A testing year for South African democracy
James Forsyth 4:55pm
Ever since the end of apartheid it was clear that the ANC would win every election it contested until it split, its role in the liberation struggle determined that. But this one party dominance was always going to be a bad thing for South Africa; a fully functioning democracy requires competition between political parties—a party that knows it will win at the ballot box whatever it does becomes detached from the peoples’ concerns and corrupt.
I hadn’t paid much attention to the recent split in the ANC as the numbers of defectors seemed too small to make much of a difference. But Donald G. McNeil Jr., who was the New York Times’ South Africa correspondent, argues that it could be more important than people have realised depending on who it could attract to join it. McNeil speculates that “the unthinkable — an endorsement of the new party by Archbishop Tutu or even by Mr. Mandela himself — would completely change the game.”
Of course, there is a danger that the break-away party is crushed and with it the hopes of a genuine multi-party democracy. McNeil reports that:
“Recent COPE meetings have been broken up by A.N.C. thugs. The leader of the A.N.C. Youth League — a position Mr. Mandela held decades ago — has threatened to “take up arms and kill for Zuma.” His colleagues keep calling COPE followers “cockroaches” — the Hutu epithet for Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide. The old guerrilla anthem Lethu Mshini Wami (“Bring Me My Machine Gun”) is sung by pro-Zuma crowds and Mr. Zuma himself called his rivals “witches,” who, in Zulu tradition, were killed by stakes driven into their anuses.”
One senses that the 2009 elections in South Africa will be of immense importance. If no counter emerges to the Zuma-led ANC, South African democracy will face a challenging few years given that Zuma has already shown himself prepared to challenge the rule of law and intimidate his opponents.
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Comments
Bruce Robertson
December 28th, 2008 6:40pmHo-hum; British media gets South Africa wrong - again.
Fergus Pickering
December 28th, 2008 7:26pmWhat South African democracy? One man one vote one time as the wicked white racists used to say. Perhaps Africa is unsuited to democracy, as unsuited as William the Conqueror's England would have been.
Chris
December 28th, 2008 7:59pmLike to tell us how, instead of smartarse posing, Brucie baby?
Roger
December 28th, 2008 10:11pmJust because you're black doesn't mean the term "racist" doesn't apply to you. We will see many white people in concentration camps by the end of the next couple of decades. So much for equality for all that your ancestors fought for. By the way, Robert Mugabe also blames the western world for all his stupid mistakes. How about letting someone that actually cares about his own people more than his own pocket take leadership.
So why don't we be better people and stop making everything about race and culture. Start making sure our children don't starve, physically and mentally.
Augustus
December 28th, 2008 11:49pmThe evolution under ANC rule in South Africa has not been that rosy. In fact, in the 14 years since it came to power the ANC has presided over much decay, mismanagement and lawlessness.
Take hospitals as one example; apart from a few good ones such as the Groote Schuur hospital in Cape Town, Where Christian Barnard performed the first successful heart operation in 1967, and which are private or semi-private, and up to western standards, many, if not most of the countrywide hospitals are completely run-down. Hospitals which under white rule had been in tip-top condition, now have broken windows, the electricity fails every five minutes, there is vermin in operating rooms, equipment has been vandalised, stock rooms have been plundered, there is fraud and corruption with too few staff, drug addicts simply stalk the corridors, vagrants come and steal from the wards, nurses and patients are raped, etc. The ANC simply hasn't bothered investing in the health system. The sooner the population understands that the anti-white propaganda of the ANC doesn't deliver on law and order, health, education or jobs, the sooner the ANC's one-party hold on power will cease.