Voters could turn against ANC

2006-02-26 08:25

Johannesburg - The ANC faces a major electoral test this week, the target of unprecedented voter anger over shortfalls in providing housing and basic services.

The party that has cruised from victory to victory since it swept to power with the end of apartheid nearly 12 years ago heads into local elections on Wednesday after a campaign marked by protests, at times put down by police firing rubber bullets.

While the ANC is sure to keep its dominant position in local government, at least one survey shows that its majority will be reduced in all six urban areas and it could even lose control of Cape Town, the Mother City.

"It's been quite a rude shock to the government that there have been protests and quite violent protests," said Philip Frankel, professor of urban politics at the University of Witswatersrand.

For the ANC, which has pledged to improve the living conditions of the black majority that was confined to under-serviced townships and shantytowns under apartheid, the local elections are "a test of credibility", said Frankel.

According to the safety and security ministry, there were 800 protests last year over a gamut of demands, from housing to water and toilets.

The anger is palpable in shack settlements and shantytowns where the ANC has its traditional voter base as residents openly complain that they feel abandoned, perhaps even betrayed, by the party of liberation.

"We are boycotting these elections," said Sbu Zikode, president of South Africa's largest shack dwellers association, Abahlali Base Mjondolo, from Durban.

"And most of the people who are boycotting are people who voted for the ANC," he said.

Voters in Khutsong, a community northwest of Johannesburg, have vowed to prevent the elections from taking place to protest a change in boundary demarcations that they say will result in fewer services.

Service delivery

Adding to the discontent, Cape Town and Johannesburg have been hit by power outages, an annoyance that is fueling the view that the ANC has a poor record on service delivery.

"The ANC has certainly been criticised by their constituents for having councillors who have been variously accused of being absent, unaccountable, uninterested in their work, in the communities they are meant to represent," said Jonathan Faull, a political researcher at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa.

The ANC currently controls all six big municipalities including Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban and all councils in six of the nine provinces, or about 85% of all local governments.

In the run-up to the vote, President Thabo Mbeki has been campaigning under the ANC slogan "A Better Life for All", going door-to-door and promising to be more responsive to the demands from the poor.

He notably used his state of the nation address in February to promise an end to the notorious "bucket toilets" in townships and slums by the end of next year.

The ANC has also engaged in some house-cleaning ahead of the elections, dropping councillors who failed to produce results and reserving half of the nominations for women.

Only 40% of the ANC candidates are sitting councillors.

Despite the drive, a Markinor survey in The Sunday Times last week showed that 46% of voters would support the ANC in the metropolitan areas, down from 69% in the 2000 municipal elections.

- AFP