ANC’S ‘love’ for Zanu-pf is worrying for SA

IT COMES as no surprise that the early reports yesterday of Wednesday’s national election in Zimbabwe predicted a Robert Mugabe/Zanu-PF win. The signals were obvious that Zanu-PF, the security services, the electoral commission had all been used to ensure that the voters’ roll generally reflected the profile of supporters of the governing party.

There were reports that Zanu-PF voters were bussed into urban constituencies, the heartlands of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) support. Voters who actually live in the constituencies found that they were not registered. It was all, as predicted in this column, a farcical affair. At once, three quarters of a million voters were, apparently, not able to vote because of registration problems.

What is surprising is that Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC – and, indeed, Welshman Ncube’s other MDC faction – led the voters a dance. A reading of Real Change Times, the main MDC mouthpiece, indicated months ago that the entire state was being used to disempower their voters.

There seemed to be no option but to withdraw from the polls beforehand – and declare that they could not take part in an election that would be illegitimate. That would have meant that the Zanu-PF would have won every seat. It is not an ideal result, but there would have been doubts about Zanu-PF’s legitimacy as a governing party.

Predictably, but belatedly, Tsvangirai described Wednesday’s treachery against the free will of the people as “monumental fraud”.

It is an outrage that Zanu-PF has been able to get away with theft of three national elections in that country.

South Africa’s role has been nothing short of pathetic, if not duplicitous.

On the one hand, President Jacob Zuma’s go-between Lindiwe Zulu was berated for suggesting that the election conditions were not ideal.

Then more ridiculous than ever, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe announced that although he was “in love” with Zanu-PF, that party had destroyed Zimbabwe’s economy! He also blamed Zanu-PF for supporting ANC breakaway Julius Malema.

2014 elections

The AU’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma announced that she expected a free and fair election almost as soon as she had stepped into the country. What does this say about us, Zimbabwe’s biggest trading partner?

The ANC is saying that despite electoral fraud, despite the fact that Zanu-PF has ruined the economy of that country and despite the fact that an estimated 3 million Zimbabweans have fled their country to live in South Africa, its love for Zanu-PF prevails over all these “minor” concerns.

What, indeed, is there to “love”? Should voters here also love the ANC if it ever carried out similar madness here too?

There have been a number of wimpish commentators of late who have argued that the farm invasions orchestrated by Mugabe to reignite his flagging electoral fortunes 13 years ago, have actually turned out quite well.

Thousands of small-scale farmers are reported to have access to land. There is also an argument that the indigenisation law, which hands 51 percent of big business over to the state, works to empower indigenous people.

It sounds even worse than the South African black economic empowerment model – based problematically on apartheid’s race categories, but which has (been) known to favour ruling party connected millionaires, if not billionaires.

There is already talk in the political corridors that businesspeople don’t get state contracts unless they grease the palms of you-know-who. It sends the message that theft – if you can get away with it – is well worth it.

The ANC’s friendship and love across the border don’t bode well for our national elections in South Africa next year. The 2014 election is widely viewed as being a tipping point for the ANC – it is almost certain its electoral fortunes will dip in a free and fair election.

But if the ruling party here doesn’t have any problems in principle with the economic and political behaviour of its beloved Zanu-PF across the border, who knows what could happen in the election here, let alone on the farms and in the mines of our country.

Perhaps slate voting won’t only be the preserve of ANC conferences. Now that is a worrying thought.