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18 March 2019 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Rulanzen Martin
Rapport Regstreeks
From the left: Dr Ina Gouws, Dr Sethulego Matebesi, Dr Ebrahim Fakir, and Waldimar Pelser, who facilitated the panel discussion on the upcoming national elections.

Since the national elections of 2014 five years ago, several issues have occurred that could have an impact on the upcoming elections. A panel consisting of Dr Ina Gouws from the Department of Governance and Political Transformation, Dr Sethulego Matebesi from the Department of Sociology – both at the University of the Free State (UFS), and Dr Ebrahim Fakir from Governance Institutions and Processes at the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa, talked about these and other issues.

The panel discussion, facilitated by Waldimar Pelser, editor of Rapport, took place at the UFS on 8 March 2019. Rapport Regstreeks is presented by kykNET and Rapport.

Three factors that can handicap ruling party

“Does the ruling party have anything to be worried about?” Pelser asked, getting straight to the point. “Yes. The ruling party has a lot to be worried about. The reason for this is that voter participation has declined; secondly, there is definitely a management problem which resulted in a credibility crisis in the government; and lastly, the ANC is trying to keep people together who do not believe in the same issues,” Dr Fakir was the first to reply.

The issues mentioned by Dr Fakir have been a problem before. “Since 2016 there has been a lot of division within the ANC,” Dr Gouws said. “These divisions can have a huge impact on the outcome of the election. The divisions were exposed even more by the Nenegate situation, and the ANC could no longer manage it."

The fact that the ANC lost control over four of the major metros in the 2016 local elections must be worrying to them.

Zondo Commission and opposition parties

The Zondo Commission, with its appalling revelations has uncovered the magnitude of state capture and the shocking testimonies that have emerged, could possibly hamper the ANC in the elections. “Political parties have supporters, regardless of internal problems. Loyal party members will still vote for their parties,” said Dr Matebesi. “The promise of RDP houses before an election is the bread and butter of many voters; therefore, they will vote ANC again.”

With the rise of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the support base of the ANC has also dwindled. “If there is one party with a colonial mentality, it is the EFF. They are undermining democracy, thrive on divisions in society and exploit them,” said Dr Fakir. “They jump in on many issues for their own gain,” Dr Gouws added.

As for the Democratic Alliance (DA), Dr Gouws said its governance is ‘fantastic’ compared to the ANC, although not always 100%. “Problems were however highlighted – it is not 100% and I think they should attend to the problems.”

News Archive

The TRC legitimised apartheid - Mamdani
2010-07-20

 Prof. Mahmood Mamdani
“The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) accepted as legitimate the rule of law that undergirded apartheid. It defined as crime only those acts that would have been considered criminal under the laws of apartheid.”

This statement was made by the internationally acclaimed scholar, Prof. Mahmood Mamdani, when he delivered the Africa Memorial Lecture at the University of the Free State (UFS) last week on the topic: Lessons of Nuremberg and Codesa: Where do we go from here?

“According to the TRC, though crimes were committed under apartheid, apartheid itself – including the law enforced by the apartheid state – was not a crime,” he said.

He said the social justice challenges that South Africa faced today were as a result of the TRC’s failure to broaden the discussion of justice beyond political to social justice.

He said it had to go beyond “the liberal focus on bodily integrity” and acknowledge the violence that deprived the vast majority of South Africans of their means of livelihood.

“Had the TRC acknowledged pass laws and forced removals as constituting the core social violence of apartheid, as the stuff of extra-economic coercion and primitive accumulation, it would have been in a position to imagine a socio-economic order beyond a liberalised post-apartheid society,” he said.

“It would have been able to highlight the question of justice in its fullness, and not only as criminal and political, but also as social.”

He said the TRC failed to go beyond the political reconciliation achieved at Codesa and laid the foundation for a social reconciliation. “It was unable to think beyond crime and punishment,” he said.

He said it recognised as victims only individuals and not groups, and human rights violations only as violations of “the bodily integrity of an individual”; that is, only torture and murder.

“How could this be when apartheid was brazenly an ideology of group oppression and appropriation? How could the TRC make a clear-cut distinction between violence against persons and that against property when most group violence under apartheid constituted extra-economic coercion, in other words, it was against both person and property?”, he asked.

“The TRC was credible as performance, as theatre, but failed as a social project”.

Prof. Mamdani is the Director of the Institute of Social Research at the Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda; and the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government in the Department of Anthropology at the Columbia University in New York, USA.

Media Release
Issued by: Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt@ufs.ac.za  
20 July 2010
 

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