Experts say ANC 'too complacent'
2008-05-29 11:49
Johannesburg - Two weeks of anti-immigrant violence in South Africa have highlighted the growing disconnect between a public impatient for change and a governing party that claims a divine right to rule.
Although there is little prospect of the African National Congress (ANC) losing next year's elections due to South Africa's almost one-party democracy, genuine signs of anger among the bedrock support of the black urban poor have emerged during the crisis in which 56 people have died.
Even ANC president Jacob Zuma, known for possessing a common touch notably absent in head of state Thabo Mbeki, received a nasty jolt on a visit to one of the affected areas last weekend.
Even Zuma warned
Facing a hostile crowd of 4 000 near a shanty town outside Johannesburg, the man in pole position to replace Mbeki when he steps down next year was told by a heckler the people expected him to rein in runaway immigration.
"We are looking to make you our president, so beware. If you are a stumbling block, we are going to kick you away," the man warned, as the crowd erupted in applause.
Only a fortnight earlier, Zuma had been pontificating about what he saw as the party's God-given right to rule.
"Even God expects us to rule this country because we are the only organisation which was blessed by pastors when it was formed," he said in a speech near Cape Town.
"It is even blessed in heaven. That is why we will rule until Jesus comes back."
Frans Cronje, deputy director of think-tank The South African Institute for Race Relations, says the ANC has to snap out of its complacency and cannot trade off its leading role in the fight against apartheid forever.
"Now that they are running on empty on liberation mythology, we are seeing an electorate that wants results," said Cronje.
"The next leadership of the ANC when they sit down in parliament next year they should sit down with a sense of great unease because these next five years they need to convert policy into results."
Numerous underlying reasons for the outbreak of violence have been advanced: some economic, linked to rising food prices and inflation, and others policy failures in key areas such as immigration, law enforcement and housing.
The lack of a credible opposition and democratic traditions mean South Africans are venting their frustrations through violence rather than the ballot box, posits Donrich Jordaan, an analyst at the Centre for International Political Studies.
"Generally speaking there is no genuinely democratic culture in South Africa and the ANC regime has done its utmost to retain this status quo for its own narrow benefit," he said.