[DEBATE] : SOUTH AFRICA: Protests cause cracks in ANC-led alliance (GLW)

[glparramatta]

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/658/658p18.htm

SOUTH AFRICA: Protests cause cracks in ANC-led alliance

Leo Zeilig, Johannesburg

The March 1 municipal elections in South Africa have again triggered 
questioning of the future of the Tripartite Alliance, the coalition led 
by the governing African National Congress (ANC) that includes the South 
African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade 
Unions (COSATU), the country’s largest union federation.

The alliance has helped maintain an uneasy calm in South Africa since 
1994. Throughout this period the ANC government has stuck with 
determination to a program of neoliberal policies that has won praise 
from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

However, these policies' impact on the poor has led to bitterness among 
millions of South Africans.

Matjhabeng in the Free State province is a good example. The sewage 
system has collapsed; old leaky water pipes result in frequent water 
shortages, with an estimated 40% of water lost. Thousands in the area 
have no private access to water, and hundreds of people are forced to 
share single taps. More than 15,000 use what is euphemistically called 
the ``bucket system'' — a household bucket used as a toilet, with 
slopping out in communal dumps every morning. Across South Africa almost 
900,000 people are forced to use the bucket system.

The growing frustration has been expressed in significant township 
rebellions and protests during the last two years. Tens of thousands of 
people across the country have refused to accept these conditions 12 
years after the end of apartheid.

For example, since the middle of last year, there have been more than 50 
large protests in towns and cities across South Africa. Every major city 
and provincial authority has been affected. Most have been triggered by 
the ANC’s failure to deliver basic services, and resistance to the 
introduction of user-pays for water and electricity services.

As Cape Town protester Mzwandile Qolintaba told Reuters: ``I feel a lot 
of pain. We don’t have electricity, we don’t have toilets ... our 
children are sick because we don’t have any water. I am angry.''

What has been the reaction of the ANC? The police have used rubber 
bullets, stun grenades, tear gas and live rounds to disperse 
demonstrators. Over the last two years thousands have been arrested. The 
national Sunday Times wrote last year that the protests are reminiscent 
of the 1980s, when apartheid confronted its greatest challenge from the 
mass protest movements. The response of the state also evokes memories 
of the '80s.

Many local branches of the SACP have sided with their communities in 
these protests. SACP members have even led many of these protests. This 
is the case in a number of important protests over decisions by the 
government to redraw the boundaries of communities that straddle 
provincial borders. Frequently, this means moving already poor 
communities into more impoverished provinces. The decisions are often 
made by the ANC government without any consultation with the communities 
involved.

In Khutsong, the SACP has led protests against the redrawing of 
municipal boundaries to relocate Khutsong from the relatively prosperous 
Gauteng province to Merafong municipality in the North West province. 
The local SACP is refusing to canvass for the ANC. A similar struggle is 
taking place in Moutse, which is being transferred from Mpumalanga 
province to the poorer Limpopo province. All 11 SACP candidates in 
Moutse have now decided to stand as independents.

Hundreds of independent candidates — many current and former members of 
the ANC, and SACP members — are standing in the elections. The weekly 
Mail and Guardian reported at the end of January that the ANC was 
seeking to ``whip electoral dissidents back into line''. The ANC has 
kicked out more than 30 members — frequently SACP members — who have 
decided to stand against the ANC as independents in both the Western and 
Northern Cape provinces.

In the Western Cape, more than 160 ANC dissidents are standing as 
independents. Only one ANC independent bothered to turn up for a 
disciplinary hearing. There are also widespread reports from several 
provinces that the ANC leadership has excluded SACP and COSATU members 
from its candidate lists, especially those activists who have led 
community struggles against ANC-controlled municipalities.

The dissatisfaction with the ANC of many rank-and-file SACP members 
contrasts starkly with the enthusiasm of the leadership of the SACP. In 
a statement released in early February, SACP general secretary Blade 
Nzimande declared that ``the SACP has decided to throw its full weight 
behind an overwhelming ANC victory in all municipalities''. Nzimande 
urged: ``Don’t waste your vote on small protest parties. Opposition is a 
luxury.''

The anger at the ANC's unrelenting neoliberalism is also filtering up 
from the members and shop stewards of COSATU, influencing some in the 
federation’s pro-alliance leadership. According to a report in the 
February 17 Johannesburg Star, a COSATU executive meeting that week saw 
several affiliated unions argue that it was time for the SACP to contest 
elections independently of the ANC.

COSATU general secretary (and SACP member) Zwelinzima Vavi dismissed 
these arguments, claiming that they represented only ``pockets of 
problems'' in a few unions. Vavi insisted that COSATU and SACP members 
standing as independent candidates withdraw and fall behind the ANC and 
the ``democratic movement''. Vavi conceded that ``there are problems ... 
some of the people who are standing as independents do have grievances 
against the ANC or the government. But real and true revolutionaries do 
not move away from problems.''

 From these developments some important political formations have 
emerged. The most significant of these are the community groups that 
have evolved into, often ad hoc, political groups. The January 13 Mail 
and Guardian reported that “At least eight social movements in 
Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni will field a total of 55 ward candidates and 
three social movement groups — Operation Khanyisa Movement, Thembisa 
Concerned Residents and Katorus Concerned Residents — have registered 
... as political parties to participate” in the March 1 poll.

The Operation Khanyisa (light) Movement (OKM), for example, is 
contesting seven wards, across three townships, in Johannesburg. The OKM 
emerged from the militant Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC), 
which has been at the forefront of the protests against the 
commodification of basic services. SECC's Nonhlanhla Vilakazi estimates 
that it has reconnected approximately 20,000 residents whose power has 
been cut off for non-payment since 2000.

The group has also led resistance to pre-paid water meters that the ANC 
city council’s corporatised Johannesburg Water has been desperate to 
introduce across the city. At the launch of the OKM in January, 
supporters celebrated their resistance to the meters by marching through 
Soweto waving meters freshly torn from residents’ gardens.

In Durban, under the slogan ``No land, no house, no vote'', the militant 
shack-dweller's movement Abahlali base Mjondolo is leading a boycott of 
the municipal election.

Feeling the pressure of the protests, South African President Thabo 
Mbeki in January announced a huge spending boost for local government, 
spread over the next five years. The end of the bucket system by the end 
of 2007, clean water and sanitation for every South African by 2010 and 
electricity for all by 2012.

The new political formations, progressive independent candidates and 
community groups are unlikely to pick up large votes in the municipal 
elections. Nor is the Tripartite Alliance, which has many times in the 
past bailed out the ANC government, in its death throes. The more likely 
result will be that a large number of people will simply not vote at all 
(the turnout at the last municipal elections was 48%).

[Leo Zeilig is a socialist and activist based in South Africa.]

 From Green Left Weekly, March 1, 2006.