The personal is political

The Community of Mandela Rhodes Scholars is a politically non-aligned body representing 93 inspiring young African leaders. While the organisation is politically neutral, the individual scholars are encouraged to be vocal in their political views. With April 22 fast approaching, the scholars have been invited to share their personal justification for their intended vote.

Mandela Rhodes Scholars justify their vote …

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In 330 BC Aristotle wrote that the highest and noblest end to which individuals can aspire is to play a role in the governance of the state. In AD 2008 I sat in a room with a group of Mandela Rhodes Scholars discussing their future role as young leaders. Not a single one of these leaders saw politics or the civil service as a viable option for themselves.

What has gone wrong here? Why is it that some of the most energetic and inspiring young people in the country would not go near the public sector with a ten foot barge pole?

The biggest reason is simply that the public sector is seen as a lost cause. No aspirant young person, myself included, wants to be a part of a lost cause. The brutish arrogance of senior political leaders combined with the creaking incompetence of the lower levels of civil service present a barrier to principled, energetic young people. There is a crisis of faith in governance, which is likely to become self-perpetuating. The only way in which to revive it is to inject new, ethical leaders into these roles. But without the initial element of faith those young leaders will be unwilling to stomach the public sector. It’s a chicken and egg dilemma of national importance.

I will be voting for the DA simply because I believe that it is the only party with the capacity to reinvigorate faith in governance. If Helen Zille has done one thing it has been to show that governance can be sexy (questions of botox treatments aside). The DA’s management of one municipality has shown the country that government structures can be made to function effectively. Intelligent and effective leaders have been drawn into local government roles which has in turn created a virtuous cycle where more are likely to follow.

I am not for one moment blind to the party’s weak points and am at times appalled by the conservative, anti-liberal elements that have crept into the party over the past decade. However, the DA appears to be the only party that has the potential to draw young South African leaders into the noble pursuit of effective governance. The cronyism and incompetence of the ANC and the cronyism-and-incompetence-in-waiting of Cope will only perpetuate the reverse.

Chris McConnachie, 2008 scholar.

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Who will I vote for on April 22nd? Let me explain South Africa’s options as I see them in terms of a metaphor that illustrates the disillusionment and anger I feel for them:

Option A: Abstain. Don’t spill your ink, the danger is too high and the reward is too little. Maybe not fun, and probably un-cool, but a choice nonetheless.

Option B: Be faithful. Vote for whatever damn party you’ve always voted for, whoever you family has told you and whoever your friends expect you to. They may be old, unsatisfying, and whiney, but at least they’re consistent.

Option C: Condomise. Flirt with change and screw with difference, vote on a whim and with orgasmic exhilaration. But know that no hope or new-ness can actually be born, for all your cavorting you remain an endangered fish in a sea of repressed faithful.

So who will I vote for? I’ve never been one for gratuitous show-boating, and I am not old enough to have learned a faith, so I will be voting for no one. The risk I run of forgoing my principles and the potential reward of another Bozo holding the sceptre is un-appealing.

I do not encourage others to take this view. My only wish is that when it comes to voting, that the results are reported not in terms of percentage of those who voted, but as a percentage of all potential voters (including those who can’t be bothered). Let politicians see how many of us don’t care who they are.

Graeme Hoddinott, 2007 scholar

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In considering which party to support a number of issues influence my decision: the party’s historical contribution and role; its political dynamics; its policies and its demographic appeal and support.

In the South African party political system there are only two broadly representative, viable, legitimate and effective alternatives. This does not, however, mean that there are not legitimate or effective narrow-interest parties, but in terms of widespread support, legitimacy and the ability to articulate the concerns and interests of the vast majority of South Africans there are really only two options.

I do not consider the DA as an option because it is a largely untransformed and neo-liberal party that fails to engender confidence in the vast majority of South Africans (its support-base is still 63.8% white, 25.3% coloured and only 5.8% black and 5.4% Indian according to Markinor’s March 2009 survey). Additionally it constantly plays on white fear and liberal paranoia, anti-ANC rhetoric and constantly adopts an offensive, instead of constructive, engagement with the ruling party, which still enjoys immense legitimacy. I do not identify with the confrontational (too white for work?) and exclusionary Afrikaner Calvinist Christian politics of the Freedom Front Plus (their posters do not include a single person of colour, except when one is covering the mouth of a crying white girl). And I could not and cannot identify with the ethnic and marginal politics of the IFP, UDM, ID or ACDP.

The ANC and Cope are the only two broadly representative, viable, legitimate and effective alternatives.

I, however, support, endorse, and vote for Cope because it is the only effective alternative to the ruling ANC — a party that has lost its moral and intellectual position since 1999 (its denial of HIV-Aids and crime, its toleration of international human-rights abuses, corruption and fraud, the racial nativism of Mbeki and the blurring party-state divide coupled with political interference in independent state organs).

I support Cope because its support base is the most representative — 60.5% black, 17.5% white, 19.4% coloured and 2.6% Indian, and I support Cope because it engenders more confidence with my age group than the DA (4.4% versus 13.5% for Cope). I finally support Cope because of its centrist macro-economic policies, its commitment to a strong social welfare safety net while extending employment and access to basic services.
My support for the party is further rooted in my desire to see South Africa develop into a two-party system in which control is fought for between two broadly legitimate and representative parties with a lack of performance being punished and effective governance celebrated through the ballot box. I support Cope because it has proven that no single party can have a legitimate claim over our history, and that no single party can have a legitimate claim over our future. Cope is the only party that can legitimately speak for me as a young, white Afrikaner in a new South Africa without ostracising any other individual or group in the process on the basis of race, religion, history or principles.

Marius Redelinghuys, 2009 scholar