South Africans Make Their Mark

May 7, 2014

What Google in South Africa looked like on May 7 this year. 

For the first time in our little blog-world history, M is guest posting for me. Take it away M...

When we first got to South Africa we knew nothing about South African politics. Okay, maybe a little, but I am pretty sure the whole world knows that Nelson Mandela brought South Africa out of Apartheid and into a democracy as the first president. And if you didn’t know that, well, now you do.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the mention of "South African politics" seems to be closely associated with "corruption" these days. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't here and we haven't seen it over the past 14 months of living here. From President Jacob Zuma's daughter getting a nice cushy public job, to Mercedes' being handed out left and right to politicians, to million dollar upgrades of the President’s personal home in the name of “security”, one could easily question the moral compass of the South African government. The icing on the cake is that when Zuma was charged for rape, in addition to claiming innocence and that it was consensual, he also went on record justifying that he was not concerned with contracting AIDS as a result of having unprotected sex, because...wait for it...he showered afterwards.

Okay, now that we've established the context we're working with, the question begs, "how on earth could this guy get elected?" But first let’s go back to the beginning. The African National Congress (ANC) is the party that Nelson Mandela helped build. Throughout the majority of his life he was ready to die for this party and their ideals, and went to prison for most of his life because of this. The ANC was the first party to rule the South African democracy, and has held firm ever since. Interestingly, in South Africa the people vote for the party, and the party chooses their leader. And you guessed it, Mr. Zuma is part of the ANC. Slam dunk, right? Well, given the ANC's current troubles in paradise, the door seems to have opened, if only slightly, to other options. 

There were so many parties running in this year's election that I actually lost track of all of them. There were hundreds. Case in point: they played a game on the radio in the morning where they made callers guess whether the acronym was a party running in the elections or not- AMP? CIVIC? CD? COPE? CV? ERF? F2000? GEMINI? GOD? ID? IAM? MUM? PAL? PAP? BIG? STOPP? WASP? Yup, these are all parties running in the 2014 national elections (check out the Electoral Commission for a complete list). Despite the lengthy (and sometimes entertaining) list, the attention seemed to be on three main parties: the ANC led by sqeaky-clean Jacob Zuma, The Democratic Alliance (DA) led by Helen Zille, and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) led by Julius Malema. It's worth noting that Julius Malema was kicked out of the ANC for racial slurs, and has also been charged with fraud and money-laundering. Awesome. 

Since you already know the history of the ANC, and that the EFF's credibility is questionable, let me fill you in a bit on the third party: the DA. Forgive my lack of political incorrectness, but the DA is known collectively as the "white party". Every white person I've spoken to about the election was voting for this party. Helen Zille was a white Apartheid fighter, and the party has a solid resume in the Western Cape (the province where the city of Cape Town is located). The DA has won in the Western Cape in the past and were hoping to gain some ground on the ANC in some of the other provinces in South Africa. Earlier in the year the ANC enacted "E-tolls" in which they spent millions of Rand to put in place a system to electronically charge every driver on the major roads in the province of Gauteng (where Johannesburg and the capital city of Pretoria is). This did not go over well with almost everyone who drives a car, and the DA was hoping this could help them gain an advantage over the ANC as their platform was based on fighting corruption and E-tolls.

This brings us to May 7^th, 2014: Election Day in South Africa. 

How it works: First you vote. You are actually voting three times: municipal, provincial and then federal. The parties are the same, so you can vote for the ANC in municipal, provincial and federal. Then the votes get counted. The party with the most votes gets to pick the people they put into the Nation Assembly (Federal), Provincial Legislature, and Municipal Council. If one party wins a majority of at least 66.6% of the votes they win the ability to change the constitution any way they see fit. The results: with a 73.5% voter turnout (down from 77.3% in 2009), the ANC won 62.15% of the votes (down from 65.9% in 2009) and the DA came second with 22.23% (up from 16.66% in 2009). The EFF took third at 6.35%. The ANC also won every province except the Western Cape, where the DA won again. 

After another five years of democracy the ANC is still dominating the elections, but it does appears they are losing some followers to the DA. It looks like slowly more and more citizens of South Africa are making known the limits of what they are willing to put up with when it comes to poor policy decisions and a government testing out just how invincible it really is. But what does the future hold for South Africa? With an economy always on the brink of cracking and a depressing Rand (South Africa's currency), it might initially appear bleak. But, one of the things we have come to love about this country is that South Africans never give up hope. No matter what, they "make a plan", and have the patience to see it through. Does that mean it works every time, the first time? Absolutely not. Does it mean there is reason to keep fighting, keep believing, and keep taking steps in the direction of true freedom? Absolutely.