I could never bring myself to watch a DA congress because of the self-congratulatory, self-satisfied racial superiority complex of the majority of its members and the ritual denunciation by its Black members of “affirmative action”, ANC (read black) mediocrity. The DA leadership under Premier Helen Zille and strategist Ryan Coetzee promotes this arrogance.

Of course the ANC is self-congratulatory and inexcusably arrogant. I have written on this issue before. (See “A majority is good enough” – Mail & Guardian April 17 to 23 2009). I republish it for those who think this is DA bashing but also because its fundamental arguments (except for progress in HIV and to lesser extent education) still holds true.

The DA did not elect a single Black African person to leadership. It did elect Coloured people such as Wilmot James. He would correctly reject this classification on the basis of science but sadly ethnicity and “race” are the most enduring identities in politics. The DA does not have a single person of colour with a tradition of community leadership and sustained progressive activism. The news article below quotes a senior DA official as saying:

“The people you should blame are the rank and file DA members, many of whom came from the National Party under Marthinus van Schalkwyk’s leadership, but stayed on after he left to join the ANC.”

This is a partial truth. The DA campaigns are often based on racial fears. Its much-vaunted party-machine is based in White, Indian and Coloured areas. All its so-called election victories in the Western Cape illustrates this. These are choices that its leadership makes.

Most Coloured working-class people (the class of people I originate from) fear African people and initially had a position of privilege under apartheid. Coloured middle-class people (where I am now) had a privileged position then and continue to do so now.

As the industrial base of the country has shrunk because of easing trade restrictions too quickly and without protection, (particularly in the Western Cape clothing and textile industries), most Coloured working class people from townships such as Manenberg, Heideveld and Mitchell’s Plein have blamed the ANC for their immiseration. This was compounded by the necessary reduction in Child Support Grants to include Black African children. This grant was previously limited to Coloured, Indian and White people.

This alienated the majority of Coloured people in the City of Cape Town from politics altogether until the 2005 Municipal elections and 2009 Provincial elections when significant numbers of new Coloured voters gave the DA the council and the province. The DA ran campaigns that had an underlying message of racial fear.

The ANC leadership’s mixed and in many areas dismal governance record at local provincial and national level contributed significantly to this swing. The power-driven factional battles together with the racist media officer of former Mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo symbolised the alienation of Coloured people from the ANC. This further energised an anti-ANC vote among Coloured people.

DA gains in Black African Western Cape areas remain marginal while they hardly register elsewhere in the country. It would take that party many, many decades to win any other of province or national elections. It’s strategy has always been to win the votes of the National Party, the former Labour Party, the Freedom Front+ and so on. These can hardly be called open, liberal, non-racial political parties with progressive social and economic policies.

The DA’s rigidly free market pro-capitalist dogma represents the real base of the party and that is fine but it could hardly win a majority of poor and working class Black African voters — the majority of people. This is compounded by it’s racism — the line that it is not the “leadership that is racist but the members who are old Nats” is an excuse.

The ANC largely remains the party of the Black middle-class, tenderpreneurs, capitalists, intellectuals, working class and rural voters. This is where real contestation in politics is happening. COPE cannot even count its leaders never mind its members while the DeZille Party would simply consolidate the Coloured vote. Significant numbers of Black African and to some degree Coloured and Indian people still do not participate in electoral politics.

So senior DA official, yes you have old racist members at your base but that is because you chose them with your targeted minority fears argument. — they did not simply “choose” to stay with you.

Zackie Achmat
(Below is my pre-election 2009 article on ANC arrogance)

A MAJORITY IS GOOD ENOUGH OR IS THE ANC INEXCUSABLY ARROGANT

the Mail & Guardian April 17 to 23 2009

Many ANC activists argue for a 67% or 70% majority in the 2009 general election. Most of my comrades who argue for this overwhelming majority say that it is necessary to ensure that social transformation is completed. Under present circumstances, this argument is legally, socially and morally flawed and untenable. These are my reasons.

Over the last 10 years we have had about 70% of the votes cast. Under the leadership of President Mbeki and his then Deputy-President Jacob Zuma especially between 1999 and 2004, a tremendous disenchantment of voters with the ANC and all political parties occurred. Why is this so?

