Majority still support ANC

The majority will, again, vote for the ANC in the forthcoming elections. It is unavoidable as that seems to be the only party of choice that will gain more than 61% of votes, according to a voter poll.

The C-Voter poll says 70% of citizens think the ANC will win at the polls on May 7. This includes people who do not support the ANC but believe the party’s support base is strong enough to see off the opposition.

Who else can the poor, unemployed, hungry and houseless vote for?

Of course, there is infighting, corruption and jockeying for position in the ANC to access state resources. This is what you find in every political party in the world. But the ANC has remained intact and focused. Its centre has not fallen apart.

No, I am not denying that in many instances it has failed to deliver. This is to be expected if you think about it. To a large degree the men and women who make up its top echelons have no practical experience in running the state. After all they were barred from this for many decades. Worse, many don’t have the education or proper qualifications for powerful positions in government. You cannot expect them to master this in … er, 20 years.

Unlike the privileged, the poor and unemployed will not be going to malls or throwing expensive parties on election day. They will be exercising their vote. And they will vote for the ANC. They do not take this right for granted. According to Election Tracker, the DA’s Helen Zille is supported by 76% of whites while 53% of blacks support President Jacob Zuma.

Of course, lots of money has been over-spent on wrong projects like Nkandla, if you like. It could have been used effectively on education, health or even feeding schemes for hungry school children in rural areas. But Zuma is the legitimate leader of this country. Some officials and citizens think he deserves state-of-the-art living conditions and thus his material interests need to be taken seriously. As a consequence, the budget for the renovations of his home jumped from R27 million to R245 million. Over the last few years there has been a lot of debate and empty political posturing on this wasteful expenditure.

Not that one wants to justify misspending public funds. There will always be individuals within the ANC or government departments who continue with “struggle accounting” methods. But why don’t concerned citizens in the private sector come forward to lend a willing hand to avoid these kinds of problems? It is their money, too. Or is it because they want to leave the blacks to mess up?

The poor and unemployed will not choose the DA against the ANC. They see the DA as the party for the baas and missus. The DA faces a lot of challenges to change this perception.

Well, you want to know why blacks do not vote for the other small parties like the Inkatha Freedom Party, United Democratic Movement or African Christian Democratic Party, which are also black. Most of them carry the apartheid baggage of “working within the system”. Their leaders have never really enjoyed support from the majority except at a regional or minimal level. They are and will always remain minority parties. The less said about the radical Pan Africanist Congress or Azanian People’s Organisation the better, they have condemned themselves to the margins.

The only party the people know is the ANC. And it is turning 102 years next year. It takes resilience, focus and determination to turn 100 years in politics. What happened to the Nationalist Party? It died a natural death. It was consumed by the ANC and some of its remnants went to the DA.

We know the media and its all-knowing analysts will give all sorts of reasons why more and more people will not vote for the ANC. Frankly, the talking heads don’t know what they are talking about.

The ANC has no competitor. We can only hope that it learns from its mistakes. It is the only party for now that can take this country to a higher plane.

Nelson Mandela is widely quoted as saying: “If the ANC does to you what the Nats did, you must do to the ANC what you did to the Nats.” But Mandela ignored the fact that with the deeply entrenched economic inequality that corrupts everyone in its system, the ANC, the Nats or everyone else is forced to do as it dictates.

As long as the ANC governs in an untransformed economic system, it is not going to be seen as behaving like the Nats. The guilty party is not the ANC but the untransformed economic system. And the people seem to understand that change will not happen overnight, they are willing to forgive and vote ANC.