At a time when there is more chance of being abused by one’s own party members than by the opposition, the cordon of police officers tramping through Beauty Mdlolo’s sodden front yard in Estcourt’s Wembezi township seems inappropriately excessive.
It is day two of Thabo Mbeki’s presidential imbizo in the uThukela District Municipality in western KwaZulu-Natal. The country’s first citizen is conducting a door-to-door visit in Wembezi — a traditional IFP stronghold — behind a blue police phalanx prickly with automatic weapons. SABC cameras dutifully capture every mud-encrusted step.
Yet, despite the proliferation of IFP banners, there is an ambivalent attitude towards Mbeki’s visit.
The ANC’s Survivor: Polokwane series is proving much more explosive. ”He said he will try to help me get a grant for my two children,” says Mdlolo, a widow whose child support grants stopped abruptly in 2003. Standing in her stark one-room government house — furnished with only a bed, a stove and some gardening tools — Mdlolo has the bewildered look of so many of the locals left in the wake of this shock-and-awe imbizo. Many are left breathing in the exhaust fumes of the 4×4 convoys.
It is instructive that Mbeki’s two presidential imbizos in KwaZulu-Natal — in uThukela and last year in Sisonke — have been in traditionally strong IFP areas. Political analyst Protas Madlala terms these ”soft targets because disruption by pro-Zuma supporters seems unlikely”.
”He is trying to use these areas to give himself a facelift. It was the first time I saw Mbeki joke about the traditional leaders,” says Madlala, referring to Mbeki’s dismissal of the subject of a possible change to the Constitution to allow him a third term as president. The question was posed at a mass gathering in Uitvaal by a local, Sinenhlanhla Mdakane. Mbeki, with apologies to the traditional leaders, joked that his presidency is not a hereditary one.
On the issue of Mbeki using the visit to garner unconsolidated votes during the ANC’s branch nomination process in the build-up to its December conference, Madlala says: ”I don’t think [Mbeki] will get much support there. Zuma has support there … even from IFP supporters. I think the moment you put Zuma into an ANC box, you start to misunderstand the issue. It has become a human issue now, not an ANC succession issue, or an ANC/IFP issue.”
In areas like uThukela, where unemployment is as high as 59%, Madlala feels the lack of job creation and a perception of double standards about corruption are working against Mbeki and for Zuma.
It would be misplaced to question the president’s sincerity in propagating the original intention of these imbizos — which includes bringing government closer to the people and encouraging discourse between its three spheres with the aim of improving service delivery — but their whirlwind nature and Mbeki’s inscrutability render them little more photo opportunities.
Voices are heard, challenges are raised, yet only the blind are oblivious to the looming spectre of the ANC succession battle and what the DA called last week a ”constitutional crisis” sparked by Mbeki’s suspension of National Prosecuting Authority head Vusi Pikoli.
The president chose to ignore the Pikoli-Jackie Selebi affair in his weekly online letter last Friday, focusing rather on cataracts, and it set the scene for the weekend: while VIPs moved easily to and from his address at a dam inspection in Oliphantskop, reporters were denied access, ostensibly for safety reasons.
Aside from government’s megaÂphone, the SABC, reporters’ access was made as difficult as possible. Gone was the convivial president willing to engage. It is a tragedy, because the imbizo sees ordinary citizens raising pertinent issues that are plaguing our new democracy and require further insights from Mbeki.
People talk of being denied services and jobs depending on their party membership or lack thereof. They speak about being victimised by ward councillors. The dysfunction created by partisanship is inherent in all of this, pointing to severe inadequacies in local government. People in uThukela are not blind and they would very much like to see the democratic dream.