Wooing the Zulu vote pays off for South Africa’s ANC
By Ed Stoddard
Taking votes from the IFP, which literally battled the ANC in apartheid's dying days, is a key reason why the ANC looks set to maintain its large majority even as its support in towns and cities declines as memories of white-minority rule fade.
FEWER RIOTS
Public frustration has boiled over into almost daily riots in townships around major cities by youths demanding jobs and better public services.
Under apartheid, the main infrastructure consisted of a dam to irrigate cotton – part of a strategy to blunt anti-apartheid sanctions – and a military road that snaked through uninhabited bush.
A paved road has now replaced the dirt track leading to the Mozambican border, while other new roads wind through once-remote villages and on to tourist resorts on the coast.
"MALARIA AND ROADS"
"We asked at the time what were the blockages to investment, and it came down to malaria and roads," he told Reuters.
"I would vote for the present government. They might not be the best but they brought freedom. And they brought all of the infrastructure that is here," she told Reuters in her modest house, which has electricity and a large flat-screen TV.
IFP officials admit that much has been done but say the ANC has neglected education and been wasteful.