Pipe dream or savvy?
CAPE SECESSION: MANY IN WESTERN CAPE WOULD VOTE IN REFERENDUM DA pushes for greater federal autonomy.
We have to free ourselves from this corrupt government
On a windy Cape Town morning, a small group of activists hands out flyers calling for secession. “South Africa cannot be saved, Cape independence is our only hope,” read the leaflets issued by the Cape Independence Party.
Also known as CapeXit, in a nod to Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, the group is one of a couple campaigning for a separate state in the Western Cape region ahead of the 29 May national and provincial elections.
Small and with little support, theirs is bound to remain a pipe dream.
But analysts say the parties’ bombastic demand is symptomatic of a wider Western Cape frustration with the central government that is likely to turn into louder calls for devolution.
“The worse the country gets, the more popular Cape independence becomes,” said CapeXit leader Jack Miller, 39.
Frustration with the ANC, accused of corruption and mismanagement, is ubiquitous in South Africa as it heads to the polls.
Thirty years after the party came to power bringing an end to apartheid rule, the economy is at a standstill, unemployment sits above 30%, poverty is widespread and crime rampant.
Amid the general bleakness, the Western Cape has built a reputation for relatively good governance.
Long run by the Democratic Alliance (DA), the leading opposition party, the province has a 20% jobless rate, the lowest in the country.
Only 38 of 257 municipalities were given a clean financial audit by an official watchdog in 2021-22, and 21 were in the Western Cape.
In recent years, droves of affluent, largely white families have moved there from Johannesburg, attracted by more than the province’s natural beauty.
Roads have fewer potholes, public schools are better and power and water infrastructure breakdowns are less frequent, many say.
The province’s demography is also distinct. Nationally a minority, coloureds are the largest group.
Whites are also overrepresented.
As unseating the ANC nationally seems difficult – even though its support is expected to drop below 50% for the first time – some Capetonians have come to believe they’d be better off alone.
A poll commissioned by a pro-independence lobby group
last year suggested 68% of voters in the province favour a referendum on secession and more than half would vote for it.
But the purported separatists’ enthusiasm is yet to turn into actual votes.
While advocating for nonracialism, CapeXit has struggled to expand beyond its mainly white base.
“We have to free ourselves from this black government,” a party activist told AFP as he canvassed at a crossroad, before correcting himself and describing the ANC government as simply “corrupt”.
“I believe in a black, white, green, yellow but independent province,” said the 75 year old.
At the crossing, few motorists stopped to take a leaflet. Some pulled up their windows upon
seeing the activists approach.
Founded in 2007, CapeXit won only two of the 231 seats on Cape Town city council in 2021 and has barely managed to collect the 7 000 signatures needed to contest provincial elections in May.
In the meantime, the DA has been pushing for greater federal autonomy rather than a divorce.
It has tabled a provincial Bill seeking to devolve more powers to the Western Cape.
The legislation is currently undergoing public hearings, having drawn an angry response from the ANC, which brands it unconstitutional.
And as the DA, which has struck a coalition pact with almost a dozen other parties, seeks to make gains in other provinces in May, other bids might follow.
“In a country as diverse as ours, federalism makes sense,” DA leader John Steenhuisen said, presenting the Bill last July. –