side note: these are all my OPINION
This past year, the African National Congress (ANC), the ruling party in SA (Mandela's party), had a break-off take place. The new party that broke off call themselves The Congress of the People (COPE). COPE promises to cut out the political corruption that has taken place in the ANC recently and bring politics back to the founding principals of the ANC that were drafted in the Freedom Charter of 1955, some of which include "a South Africa for all," housing for the poor, job creation, democracy, etc.
To the rest of the world, (or at least to me), COPE seemed like a viable option for ANC supporters who were not keen on voting into office the ANC's presidential candidate, Jacob Zuma-I will say why in a moment. But once I got here, I started to understand why South Africans weren't as excited about COPE as I was. Firstly, they're a brand-new political party and they have yet to prove their policies. Secondly, people say that COPE is constructed of old ANC stalwarts who despite their promises, will be just as corrupt in COPE as they were in the ANC. Lastly, COPE had a hard time getting off the ground due to internal factions, so a lot of people say that their presidential candidate isn't a very strong choice (much like John Kerry).
As for the ANC, it has a very rich, romantic history in South Africa as being the liberation movement that squashed apartheid. While they were a great liberation movement in the struggle, their struggle now is figuring out how to be an effective governing party.
After Nelson Mandela, South Africa's president was Thabo Mbeki. To make a long theory short, Mbeki worked really hard to bring international investment to SA and build its financial portfolio to where the country can compete in a global market. For this reason, South Africa has become the most accessible country in Sub-Saharan Africa for westerners-a ton of Europeans vacation here and it's great because due to the globalization of the country, they have all the comforts of home, like a McDonald's down the street, etc. However, magically none of this money has reached the needs of the people, nor has it created jobs. SA's jobless officially stands at 20%, unofficially, it's more like 40%. Mbeki's government almost completely ignored the needs of the people in terms of social programs for the poor and don't even get me started on his AIDS policies.
Mbeki served almost two terms in office as the second democratically elected president of SA, until last year when he was ousted as president by the ANC. Some people said it was because of an ongoing personal dispute with Jacob Zuma, his former deputy president and ANC party president, however, I don't know the specifics of why he stepped down as president, so I won't go into it. After Mbeki disappeared, his deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe has been acting president, which brings us to the recent election of ANC president, Jacob Zuma as president of South Africa.
Where to begin with Jacob Zuma... well, in 2006 as sitting deputy president, he was put on trial for raping a woman. Said woman's sexual past was interrogated piece by piece and used against her misogynistically in court. The charges were eventually dropped because it was said that the woman had a promiscuous nature and therefor the sex must have been consensual. Um, as a side note, in court, Zuma said he knew the woman was HIV positive but that he showered after the sex so that the virus wouldn't infect him.
also, this is becoming long-winded so I just want to say briefly that as recent as two weeks ago, Zuma had 16 charges against him including racketeering, money laundering and corruption. However, these charges were also dropped because it wouldn't look good to have a newly standing president on trial. If you want to read more, there are news articles about it all over the web. My personal favorite is Allafrica.com because they have headlines from newspapers on the continent.
It's not my intention to make all of this bad news I'm relaying about the ANC reflect negatively on South Africans because people are deeply concerned about the future of the country under this government. However, in the election, they were not given viable options. Zuma won primarily because of old loyalties to the ANC that people who lived during apartheid cannot look past. Among first-time voters though, people are upset and confused about the ANC and their new president. Much like Bush was in our country, Zuma is seen as an embarrassment-but what are the other options?
The atmosphere the day of the elections was pretty subdued. My friends at school went and voted out of duty to their citizenry, but there wasn't excitement surrounding the act. I guess I could say that it was a day like any other-for me at least. This is the point where I want to clarify again, that this is just my take on the situation as a newly integrated foreigner. I'm sure that the experience of the elections was completely different for each person. Especially for people in more pro-ANC regions who I bet were pretty excited. Cape Town is in the Western Cape which votes primarily for the Democratic Alliance (google them), it has even been said that the Western Cape wishes to break-off from SA because of differing politics-sound familiar?
I wish I was a photographer and could've captured what I've said in photos-I bet I'd get a lot more people interested, but alas I only have my words... which reminds me, I have a little story to tell:
Late in the afternoon on the day of the elections, I was on campus heading home when I saw this mini-bus with ANC logos all over it come flying up the road. It stopped pretty abruptly in front of three black female students standing on the sidewalk. A woman inside the bus opened one of the windows and yelled out "Did you vote today? We're taking ANC supporters to the polls." The students on the sidewalk replied "yes" to which the woman in the bus asked "who did you vote for?"-pay attention because this is the awesome part-the students said: "it's private!" The woman on the bus shut the window and the bus fled off. I love this because these students refused to be bullied by an obvious ANC supporter. Furthermore, they're right, it is private.
Thanks lady. There was so much in the media before the elections here, and as soon as the weeks leading up to it were closer, the coverage seemed to vanish. When talking with young South Africans, it seemed that most of them were in disagreement Zuma, and frustrated with the inevitably of the situation. Thanks for sharing, for real for real.
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