Our fifth election

Twenty years ago South Africa emerged from the often violent and uncertain four-year interregnum that followed the nightmare of apartheid and the unjust regimes that preceded it. South Africans were now free to write a new chapter in the country’s history.

The nation felt a sense of freedom, hope and expectation. In the time that followed, South Africa was an international good-news story, with sporting success adding to a feeling, albeit fleeting, of unity.

Politicians, by and large, still inspired confidence — mostly misplaced, as it turned out — that they would fulfil the promise of ethical leadership rooted in the sense of justice that had brought South Africa to this point.

Twenty years after that hope-filled time, we are in a malaise. We are still far from solving our problems of racial bias, mass poverty, unemployment, infrastructural and social service delivery to the poor, sexual and general violence, deficient education, and so on.

To these problems the country has added a widespread attitude of xenophobia towards African migrants.

In labour relations, the basic human right to strike in collective bargaining efforts frequently has been abused as a weapon of destabilisation and economic sabotage, to the detriment of employers and of the nation in general.

At the same time, it is difficult to see alternative ways by which workers might voice their frustration when the income gap is so unjustly increasing, and the greed for profit takes precedence over human needs.

Corruption and maladministration in government and the civil service is so incontinent that officials barely bother to disguise it (which is not to say that the National Party regime was any less corrupt). Disturbingly, even some law enforcement officers now shake down civilians for bribes.

The record of successive governments led by the African National Congress cannot be described as having been marked by selfless service in the public interest. Some decisions clearly have been taken in conflict with the common good.

There have been some successes, of course. As the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference and the Leadership Conference of Consecrated Life note in their joint pastoral letter, “statistics relating to houses built, water provided, electricity supplied, roads constructed, health facilities created, social grants implemented are some of the few indicators of the improvement of lives brought about by democracy”.

After President Thabo Mbeki’s disastrous handling of the Aids crisis, the government has made some encouraging progress, especially in the area of treatment.

Above all, South Africa’s civil society remains vibrant and courageous, as are pockets of the media, making full use of our constitutional democracy without fear of arbitrary detention.

It is in this climate that South Africans return to the polls on May 7 in the country’s fifth national and provincial election.  We may be confident that this year’s election, like the previous four, will be free and fair.

The Zuma government will doubtless be returned, even with a track record which in a more competitive democracy would see it dismissed to the opposition benches.

Nationally, the significant question is not whether the ANC will lose power, but by what margins it will retain it. In that way, the national election represents a referendum on the ANC’s performance in government.

This is not to say that other parties are therefore insignificant. On the contrary, South Africa’s democracy is handicapped by the absence of an opposition that might pose an electoral threat to the ANC nationally, and empower the electorate to hold the government accountable for its failures through the ballot box.

We must be concerned that many South Africans have no confidence in the democratic system and do not plan to vote.

We have less than three months in which to reach those who are registered but are not motivated to exercise their right to vote — a right won with the blood of those who fought for a universal franchise.

The Church, especially on parish level, must play its part in encouraging adult citizens to cast their vote on May 7, and offer its prayers that those who will vote do so responsibly, and that the leaders whom they elect will act on their mandate with integrity.