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<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3><a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3561408&thesection=news&thesubsection=dialogue&thesecondsubsection" eudora="autourl">http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3561408&thesection=news&thesubsection=dialogue&thesecondsubsection</a>=<br><br>
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</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=5><b><i>John Minto:</i> ANC
victory highlights the lack of a credible
choice</b></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3> <br><br>
20.04.2004 - COMMENT <br><br>
The African National Congress has coasted to an easy victory in the South
African elections. More significant than its two-thirds of the vote,
however, was the greatly reduced voter turnout. <br><br>
From more than 90 per cent in the first post-apartheid election in 1994,
voter turnout dropped to about 70 per cent in 1999 and is predicted to be
just over 50 per cent this time. <br><br>
This reflects soaring mistrust in the ANC among black voters in South
Africa's poorest communities. The ANC victory, for those who voted,
merely reflects the lack of a credible national alternative. <br><br>
Voter mistrust has a simple explanation. Most black South Africans have
suffered a reduction in their standard of living after 10 years of ANC
rule, and there are ominous signs that South Africa will implode in the
coming years if ANC economic policy continues to favour the wealthy at
the expense of the poor. <br><br>
Following its election to power, the ANC developed an economic strategy
known as Gear (Growth, Employment and Redistribution). This promised 6
per cent annual growth by the year 2000, and 400,000 new jobs every year.
It has not delivered. <br><br>
The official jobless rate grew from 16 per cent in 1995 to 30 per cent
last year. However, when discouraged job-seekers are added in, the actual
unemployment rate now stands at 42 per cent nationwide and more than 80
per cent in some rural areas. <br><br>
The process was accelerated from 1996 when the ANC adopted a World Bank
plan for South Africa's economy which, among other things, involved
commercialising and privatising government services. About 20,000 people
lost their jobs when South Africa's Telekom was sold, and another 30,000
became redundant in a privatised electricity sector. <br><br>
Many millions of blacks have now lost access to essential services, such
as running water, electricity and telephones, because they cannot afford
to pay the charges set by the private corporations. <br><br>
Predictably, poverty has deepened, with the economic gaps between blacks
and whites widening. <br><br>
According to the Chronic Poverty Research Centre at the University of the
Western Cape, the average income of black households dropped by 19 per
cent from 1995 to 2000, while over the same period the average white
household income grew 15 per cent. <br><br>
Absolute poverty levels increased from 20 per cent in 1995 to 28 per cent
in 2000. <br><br>
It is not the hopes of South Africa's impoverished black majority which
have been fulfilled by democracy but those of South Africa's
corporations, global investors and the white minority. <br><br>
While the incomes of the black majority have been reduced, the corporate
sector has been on the gravy train. Corporate tax rates were cut from 48
per cent in 1994 to 30 per cent by 1999. <br><br>
Many activists dubbed the ANC policy "reverse Gear" as its
effects bit, and wealth was transferred from the poorest sections of
South African society to the richest. <br><br>
These issues are familiar to New Zealand. Our economy was hijacked by the
Labour Government of 1984 and delivered to the private sector; the ANC
has done the same thing in South Africa with precisely parallel effects.
<br><br>
Organisations are now beginning to emerge in the black communities across
South Africa to challenge the ANC. Typically they are organising around
community service issues, such as housing, water and electricity, and are
met with the same brutal violence as the white minority once dished out
to black activists. <br><br>
In February, in scenes reminiscent of the darkest days of apartheid South
Africa, two black school students, 17-year-old Dennis Mathibithi and
15-year-old Nhlanhla Masuku, were shot and killed by police as they
joined a protest to prevent poor families being evicted from their homes
in the township of Kathlehong. <br><br>
In the run-up to the election, ANC activists disrupted meetings organised
by community groups such as the Anti-Privatisation Forum and the Gauteng
Landless Peoples Movement. There are ominous signs that South Africa will
implode in the coming years because there is no indication that ANC
policies will do more than change the colour of the skin of those who
conduct the repression. <br><br>
In essence, South Africa has shifted from racial apartheid to economic
apartheid. <br><br>
New Zealanders were right to join international protests against
apartheid, and we are right to now hold the ANC Government to account for
its betrayal of that struggle. <br><br>
* John Minto was formerly the national chairman of Halt All Racist Tours.
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