During democratic adolescence (10-15 years later) it was no longer that simple. The Independent Democrats (ID) and the Congress of the People (COPE) forced many voters to question blind loyalty. “Why are you not loyal to the ANC?” Redi Thlabi was asked by an agitated Radio 702 caller. “You owe it to them because they liberated you.” Her winds of change answer was: “I don’t vote for what parties did in the past, but for what they will do in future.”
Voters no longer ‘blindly loyal’ as SA heads for democratic maturity: Leon Louw’s latest column in BDlive published by Business Day.
Excerpts
SA COMES of age today. It is election day. Historians might look back on today as the day on which SA achieved democratic maturity. It is the first election in which political parties cannot rely on blind loyalty. It might be SA’s most important democratic election, because how people are voting right now is no longer cast in stone.
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During democratic adolescence (10-15 years later) it was no longer that simple. The Independent Democrats (ID) and the Congress of the People (COPE) forced many voters to question blind loyalty. “Why are you not loyal to the ANC?” Redi Thlabi was asked by an agitated Radio 702 caller. “You owe it to them because they liberated you.” Her winds of change answer was: “I don’t vote for what parties did in the past, but for what they will do in future.”
A significant dose of democratic maturity was provided by the dramatic entrance of Mamphela Ramphele’s Agang Party. But instead of restoring “the promise of freedom”, her erratic behaviour caused a dramatic exit. The EFF, on the other hand, has been making a decisive contribution to democratic maturity. The EFF legitimises black votes for non-ANC parties. Black voters are not just thinking of voting EFF or DA, but are showing renewed interest in minnow parties. They might embrace any of the 723 registered parties, including such curiosities as the Dagga and Tax Abolition parties.
One of the tenacious manifestations of democratic immaturity has been the perpetuation of the alliance between the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). The alliance was sustained by a common enemy, apartheid. It should, in the long-term interests of members and the country, have ended before the 1994 election.
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If opinion polls are correct, many black voters have, like Thlabi, embraced mature democracy and will, for the first time, seriously consider not voting ANC. Having considered alternatives, they might still vote ANC, but they will do so because of reflective choice, not blind loyalty. Legitimate ANC support and opposition now reflect the extent to which living standards for black South Africans have risen or stagnated under its watch.
Paradoxically, white voters might be the least democratically mature. A bigger proportion than for any other group may vote today for “their” traditional party unquestioningly.