Election Day

Yesterday was election day in South Africa. Unlike in the United States, all of South Africa votes on the same day. This means that it is treated like a national holiday and no one has to go to work. Even us Americans who clearly are not able to vote.

Persosonally, I think the good old RS of A (Republic of South Africa) has one of the most fascinating political situations in the world. I’ll try to share a little with you now, along with a healthy dose of my under-educated opinion.

First of all, South Africa has only had nationwide elections since 1994. Prior to that, blacks were not included in the election process. Thus, most people really seem to value their vote here as people indeed died for that right. Thus, South Africa tends to have a very high voter turn out.

The first party to really gain power in 1994 was the African National Congress (click here for an unbiased description) and they have dominated the political scene ever since. The ANC fought against apartheid in South Africa for decades and was Nelson Mandela’s party when he was elected in ’94. Today, Thabo Mbeki is the current president, and also a long time ANC veteran.

I have mixed feelings about the ANC. I appreciate that delivery to the poor is a fundamental aspect of their platform. I do think they are making great efforts to expand housing, electricity, and water to as many rural South Africans as possible. However, there is certainly an anti-white tone to much of their propaganda. They seem to still have some underlying resentment left over from the apartheid era. This may be understandable, but it really has no role in creating a unified, successful South Africa. No matter what occurred in the apartheid era, scaring off the white population of South Africa will undoubtedly result in a Zimbabwe-esque situation.

Further, the ANC has been subject to multiple scandals as of late. Vice president Jacob Zuma has been charged with corruption and has been accused of using bribery to try to cover up the allegations. He is also currently on trial for the rape of a 31 year old girl AIDS activist. He has since resigned from his vice presidential position.

I also have a tremendous problem with the way the current president, Thabo Mbeki has handled the AIDS crisis in his country. Currently, South Africa has more HIV positive individuals (over 6 million) than any country in the world. Yet, Mbeki continues to insist that there is no crisis. He only recently admitted the “possibility” that AIDS is in fact caused by HIV, rather than stubbornly clinging to his previous beliefs that AIDS is simply a "disease of poverty." I have particular issues with this beyond the obvious, as I was working in prevention and education in South Africa in 2001 when Mbeki made such outlandish claims. I had many students ask me if their president was right in saying that AIDS cannot be transmitted via sexual contact. His failure to act decisively amidst the AIDS crisis and his obviously fallacious comments will likely be responsible for thousands, if not millions of new HIV cases and AIDS related deaths. His failure to act amidst the most devastating epidemic that humanity has known is shameful and tragic.

The major opposition party in South Africa is the Democratic Alliance (click here for an unbiased site). They are a primarily white party whose primary role seems to be to expose the shortcomings of the ANC. The are truly the underdog in SA politics as they are almost always 2^nd to the ANC in every election. In theory, I agree with their mentality to create a unified, stronger South Africa that will benefit all races. But they don’t provide too much information on how. In fact, the majority of their publication seems to focus only on the ANC's mistakes. Still I have realized that even if they never win an election, their mere presence makes South Africa more democratic. Their ability to expose any corruption, broken promise, poor governing, etc within the ANC forces the ruling party to stay in shape. Kind of a check on their power, forcing them to provide tangible improvements int he lives of South Africans. I would really worry about how the ANC would behave if the DA were not around to at least threaten them with an upset.

Currently, it looks like the ANC has pulled off another landslide victory, despite the recent controversy.

Anyway, that is enough about politics here. Likely not too interesting to the lay reader. Sorry for that. If its any consolation, I spent the day surfing and lounging at the beach. We started at 8am in our usual surf spot and then moved to another beach in the afternoon. It was a very full, exhausting, fun election day for me and my friends.