By Riaz Gardee*
As municipal elections scheduled for the 3rd of August draw closer political parties are stepping up their campaigns in order to garner as much support as possible. President Zuma of the ruling ANC party claimed at a recent rally ‘The ANC liberated you. Please vote for it on August 3. Do not waste your vote to opposition parties,’ to loud applause. But is this correct and is it a sensible basis to determine who to vote for?
Fortunately South Africa is a democracy where everyone is free to vote for any party they select without having to disclose their vote. When political parties are in campaign mode many things are said which should be interrogated by the voters to ascertain its veracity. Since its formation in 1912 the ANC certainly played an important role in the liberation of South Africa. It has been a home to many ‘struggle icons’ including Nobel laureates Nelson Mandela and Albert Luthuli thereby gaining an international reputation as a resistance movement. Many of its members have even paid the ultimate price in their quest for justice and liberation from oppression. However were they the only ones who sacrificed their lives and can any single party or individual have a monopolistic claim to liberating South Africa?
Fall of Apartheid
Successful negotiations to dismantle apartheid between various political, cultural, religious, civil organisations with then President FW de Klerk, and subsequently Nobel laureate, led to South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994. There were various global and regional developments which had driven the apartheid regime to the negotiation table. The primary factor was the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
In the late 1980’s the communist behemoth was in its final death throes. A decade-long costly war in the Central Asian theatre of Afghanistan had effectively bankrupted the Soviet Union who had deployed over a hundred thousand troops to that war. The domino effect of their collapse was felt across the world after they finally withdrew from Afghanistan in February 1989. The Berlin Wall fell shortly thereafter in November 1989, barely three months before the release of Nelson Mandela in February 1990, marking the end of the red menace. Communism was no longer the western world’s number one enemy and its defeat had dire consequences for the apartheid regime as their raison dềtre was removed and effectively rendered useless with no communist enemies to fight in the African theatre. With arms, loans and technology no longer being as freely available the sanctions and political opponents drove the proverbial ‘final nail into the coffin.’
Read also: Know what you’re voting for: ANC, DA, EFF 2016 Election Manifestos compared
South Africa liberated
With such complex local and global vector forces at play who can lay claim to being solely responsible for the liberation of South Africa from apartheid? Was it the ANC? Or those who sacrificed their lives? Or the other political parties in the struggle? Or those who implemented sanctions? Or those who did what they could? Or those who prayed? Or those who defeated the Soviet Union? Or those who were at CODESA? Or those who were left victorious in 1994? Or those who fought apartheid many years before it fell? Some would probably even argue that true liberation has not even arrived. The more pertinent question however is: how relevant is all of this in deciding who to vote for on the 3rd of August?
Why call ANC a liberation party, if you feel like you 'owe' it your vote? They 'liberated' you politically, to enslave you psychologically?
— Rethabile Makoanyana (@Makoanyana_R) July 15, 2016
Who to vote for?
Professor Cialdini in his bestseller ‘Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion’ says ‘ Very often in making a decision about someone or something, we don’t use all the relevant available information; we use instead only one single, highly representative piece of the total. And an isolated piece of information, even though it normally counsels us correctly, can lead us to clearly stupid mistakes – mistakes that when exploited by clever others leave us looking silly or worse.’
In the coming days all political parties will attempt to display many convincing reasons and actions to vote for them in the hope of even one resonating with a potential voter and the timing of these actions need careful consideration. People will also have various compelling reasons for who they decide to vote for and even whether they choose to vote. Some of the reasons will be rational whilst others more emotional. Ultimately the voter must apply his reason and judgement to see through any campaign tricks and unemotionally and independently select the party that will realistically be able to deliver his vision of a future South Africa. The more facts and fewer emotions used the more likely we are to have a positive outcome for everyone.
- Riaz Gardee is a mergers & acquisitions specialist, financial writer and contributor to various media platforms including print, online, radio and television.
