Instead of voting for the bankrupt ANC or DA, South Africans could do better with social movement candidates in upcoming local elections.
This is one in a series of re-publications, as part of our partnership with the South African publication, Amandla.
On November 1, 2021, South Africans head to the polls to elect candidates for district, local and metropolitan municipalities in the country’s nine provinces. As it stands, 325 political parties are contesting and more than 60,000 candidates will be fielded for the elections. These unprecedented numbers are testament to the widespread dissatisfaction with South Africa’s ruling and opposition parties, chiefly the African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance. Until the last elections, in 2016, the ANC comfortably controlled all but one of South Africa’s big cities, Cape Town. But from 2016 when the DA won narrow majorities in Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Gqeberha, the ANC lost power and parties like South Africa’s third-largest, the Economic Freedom Fighters, became coalition kingmakers. With poor service delivery, corruption and maladministration persisting against the wider backdrop of skyrocketing unemployment and inequality, many South Africans are disenchanted with the mainstream, with July’s unrest only deepening widening sentiment that South Africa’s political class is more concerned with preserving power than serving their constituents.
With political space more open than ever, South Africa’s progressive left is taking its chances too. After the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party’s humiliation at the 2019 general election following a rushed campaign (it amassed only 25,000 votes, below the threshold required to obtain at least one seat in Parliament), South Africa’s left was once again roaming in the political wilderness, ever more weary of the electoral road to social transformation (The SRWP decided it would sit these elections out). However, with social crises accumulating and grassroots activists on the frontline, it has become difficult to ignore local government as a key site of political contestation and struggle.
Amandla! interviewed representatives of three popular organisations that have decided to stand candidates in the local government elections. They are:
- Peter Lobese from Active United Front, now ousted as Mayor of Bitou Municipality and suspended as a Councillor.
- Motsi Khokhoma from Botshabelo Unemployed Movement
- Ayanda Kota from Unemployed People’s Movement / Makana Citizens Front
The three organisations are collectively running under the banner of the Cry of the Xcluded, a popular front launched in 2020 by the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU), the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) and the Assembly of the Unemployed (AoU) to unite South Africa’s working class—employed and unemployed—in the struggle for jobs, services, and dignity. Their election manifesto can be read here.
- Amandla
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Tell us about your organizations and how they began.
- Peter Lobese
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Active United Front derived its origin from United Front. It is a result of the NUMSA moment in 2013, when the United Front was established as a front that unites the struggle of communities and the workplace. And then in 2016, United Front at a national level indicated that they are not ready to contest at a national or provincial level. But they will allow those communities who are ready to contest to do so.
We just put an “A” in front of United Front. We used Active United Front in order to contest. As it happened, we won one seat in the election, and the ANC and DA won six seats each. So we held the balance of power and our councillor, Peter Lobese, became the Mayor. Despite the fact that Peter Lobese was ousted by the ANC and DA, AUF has grown. We are now contesting at a District Level—the Garden Route District. (PL)
- Khokhoma Motsi
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Botshabelo Unemployed Movement (BUM) was founded in 1999 to address massive issues of unemployment, democratic control and social injustices in a non-sectarian manner. We aim to serve both the rural and peri-urban poor communities of our province. Botshabelo is a large township outside Bloemfontein. We have registered for the election as Botshabelo Unemployed Movement and they regard us as a political party. But we know, we are not a political party, because we are operating only at the local level.
- Ayanda Kota
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Unemployed People’s Movement (UPM) / Makana Citizen’s Front was formed in 2009 because there was a vacuum. We started by attending IDP (Integrated Development Plan) meetings, and people were saying that we’ve got to do something. These people are taking us for a ride. Then there was a shut down in Makhanda on June 16 and a decision was taken to say, “We are sick and tired of political parties that are cruel, that are corrupt, that are not honest, that are lying, that have failed us. We must dismiss them. We must recall them. We must dissolve them.” And one way to do so, is to participate in this local government election, as a community. So we were given that mandate to form this civic structure, Makana Citizens Front.
- Amandla
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What made you stand in this election?
- Khokhoma Motsi
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Corruption, outsourcing of work, clinics of municipalities not functioning, roads bad, factories closing at the municipal level, no investments coming in, local economy falling apart, inequality growing, unemployment growing. All the municipalities are dysfunctional. But when you go to the budget of a ward, that ward every year is being given a particular amount of money that can change the lives of the people. But these things are not being done.
- Ayanda Kota
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We have marched to the City Hall to highlight the scourge of rape in our society, the scourge of unemployment in our society, the scourge of the collapse of governance. They say “It is not our competency.” What bullshit. They are failing to collect the refuse, they are failing on the electricity, they are failing on roads. But they think we must only fight for roads. They don’t understand that these things are intertwined. They don’t understand if they don’t deliver on their constitutional obligations, like lights, it makes certain people vulnerable. There is nothing that can ever be delivered by the current status quo. It’s run out, it’s torn out, it’s finished.The only thing that they can do, over and over again, it’s promises and promises and promises.
- Peter Lobese
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Abuse of power, poor service delivery, and the high cost of services, land questions and many other issues that the community were not happy with. People in the communities are suffering. We are at a grass-root level; we are seeing this suffering on a daily basis. It’s going to be worse now with COVID-19.
Politicians don’t care
- Khokhoma Motsi
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We have seen what happens when people are taking their mandate from political parties. Politicians don’t care about people. But when they are going to election, they suddenly remember them, because they want them to put them again in power. They are not implementing whatever the communities are asking them to do.
- Ayanda Kota
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And one must be honest to say, these guys, they don’t listen, they don’t care. To them, it’s all about promises, it’s not about accountability. It’s coming over and over again with the same promises, with the same promises and different promises. The right to govern our people has been appropriated by the politicians. There was a slogan “The people shall govern” and that slogan has been appropriated by politicians, and it is the politicians that are in government now. It is politicians that govern now.
- Peter Lobese
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There are two organizations that are dominating politics. It is ANC and DA. And people are tired of those two organizations, they do not want them. They do not trust them anymore. And these organizations, they don’t even change their leaders. You find that there are leaders that have been leading in this organization since 1994, they have been councillors since 1995 and they are still councillors today. And they have done nothing for the community.
- Amandla
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Why do you think you can do better?
- Khokhoma Motsi
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We are not a political party. We are activists. So when you are an activist, you should be involved in issues that are affecting your community. You can’t just relax when you are an activist. You became an activist because of things that you see on the ground that are not going well. And that is why we are fielding comrades in terms of them being councillors. Because we want to change the status quo.
- Ayanda…