Political life has fundamentally changed for the better in South Africa. This is in large part due to the ANC, its history, vision and capacity to unite the country and avoid a brutal racial civil war. Sadly, the proportion of the votes cast allowed our leaders to become arrogant and to fail poor and working class communities in the areas of education, health, housing, water, transport, safety and security and employment.

The need to fulfill the promise of real freedom and dignity for all people, especially the majority of black African people in our country, remains as pressing as ever. Instead of transformation we have presided over a corrupt political system and state bureaucracy supported at the top by private sector cronies locally and globally. This made me part of that group of citizens that have come to believe that our party’s anthem is no longer Nkosi Sikelele Afrika but “Love Me Tender” sung lustily at every shrinking branch meeting.

The majority of people who support the ANC but who do not vote or who spoil their ballots also see that inevitable poll victories may actually undermine delivery.

So here are several reasons to consider some humility, contrition and grace in asking our people for their votes to gain a simple majority, never mind to demand an overwhelming two-thirds majority.

EDUCATION
Do we need a two-thirds majority to ensure that every child gets a decent education? We have had 70% of the vote and control of all nine provinces but the inequality in our education system and the intellectual dispossession of African and Coloured working class children is deeper than any time under apartheid.

How will two-thirds fix broken windows, increase the number of libraries, improve the qualification and competence of teachers, ensure that parents can assist their children with homework, support teachers who face often face hungry, neglected and ill children as well as a broken system with no textbooks?

HEALTH

The public health system has crumbled with the same number of health workers (250 000) in 2008 as we had in 1997. Numbers actually declined before the ARV roll-out programme. The disease burden has substantially increased. Certified TB deaths rose from about 20 000 to 80 000. The population increased from about 42 million to 46 million. Our overwhelming majority of the vote has not translated into improved health services for our people. The ANC has recognized this in prioritising health care. Why did we not use our majority to replace the Director-General of Health for these failures? And, much more than that, replace him for the fact that since the passing of the Public Finance Management Act in 1999 neither the National Department of Health, nor the majority of provinces have had a clean audit.

SAFETY AND SECURITY
Safety and security is one of the most pressing problems in our country. Again the ANC has prioritised its realisation. I do not doubt the need for more effective policing. But neither the ANC nor any other political party has a safety and security policy that moves beyond “vang hulle en hang hulle”. Is that why a two-thirds majority is called for – to go back to barbarism instead of progressively tackling the causes of crime?

Do we need a two-thirds majority to have after-school care including home-work support, drama, music and sport for all learners? Evidence from all societies that have used after-school care as a measure to improve the quality of life for children and youth have also demonstrated a dramatic decline in crimes that young people commit ranging from petty theft and assault to robbery and rape.

Surely, a two-thirds majority is unnecessary to ensure that informal settlements have roads, lights, demarcated plots and safe water?

THE ARMS DEAL AND CORRUPTION

The Arms Deal has corrupted more than our party’s politicians, state officials and the businessmen who benefitted – it has compromised our Parliament, the NPA, the Auditor-General, the Public Protector and it helped establish a culture of impunity among those with political and economic power or influence.

Most importantly, with our Parliamentary majority the ANC defended President Thabo Mbeki who placed himself outside the law and above the Constitution. Mbeki and the whole Cabinet promoted a corrupt, economically damaging deal with multinational corporations from Britain, Germany and Sweden among others.

Surely following the Polokwane recommendations, the Cosatu resolutions and their principled opposition to the Arms Deal we can take some action on this.

We do not need a two-thirds majority to organize a genuinely independent Commission of Inquiry with investigative power to restore confidence in our elected leaders but above all in our governance institutions?

ANC President Comrade Jacob Zuma has promised to get rid of all corrupt, lazy and incompetent officials – he says this task will take ten years. Section 195 of the Constitution is very clear about ethical, professional, accountable, efficient, open and honest government. Do we need a two-thirds majority to implement the Constitutionand clean out corruption from public life?

