me there will never be an alternative to the ANC because it is the party that brought us the freedom, regardless of its mistakes.”
Echoing these sentiments was Rosebank minibus taxi driver Serakalala Matsaung, who cautioned South Africans against copying the political mistakes of other nations who thought communism was a better system of governance.
”I’ll never give my vote to communists. Give those guys your votes and you will starve to death,” he jeered.
Matsaung said many South Africans were politically ignorant and tended to ”follow whoever shouts most”.