Strange election campaign

IT has been a strange election campaign, dominated utterly by Nkandla with the odd fringe issue, such as the “vote no” campaign, initiated by ANC and SACP veteran Ronnie Kasrils, adding a limited measure of spice. Even the party posters are dreary compared to the past and most are hardly eye-catching.

Essentially, the ANC provided the electorate with the question it needed to answer ahead of the poll that comes just days after the celebration of 20 years of democracy with one of the slogans it adopted for the campaign – “We have a good story to tell”. The question, quite simply, is does the ANC, 20 years after it came to power in 1994, indeed have “a good story to tell”?

Few would dispute that South Africa is not a far better place than it was 20 years ago and that tiny minority which still clings to the “good old days” should ask themselves the question of how high the perimeter walls would have to be around their homes had the changes ushered in from 1990 onwards not taken place.

South Africa is not only a better place now because the discrimination legislatively entrenched by the National Party has been wiped away, or because we now have universal franchise, or because strides have been made with regard to gender equality and improving opportunities for people with disabilities.

It is a better place because millions of people who did not have access to most of the public health services now do so because of the emphasis placed on primary health care, because free education has been made available with the bulk of schools declared “non-fee” institutions, and because countless numbers now have access to clean water, sanitation, electricity and housing.

It is also a better place because access roads have been built that allow people in remote villages to access schools and clinics as well as government services and commerce.

It is a better place because the welfare safety net, albeit unsustainable in the longer term as then finance minister Trevor Manuel pointed out more than a decade ago, has meant that the challenge of extreme poverty has largely been met.

There are many other examples of how South Africa is indeed a better place than it was in 1994 and where the ANC can indeed state that it has “a good story to tell”.

If that were the whole story it is unlikely that the ANC would have felt the need to canvass with any great enthusiasm.

It is not and there are three areas where the story is in fact not good.

The first area concerns the creation of jobs, particularly for young people – in Nelson Mandela Bay the employment rate stands at 36.6% according to updated figures from StatsSA and the youth unemployment rate at 47.3%.

Certainly, one can point to factors such as the health of the economy that was inherited and the global economic recession that resulted in the loss of a million jobs.

The tough reality, however, is that successive ANC governments have failed to create the jobs required and for too many school leavers the prospects of finding employment are indeed gloomy.

Creating sustainable employment will remain the challenge for the foreseeable future.

The second area concerns the public ser vice.

While there have been numerous initiatives such as Batho Pele aimed at creating the culture required if it is to be a “public service”, success has proved elusive, and all too often entitlement and personal advancement have been substituted for service. The third area is corruption. It is little other than trite to state that this year’s national and provincial elections would have been far different had it not been for Nkandla which hangs around the neck of the ANC and its president, Jacob Zuma, like an albatross.

It has not only provided opposition parties with an almost never-ending stream of ammunition, it has also divided the ANC with some long-standing members of the organisation being publicly critical about the manner in which R246-million came to be spent on the president’s private residence and the denials that have become part of the saga. But it is not only Nkandla. In Nelson Mandela Bay it is the still to be dealt with Pikoli and Kabuso reports, and in Buffalo City the diverting of millions meant for transportation for the funeral of former president Nelson Mandela into the pockets of individuals.

Once again the ANC’s failure to deal with these issues and the countless other skeletons in the cupboards of other local authorities that has also provided opposition parties with ammunition and provoked divisions within the organisation.

Does the ANC have “a good story to tell” or do the negatives outweigh the undoubted achievements of the past 20 years.

The results of the May 7 will provide a definitive answer.