The South African general elections, held in April this year, would be considered by many to have been a significant event, but that is probably more an opinion than fact. Certainly, great interest was displayed in this election and there was an increased voter turnout, quite unexpected by those on the left, Robert Wilcox writes from South Africa.

This greater interest was stimulated by three factors, viz., the emergence of the Congress of the People (COPE) as a breakaway from the formerly monolithic African National Congress, the political turmoil in the Western Cape and likewise the upturn in KwaZulu-Natal.Conservative elements in the ANC created a stir when they broke from the party shortly after the now famous or infamous conference in Polokwane, late last year, where Jacob Zuma was elected as party president, ousting Thabo Mbeki who had inter alia hoped to stand for a third term as national president. Zuma, of course, faced a string of charges of corruption, fraud, tax evasion, etc, while Mbeki was increasingly discredited as being a pompous dictator, remote from the people. With the trade union federation, COSATU and the South African Communist Party (SACP) rallying behind him, Zuma was portrayed as a people’s man who was the victim of an unfortunate political conspiracy. In other words, he was put forward as a champion of the poor.

Whatever problems COSATU and the SACP had with Mbeki’s style of leadership and many could sympathise, why they chose the tainted Zuma to lead their cause is for equally many, hard to fathom. Probably, there was no one else suitable in the ANC hierarchy who could guarantee them more positions and a greater say in government policy. But after his ascendancy Zuma immediately set about settling the fears of the business world, internationally and locally, with the assurance that there would be no change in the ANC government’s economic policies. It will be neo-liberalism as usual. The SACP and COSATU bureaucrats have assiduously steered away from this question, only arguing that they now have a greater voice in government. They will have to seek more effective means to bamboozle the working class in future.

Obviously, the opponents to the ascendancy of Zuma and the apparent, increased influence of the SACP and COSATU in the ANC could only justify themselves with arguments of being against corruption and self-seeking political careerism. This inevitably became the main rallying call of COPE in the elections, while otherwise, there was nothing much to choose between its election manifesto and that of the ANC.

In the Western Cape the ANC had created serious problems for itself by promoting a policy of Africanism, to the exclusion of the large “Coloured” population in the region who are of mixed ethnic origins. The Democratic Alliance, generally regarded as to the right of the ANC, assiduously focussed attention on graft and corruption in ANC ruling circles in the province with telling effect. With the perception that it was losing out, serious divisions arose in the ANC ranks, with the national executive having to step in on the eve of the elections. The hope of repairing the damage by installing neutral persons in charge only exacerbated the problem.

Zulu nationalism

In KwaZulu-Natal, on the other hand, people had become disillusioned with Buthulezi and the ability of the Inkatha Freedom Party to make a meaningful change in their lives. The overwhelming majority of the population in this region see themselves as Zulu. Still not perceiving that Zulu nationalism or tribalism is not the answer, they grasped at the Zulu, Zuma who was only too happy to appear at public rallies and functions in Zulu tribal garb, preaching a tribal message of a better life for all.

On the eve of the elections the results were fairly simple to predict. The ANC retained its overarching majority, although with a loss of 15 seats and a reduced percentage of 65.9% of the overall vote, from 69.7% in the previous election. It also gained a noteworthy victory in KwaZulu-Natal where it roundly defeated the Inkatha Freedom Party. The conservative Democratic Alliance made its mark on the occasion by capturing the provincial election in the Western Cape in dramatic fashion, coming from 27.1% of the vote in 2004 to 48.8% in 2009 while the ANC dropped from 45.3% to 32.9%. The DA also increased its share of the national vote from 12.4% to 16.7%, giving it 67 (17 extra) seats in the national assembly. After the initial euphoria of a new and supposedly more credible, Black opposition party, the COPE came third in the overall results with 7.4% of the vote and 30 seats in parliament. The other parties who were a factor in the past, the United Democratic Movement, The Independent Democrats, the African Christian Democratic Party, the Inkatha Freedom Party and the Pan Africanist Congress are all fading into insignificance. Indeed, the fourth largest poll went to spoilt ballots, representing 1.35% of the vote. This was roughly the same as in the last election and it is impossible to determine how many ballots were deliberately spoilt as called for by some on the radical left.

