By Munetsi Madakufamba – SANF 04 no 28
As South Africa holds its third multiracial elections on 14 April, many in southern Africa and the continent at large will be watching with keen interest given the country’s political and economic influence on the African continent.
Over the last decade since the first multi-racial elections in 1994, South Africa has played a pivotal role on issues ranging from economic reconstruction to peace and security in the region and beyond. The advent of democracy in South Africa has also influenced institutional reform at the regional and continental levels.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC), which was formed in 1980 to reduce economic dependency of the then Front Line States on apartheid South Africa, started shifting its focus toward deeper regional integration, even with the early signs of democratic transformation as symbolised by the release in 1990 of Nelson Mandela.
The 1994 election, won by the ruling African National Congress (ANC), marked the formal demise of apartheid, which had severely destabilised the southern African region, both economically and politically. Thus South Africa’s last 10 years of deepening democracy has not only benefited its 45 million citizens, but many more beyond its borders.
“Post-apartheid South Africa has taught all of us that even those who are made into the worst enemies… can overcome the trauma of such a tragedy and the compulsion towards vengeance through a genuine process of reconciliation,” says Salim Ahmed Salim, former secretary general of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).
At the continental level, South Africa was one of the countries that played a leading role in the transformation of the OAU to the African Union, which was launched in Durban in 2002. President Thabo Mbeki was among the brains behind Africa’s latest economic development framework, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).
Mbeki, who took over from Mandela, the country’s first black president, on the eve of the second election in 1999, is seeking re-election this year. He says one of his party’s foreign policy priorities is to speed up economic integration in southern Africa and strengthen democracy, peace, stability as well as economic growth and development in the region and Africa.
On 14 April, 400 candidates will be elected to parliament and the party with a majority has the right to elect president of the Republic. The election will be observed by people from the continent, in particular teams representing SADC, the SADC Parliamentary Forum and the African Union. The European Union has announced that it has confidence in South Africa’s institutions of democracy and therefore will not send an observer mission.
There is no question about South Africa’s vibrant opposition politics and just over 20 parties have registered to contest the election, but the ANC remains a frontrunner looking to win a two-thirds majority it narrowly missed during the 1999 election.
The president will be inaugurated on 27 April, coinciding with celebrations to mark 10 Years of Democracy in South Africa. The commemorations will offer South Africans a chance to reflect on the gains and challenges of their fast maturing democracy.
Since 1994, South Africa’s economy has enjoyed modest growth, registering two percent in 2003. Other key economic indicators for 2003 point to a stable economy – inflation (4.4 percent), trade surplus (US$793 million), school enrolment ratio (95 percent) and so on.
However, the country’s greatest economic challenge has been to shake off the legacy of apartheid and ensure an equitable distribution of wealth particularly among previously disadvantaged groups the majority of whom are blacks.
Although the last decade has seen the emergence of a strong black aristocracy, the key economic sectors are still largely in the hands of whites who constitute just over 10 percent of total population.
And of the 30 percent South Africans who are unemployed, according to official figures, the majority are blacks. Apartheid restricted blacks to shantytowns, if they were in cities, or rural homelands, then known as Bantustans, where they could not take part in the mainstream economy.
In response to this skewed nature of access to economic opportunities, defined along racial patterns, the ANC government introduced a policy of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), which is affirmative action meant to benefit the poor blacks. As acknowledged by the ANC government, it will take some years for the problem to be fully addressed.
Other well documented challenges that face South Africans as they go to polls are crime and the HIV and AIDS pandemic, which threatens to reverse development gains in southern Africa, the worst affected region in the world.
After the elections, the patience demonstrated during the struggle against apartheid would be needed, not just within South Africa, but also throughout the region where post-apartheid reconstruction continues 10 years on. (SARDC)
