This past weekend I was at a rather large family thanksgiving event sitting ‘ebuhlanti’ (in a kraal), chatting away with a gentleman who was showing me emails sent to him about brokering the selling of mega-buildings in struggling towns in the Eastern Cape.
The amounts were eye-watering, often north of eight figures, and with net returns that sometimes even exceeded 20%. We also chatted about his plans to find investors himself and find an equity partner in the security industry (a euphemistic term for the extortion rackets that have taken hold in the Eastern Cape) to ensure that everything goes smoothly for him, as he wants to get into the student accommodation sector (the pockets of government).
I couldn’t quite figure out in the moment why this conversation bothered me so much, but on further reflection I realised it was the perverse system of incentives, criminality and lawlessness, and in some sense patronage which have come to typify the Eastern Cape in particular, but South Africa more broadly, and in varying degrees depending on which province we are talking about.
A couple of days before this event, a 64-year-old grandmother and street vendor trying to make ends meet was shot dead in Kraaifontein in Cape Town for refusing to pay a so-called protection fee. In Mthatha, an ophthalmologist had to close their practice due to these extortioners, as have many small, locally owned black businesses in many parts of the country. Along with other powerful construction and water-tanker mafias, these extortioners typify the lawlessness and criminality that has been allowed to fester like a boil by the ANC, and in this particular case destroy all manner of black initiatives and entrepreneurial spirit.
Can’t use the lame excuse of apartheid for that one.
In fact, not only are small, locally-owned black businesses destroyed by this system of graft but also black housing wealth. The lawlessness and criminality are assisted by often wildly corrupt and incompetent municipalities which have allowed mass decay to set into infrastructure and services to falter or stop altogether.
The obvious question then becomes: why do people either resign themselves to not voting or in large numbers vote for the ANC? The truth is that I don’t know, but I can offer some explanations based on data, the first being that people with no skin in the game (the majority of our population) tend not to care about politics and are often in survival mode. This might explain why so many black people do not vote. Another is that older black people who lived significant portions of their lives during apartheid will probably never vote for a white person or a party perceived to be white. Another is that there is a correlation between urbanization and discontent with the ANC and that messages of “white people taking away grants, etc” are extremely effective at scaring people away from certain parties.
Whatever the reason, it seems to me that the key approach to solving these problems and creating virtuous cycles is for this GNU, and for parties who want to become senior parties in future coalitions or win outright, to have a message of being tough on crime and restoring law and order as a starting point. It is not a coincidence that Dr Pieter Groenewald is incredibly popular on black twitter. He is seen as an avuncular Afrikaner uncle who will do his job and rid the criminal system of corruption. Considering how racialized South Africa can be, I don’t know whether this will translate into more votes from black people for the FF+, but it should be instructive for other parties who should be using their portfolios in the next five years to deal with corruption, fix problems and make tangible differences to people’s lives.
It is important that this difference be tangible. (Dr Groenewald’s raids of Sun City and uncovering corruption proved to be exceptionally popular). The DA has often made the tactical mistake of highlighting to poorer residents of Cape Town how the city is better than ANC-run municipalities (a factually correct statement). A statement often met with the aggressive retort of “better for who exactly?” This is a fair retort, if you ask me, because living in a shack is living in a shack, whether it is in Khayelitsha or Alexandra or Umlazi. But Gayton Mckenzie ensuring the Springbok game was televised on SABC was an incredibly popular thing, if social media and the people I chatted to ‘ebuhlanti’ are anything to go by.
This GNU offers parties within it a unique opportunity to make a case of effectiveness to the South African public, and jostle for better arrangements in future elections, especially if that is buttressed by electoral wins and more effectiveness at municipal level. A working, functional and sane/safe South Africa is a prerequisite for an explosion of black income and wealth because that is how all value and wealth is created; with the rule of law, secure property rights, a functional state and favourable conditions for businesses of every kind.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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