Thus, in spite of the “palace revolution” in the ANC, South African parliamentary politics remains decidedly right wing if not more so than in the past. For the present, there is no party remotely left wing that could challenge the three dominant parties in South African parliamentary politics.

In the election a challenge from the radical left did not materialise. The main contender here was the Socialist Green Coalition but it could not raise the hefty deposit required to contest the elections. With the populace still caught up with bourgeois democracy, denied to them for such a long time, there is little chance that the radical left can make a deep impression in the short term. This, in spite of the ongoing tide of protests in demand of better service delivery from the government and workers persistently fighting militant battles for improved conditions of employment and job protection. Yet, the overall situation must change. While it persists with its neo-liberal agenda the ANC-led government must and will fail to deliver on its electoral promises to the masses. One critical factor is the unemployment rate which has been horrendously high, at over 40%, ever since the government embarked on its neo-liberal economic programme. Last year there was a marginal improvement but with the recession now biting hard job losses are once more on the rise. Statistics South Africa reported over 200 000 job losses in the period October 2008 to March 2009 And it appears to be continuing at a rate of 35 000 job losses per month. The government’s answer has been its much vaunted public works programme which, in the past, only succeeded in creating extremely low paid, casual jobs of about six month’s duration. In the face of the recession it now again promises to create 500 000 jobs by the end of this year, at which business commentators have shaken their heads in disbelief. If it is to be via the public works programmeme it can only be pitifully more of the same as before. The government now also speaks of loosening labour regulations in small businesses, ostensibly to save jobs but which will only mean more hardship for the working class. It also seeks to embark on a programme with business to re-skill workers who are about to be retrenched. Where these workers will find employment is not said. But even without the current global recession, while it remains loyal to neo-liberalism, it could not possibly meet the United Nations Millennium Development goals of halving poverty and unemployment by 2014, which it has trumpeted in the past.

Zuma the “people’s man”

The ANC currently maintains its position by portraying the DA, the strongest opposition party as white racist, with a degree of truth. But parliamentary politics aside, it has virtually played its last trump card by presenting President Jacob Zuma as the “people’s man”. Under the increasing hardships that the workers must face and the certain failure of Zuma to make any real difference, it is hard to believe that they will retain confidence in the ANC government.

The local government elections due in 2011 should become the next political battleground but the big problem on the left is to overcome the reformist influence of ngos that are so prominent in the struggle for service delivery and breaking the power of the deceitful bureaucracy in the trade unions. Ever since the birth of the new social movements about ten years ago, attempts at building a coherent unity of people struggling on different fronts, have floundered in the face of a mixture of powerfully touted ideas of spontaneity in the development of political consciousness, radical reformism and anarchism. These ideas provide neat cover for those in ngos who cannot possibly propound a political programmeme. Yet, the masses are not quelled. Struggles around questions of housing, water and electricity relentlessly continue.

Concerns on the left have currently given rise to two different moves to establish a national united front of resistance. The first is the one being the proposed by the campaign for a “Conference for a Democratic Left”, with the optimistic agenda of bringing together all the diverse social movements and political groupings under one banner. This campaign is being driven by a group of leftist individuals with links to the general resistance movement, along with various left thinking academics of various shades. Initially, the campaign included a few S.A. Communist Party dissidents but these have now opted out under pressure from the party. The other campaign, unnamed as yet, is perhaps more modest but equally ambitious, with the goal of establishing a new front around the serious problems in health care, education and housing, but it is not overtly political. The motivators are left wing academics with support from the “Worker’s Organisation for Socialist Action”. It is too early to say whether either will succeed and whether either will develop a clear political programmeme that is becoming so vital to the future of the resistance movement in South Africa today.

On another side of the political spectrum, the organised workers class still languish under the control of the trade union bureaucracy but they remain militant with their leaders having time and again to yield to their impatience. With hardly more than a month having passed since the elections, strikes are now looming in the health and transport sectors. While the masses might have assisted in voting a conservative government into power, they are not sitting back in hope.