ANC Tarnished but Likely to Prevail at Polls

When it rains in this sprawling slum outside Johannesburg, the streets become gray rivers that turn dirt roads into impassable muck. With no drains, the water soaks through the garbage rotting on roadsides and washes it through the town.

Tens of thousands of people live here in rough, corrugated iron shacks, and even that right usually has to be purchased with a hefty bribe to the appropriate official, locals say. When it’s wet, government promises for housing, proper toilets, storm drains, electricity and running water hang in the damp air like limp washing.

Joy Mogatla, a 33-year-old mother of two, feels bitterness and disappointment. “There are a lot of problems, but we are still waiting for toilets, houses and stands,” she said, the latter referring to vacant lots with electricity and water that recently became available to a few residents.

The Teflon image of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party has suffered some scratches in recent years with corruption scandals, poor service delivery, nepotism and fraudulent contracts, particularly at municipal levels. Anger about poor services erupted into riots in a number of townships last year.

Ahead of today’s municipal balloting, the Mail and Guardian newspaper headlined its election coverage “The Year the ANC Lost Loyalty.”

In a sign of the ebbing support, several labor groups affiliated with the Congress of South African Trade Unions, which is an ally of the government, did not campaign for the ANC. Some party members ran as independents against ANC incumbents.

But voters’ lingering identification of the ANC as the leader of the black liberation struggle means that despite unhappiness in many areas, many voters will either vote for the ruling party or stay away from the polls.

Mogatla said the ANC incumbent councilor had promised everyone a stand or house after the election.

“I don’t believe it. She [the councilor] will tell the people serious [that] you are going to get a stand or a house. She talks about it with her mouth but she doesn’t do it,” Mogatla said as she stood in the mud under a sodden umbrella. “It’s just because she wants the vote.”

Yet Mogatla will still back the ANC, underscoring how secure the ruling party’s position is.

In another shanty district of Diepsloot, Richard Phiri, 39, a roof thatcher, tramped through the rain to the communal bucket toilet up the street.

He said he had paid local ANC figures a bribe of about $40 to put up a shack in the squatters’ camp, which has no services. Mzolisi Mbikwana, a community worker and ANC rep- resentative in Diepsloot, said land mafias operated in the area but had no ties to the party.

“You’ll see the filthy water flowing down” a nearby road, Phiri complained. “It stinks and it’s slippery. There’s no drain here. People have to take their water and tip it on the freeway.”

Like several other voters interviewed, Phiri grew quiet when asked to explain why he intended to give the ANC another chance. But he was quick to criticize local officials.

“As a government, you must be there for your people,” he said. “There are some people who are using their chairs [government positions] to earn money but don’t deliver any good for the citizens.”

Statistics underscore the government’s failing struggle to improve people’s lives. According to the United Nations, more than 48% of South Africa’s population lives in poverty, and the country’s human development index, which measures key indicators, has worsened, with South Africa slipping 35 places since 1990 to No. 120 in the index of 177 countries.

South Africa reports unemployment at 41%, including those too discouraged to seek work. Between 1995 and 2002, 1.6 million people found work, but 2.3 million became jobless.

“State of the Nation 2004-05,” an analysis of South Africa’s progress by social scientists, found the number of households with no access to toilets growing, while the number forced to use unsafe water fluctuated at between 9% and 13% of the population.

Although South Africa is perceived as better governed than much of the continent, a series of scandals has damaged its international image: Dozens of members of Parliament, most from the ANC, were caught scamming their allowances for travel last year.

Allegations of corruption or conflict of interest have also tarnished top ANC officials, including former Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who was removed from his post in June over corruption allegations and later charged with rape. His replacement, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, was embroiled in scandal recently after flying a large group of her vacationing friends and family to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on a South African air force jet at public expense.

Colm Allan, director of the Public Service Accountability Monitor, an independent research group, said the trip violated government regulations.

“It certainly sends an unfortunate message, given that she’s in this position because her predecessor was fired for findings of corruption,” said Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, national director of the South African Institute of International Affairs at the University of Witwatersrand. “The fact that this was handled so badly doesn’t make the commitment to fighting corruption sound all that sincere.”

President Thabo Mbeki said in an address to Parliament last month that it was clear the government would fail to meet its target to halve poverty and unemployment by 2014 unless something was done about the lack of skills in the public and private sectors. Last year, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel slammed the performance of local governments, noting that many were so incapable of performing basic services that they were spending just 30% of their available budgets.

Part of the problem is the unanticipated migration of rural job seekers to cities, as well as migration from other African countries. Mbikwana, the ANC representative in Diepsloot, said migration had created an endless cycle of unmet need in urban townships, leading to a general sense of disillusionment.

“Migration is an issue, and also issues of land and budget because there’s not enough land to build many houses,” Mbikwana said. “As a government you need to deliver in Diepsloot, you need to deliver in Orange Farm, you need to deliver in Soweto.”

Analyst and author Jeffrey Herbst, writing in the journal Foreign Affairs, recently characterized South Africa as one of the two most unequal societies in the world, along with Brazil.

“The government’s attempts to narrow South Africa’s severe wealth inequalities have largely failed, serving mainly to enrich a small black elite,” Herbst wrote. “Such inequality is destabilizing and dangerous; coupled with racial tension it makes for a particularly noxious force.”

He contends that the ANC’s Black Economic Empowerment policy, designed to create a class of black entrepreneurs, has only aggravated the inequity because “a small number of politically connected black South Africans have made a tremendous amount of money.”