Et tu, Tutu?
The tumultuous political events of the last few weeks have been good
for South Africa. Mosiuoa Lekota's criticism of the ANC in a letter to
its leadership and the suggestion that he will lead a breakaway party
show that we will not go the way of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. More and
more South Africans are waking up to the power abuse of the ANC's
ruling cabal and saying: enough!
Just as importantly, the racial mudslinging that has dominated our
political discourse for so long appears to be subsiding. A new debate
is emerging over values, policies and principles. That a politician of
Lekota's stature has openly expressed views about the ANC that the DA
has long espoused is an encouraging sign that our democracy is
maturing.
But every silver lining has a cloud. In an interview with the Sunday
Times, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said that if an election were held the
next day, he would be "sufficiently unhappy [with the ANC] not to
vote". In the same breath, he lamented the lack – in his view – of "a
viable opposition… one that gives the impression that it could become
an alternative government".
An editorial in the same newspaper endorsed Tutu's sentiments, noting
that: "There are many South Africans who agree with him". Ironically,
this was the same newspaper that a week previously had published an
opinion poll that showed the ANC and the DA to be "neck and neck"
among people with landline telephones in urban areas. Clearly, there
are many South Africans who do believe there is a viable alternative
to the ANC and are prepared to vote for it.
It is not often that I disagree with Archbishop Tutu, but his comments
earlier this week, it has to be said, were both reckless and
misguided. I also cannot agree with the view expressed in a number of
newspaper editorials that Tutu, by expressing his intention to opt out
of voting, showed leadership. If every South African who is
disillusioned with the ANC adopted Tutu's view on voting, we would
live in a one party state; a state whose office-bearers become
increasingly corrupt and drunk with absolute power. It should also
occur to someone as insightful as Archbishop Desmond Tutu that the
approach he advocates is precisely what undermines the capacity of
opposition parties to become alternative governments.
If he does not vote, Archbishop Tutu will serve to entrench and
prolong the very set of conditions – the slide into one-partyism –
that he bemoans. As a strong critic of Mugabe's misrule in Zimbabwe,
Archbishop Tutu should know that. So it is bizarre that he should
adopt an approach to voting that would inevitably lead to the
Zanufication of South African politics.
There is, of course, a very clear policy choice for South Africans. It
is between the DA's open opportunity-driven society for all and the
ANC's closed, patronage-driven society for some. This is a concise
summary of the policy options that have either led to progress or
decline in countries for centuries. Clear policy alternatives for
South Africans have never been more available, or more stark.
The DA has kept alive the idea of political opposition since 1994; we
have put the idea into practice; and we have managed to persuade a
growing number of voters of the grave danger of concentrating too much
power in one centre, and of the importance of holding a ruling party
to account. Everything we have warned about for over a decade is now
apparent to most South Africans.
Furthermore, we have also managed to win elections, against great
odds, and become an alternative government in some significant places,
including the City of Cape Town. Where we govern, we are working day
and night to reverse the legacy of ANC corruption and cronyism, to
implement our policy proposals and show that they make a difference in
the lives of all the people (not just the inner circle of the
politicians in power). We are making progress step by step.
So why don't we say more about the DA's policies? And why don't we
make our policies more accessible to more people? These are questions
people ask me every day. They were put to me a week ago by a Sunday
Times journalist. Ironically, his own newspaper provided the answer in
the same edition that carried the interviews with Archbishop Tutu and
me.
The newspaper's satirical columnist "Hogarth" reported that the Sunday
Times had received an invitation from the DA to the launch of a video
designed to make some of our policies on job-creation more accessible
to people who are not economists. The columnist then smugly announced
that the newspaper had chosen to give the event a miss.
A few days after Hogarth's column appeared, the DA launched its
revised education policy in Parliament. Predictably, the Sunday Times
did not send a reporter. The Sunday Times is, of course, free to make
its own choices about what it wishes to publish. But it does not do
much for the newspaper's already battered credibility to make
editorial comments about the lack of available "alternatives" when it
resolutely refuses to listen to them. That is the kind of denialism
for which newspapers regularly criticise politicians.
The Sunday Times is not alone in this. It is interesting how many
political journalists have not taken the trouble to familiarise
themselves with the DA's raft of accessible policy documents on every
challenge facing South Africa. And it is generally they who assert
that there is no viable alternative to the ANC.
This is because their analysis is not based on policies, values or
principles at all. It is based solely on the stereotype propagated by
the ANC that the DA is a party led by a white person in the interests
of whites. Proceeding from that premise, they conclude that the DA is
not a viable alternative to the ANC, and it is a waste of time to read
or report on our policies.
Yet it is a fact that our leadership is more diverse than the ANC's,
which is completely uni-racial. Our membership and support base are
far more non-racial than the ANC's. In fact in his most recent
political opinion survey, Professor Lawrence Schlemmer has concluded
that the DA is the most multi-racial party South Africa has ever had.
The notion that a party is "white" simply because it has a white
leader is outmoded and obsolete. If one were to apply this logic to
American politics, the Democrats would be classified as a black party,
with no prospect of governing simply because Barack Obama is their
presidential candidate.
Fortunately, our supporters, members and public representatives –
black and white – do not share Archbishop Tutu's views on voting. They
know that democracy is about real choice and that the choice in South
Africa is not between voting for the ANC and not voting at all. It is
between the closed, patronage society of the ANC and the DA's vision
of an open, opportunity society.
Our goal is to free South Africans from the shackles of race politics,
and to convince people to participate on the basis of values, policies
and principles. If we can do this, South Africa will become a
consolidated democracy in which substantive policy issues – rather
than racial identities – shape political debate, and in which the
ruling party can be peacefully dislodged from power at the polls,
because their policies have failed the people.
Our task is made harder by opinion makers who resort to facile
assertions about the absence of a credible opposition, or who
characterise opposition parties on the basis of their leaders' skin
colour. It is certainly not helped by those who preach
non-participation in the democratic process.
Archbishop Tutu has agreed to meet me to discuss the comments he made
to the Sunday Times, and I look forward to putting the case I have
made here to him personally. I aim to convince him that if he wants
South Africa to be a thriving constitutional democracy, and if he
wants to see a revival of the Rainbow Nation (a term he coined), then
he must do two things. He must not only reject the ANC in the 2009
election, but he must also familiarise himself with the DA's policies
and then make an informed choice on how to vote.
Best Wishes
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