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Journalism of Courage
With just two months to go before South Africa8217;s general election,the Congress of the People COPE,a splinter of the ruling African National Congress ANC,has presented a political unknown,Bishop Mvume Dandala,as its presidential candidate in a bid to attract votes.
Since its launch late last year,COPE has been struggling to distinguish itself from the 97-year-old liberation party of which its founders were so recently an integral part. With Bishop Dandala,a former head of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa and of South Africa8217;s Council of Churches,it hopes to present a squeaky-clean image in contrast to the sleaze that is plaguing the ruling party and its own presidential candidate,Jacob Zuma.
But others are less impressed. However fine the moral and intellectual credentials of the 57-year-old bishop,who has a master8217;s degree in theology from Cambridge University and two doctorates in theology and philosophy,he has scant political experience and is little known among South Africa8217;s poor blacks,who cast the bulk of the vote. Sceptics suspect his candidacy is part of an effort to disguise a power struggle between COPE8217;s leader,Mosiuoa 8220;Terror8221; Lekota,and his deputy,Sam Shilowa.
Most pundits reckon that COPE is backed by about 10 per cent of the voters. The only other serious opposition party,the Democratic Alliance,led by Cape Town8217;s forceful mayor,Helen Zille,may again get the 12 per cent or so of the votes it polled in the last general election in 2004,but it is still handicapped by its predominantly white middle-class image; COPE,though also widely seen as too middle-class,is drawing support from across the racial divide. So the guess is that the ANC will still get a good two-thirds of the vote in the coming election,on April 22nd. The new parliament then chooses a president. It is in the longer run that COPE may have the potential to break the ANC8217;s stranglehold on power.
For the ANC seems to be sinking deeper into a mire of corruption. The ebullient Mr Zuma,soon it is said to marry his sixth wife,is struggling to fend off a string of charges against him for corruption and tax evasion. A trial has been set for August,when he will very probably be South Africa8217;s head of state. Last week Carl Niehaus,the ANC8217;s spin doctor and a former ambassador to the Netherlands,resigned after admitting to a web of lies,fraud and debt that financed a lavish lifestyle and must have been obvious to his bosses.
The South African Institute of Race Relations,a think-tank,has given warning that the spreading allegations of fraud and corruption in the ruling party may come to compromise the country8217;s rule of law. 8220;It appears as if certain political leaders take the presumption of innocence to mean that they can remain in office while under suspicion,regardless of the damage that does to their political party or to government,8221; says the institute8217;s deputy director.
Meanwhile Ipsos Markinor,a market-research firm,has published a poll taken in November,before the global economic storms had fully affected South Africa. It suggests that,for the first time since the onset of democracy,more South Africans feel their country is moving in the wrong direction 42 per cent than in the right one 38 per cent.
The Economist Newspaper Limited 2009
