Making the issues the issue
In two months from today we go to the polls to vote in our fourth local government elections. They could be a watershed moment in the short history of our democracy.
I say this because these elections are the first opportunity that South Africans have had since 1994 to make a full and proper comparison of the track records of different parties in government.
In this election, voters will be in a position to contrast, for example, five years of DA government in Cape Town with five years of ANC government in Johannesburg.
Just this week, the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, named Baviaans, the only DA-run municipality in the Eastern Cape, as the best for service delivery in that province. Baviaans also won the award for best collector of revenue in the Eastern Cape.
The only DA-run municipality in Gauteng is Midvaal. Like Baviaans, it is consistently top of the league for service delivery in its province. This year, Midvaal received its 8th unqualified audit in ten years. Last year, it was ranked number one in the province in the annual ‘quality of life' survey.
The success of DA municipalities in the Western Cape is well-documented. Last year, the Universal Household Access to Basic Services or UHABS Index ranked Western Cape municipalities (the majority of which are DA-run) number one in the country for service delivery. An independent survey conducted by the South African Institute for Race Relations found that more poor people had access to free basic services in the Western Cape than anywhere else.
But perhaps the best contrast between ANC and DA government is the case of the Kouga municipality in the Eastern Cape. In 2000, when the DA took office, the municipality was bankrupt and struggling to deliver basic services. By 2002, the DA had turned the municipality around. Its finances were sound and services were delivered like clockwork. That year, the DA lost control of the municipality to the ANC, against the will of the voters, through floor-crossing. Two years later, in 2004, the municipality was bankrupt again.
Our job in this election is to ensure that every South African is armed with the full facts of the comparative delivery records before they make their X on their ballot paper on 18 May. By that time, every person exercising their right to vote will know that the only party that actually delivers the better life for all, step by step, is the DA. Good governance makes a huge difference to the lives of citizens.
The ANC's approach is altogether different. The ANC knows it will lose on a straight comparison of government performance. It knows that most voters, even if they voted ANC the last time, realise that the ANC has failed them.
This is why the ANC is trying to make the election about something else. Instead of making local service delivery the issue, the ANC is making race the issue. Because race is all the ANC has left.
We saw it in Midvaal this week, where the local ANC accused the DA-run municipality of prioritising some race groups over others.
Ironically, it was in the same week that the Midvaal Municipality launched its Midvaal Youth Leadership Programme which teaches unemployed young people life skills, how to start a business, computer skills, HIV/Aids awareness and treatment, as well as leadership. Innovative programmes like this, coupled with the municipality's ability to attract billions of rands worth of job-creating foreign and local investment, is why Midvaal was last month rated first in the district for job creation at the annual Professional Management Review-Africa awards.
What the ANC cannot face up to is that the DA model of good governance and efficiency is bearing fruit for all the citizens of Midvaal. This stands in stark contrast to the surrounding municipalities. Few municipalities in South Africa, let alone in Gauteng, can match Midvaal's record of sound financial management. And no ANC municipality in Gauteng has a revenue collection rate of 100% like Midvaal has.
Its commitment to sound financial management and clean government means that the Midvaal municipality has the funds for projects that make a difference in the lives of the poor. One example is the new state-of-the-art libraries built last year in Daleside and Sicelo where residents have access to reading material and the internet free of charge.
It is also why the municipality is able to focus on the healthcare of its poorest citizens. The Midvaal Clinic, for example, serves 30 000 people with a turn-around time of two hours per patient (compared to the provincial average of three hours). People who live too far away from established clinics are served by the mobile clinic launched last year to reach vulnerable patients, most of whom live in informal settlements.
But, whatever the facts, the ANC will try hard from now until the next election to convince people that the DA delivers selectively. This is a familiar pattern in complex, plural societies such as ours - the ruling party's racial rhetoric escalates as its performance in government deteriorates.
Fortunately, more and more people are seeing the ANC's propaganda for what it is. They are beginning to resent being treated as voting fodder for the ANC. They are beginning to assert their independence and vote based on a comparative assessment of each party.
This is why the DA has won 8 by-elections in ANC strongholds since the 2009 election. It is why the DA is growing in all communities across South Africa. And it is why, if we work hard to get our message across, and if voters make the issues the issue, we can make historic gains on 18 May.
This article by Helen Zille first appeared in SA Today, the weekly online newsletter of the leader of the Democratic Alliance.
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