HIV/AIDS

Apart from a handful of courageous people, the two-thirds majority failed to produce resistance against the collective madness of Mbeki’s HIV policy between 1999 and 2006. Then the bubble finally burst in Toronto at the government’s vegetable stall. Denialism is now dead but not its effects. Access to anti-retrovirals and the promotion of criminal behaviour such as that of Matthias Rath were not the only issues in the struggle against denialism.

What about Naledi Pandor who refuses to make condoms available in our secondary schools? Is she immune to evidence that every public school will have an educator, learner or support staff member who has HIV? Or, what about the leader of the split, Lekota, who refused to employ or deploy members of the SANDF with HIV until the courts told him to do so?

Just to ensure a two-thirds majority, the darling of the Mbeki administration – Manto Tshabalala-Msimang – still makes it into the top 30 of our party’s list. And is she to be rewarded with a brand new “Ministry of Women”? Am I in Wonderland, or do we intend to use our majority as a “changed” ANC to give the person responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of women that position?

In fact, we don’t need a two-thirds majority to apologise as we should do, and hold a Commission of Inquiry that is tasked with uncovering why we all stood by while more than 900 people a day died.

GLOBAL LABOUR STANDARDS AND CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY

Global Minimum and Fair Labour Standards are surely achievable without a two-thirds majority. Such a position, and such a campaign, will galvanise the majority of working people and middle class people. This is not true only for clothing, textile and manufacturing jobs. Accountants, computer programmers, managers (whose livelihoods are also threatened through outsourcing) can be won to such a campaign for solidarity with the workers of China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and other countries where people are paid starvation wages.

This is not only a question of solidarity, it is necessary to demand a level field for all poor people to access decent jobs. Instead, at the behest of multinational corporations, we compete against each other to see who can achieve the lowest standard of living and the shortest and most undignified life. There can be no sustainable growth without Fair Trade, Fair Labour Practices and Accountable Corporate Governance globally.

Can’t the trade unions lead such a campaign on a sustained and persistent basis with facts and rational argument – or does anyone suggest it can only be done when the Alliance has won a two-thirds majority?

My vote
I can think of many reasons why the ANC – the party I endorse in the 2009 election – should humble itself and beg the electorate to simply give us their votes – not proclaim that we need a two-thirds majority to do our job.

I endorse the party in order to fight inside it for a Commission of Inquiry with investigative powers to examine the Arms Deal; to campaign inside the party for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission on HIV/AIDS; to demand an open, accountable and ethical public service that puts people first. In the ANC and with my vote, I will also demand a genuine safety and security programme and a policy and campaign to realise fair trade, fair labour practices and corporate accountability globally.

With this endorsement and vote, I will return to be an active member to work with progressive cadres to restore party democracy to achieve social justice, freedom and the rule of law.

Zackie Achmat

ENDS

No top DA jobs for African blacks
2010-07-25 22:09

Cape Town -The Democratic Alliance’s federal congress has failed to elect a single black African candidate to any of the three posts as deputy federal chair of the party.

Wilmot James was elected unopposed without a vote as federal chairperson, replacing Joe Seremane who goes into retirement.

Anchen Dreyer, an Afrikaans-speaking white woman from Gauteng, Dianne Kohler-Barnard a heavy-hitting white woman from KwaZulu-Natal, and Ivan Meyer, who is coloured, and Western Cape minister of social development, were all elected to be James’s deputies.

Among the six who were rejected by the delegates were one white woman, one other coloured man and four senior black Africans. They were Sizwe Nchunu, the deputy party leader in KwaZulu-Natal, MP Sej Motau, Khume Ramulifho who has just left the post of DA youth leader, and Bonginkosi Madikizela, the Western Cape’s housing minister.

“The fault is not with the party leadership,” said one prominent member of the party.

“The people you should blame are the rank and file DA members, many of whom came from the National Party under Marthinus van Schalkwyk’s leadership, but stayed on after he left to join the ANC.”

Despite having heard the result of the election, the party leader Helen Zille, the premier of the Western Cape, said in her address closing the congress that no complex plural society has ever been able to transcend the racial barrier. “We shall be the first,” she said.

She was so confident of this that she identified a major “tipping point” in the near political future among black voters as they learn to trust the DA.

“Many analysts say that we shall never build a new majority,” she said.

“WE will show them, won’t we?

This article published by News24