Until We Have Won Our Liberty: South Africa after Apartheid 9780691203010, 9780691203003

Citation preview

­u n t i l w e h av e won ou r l i be rt y

­Until We Have Won Our Liberty Sou t h A f r ic a a ­ f t e r A pa rt h e i d

e va n l i e be r m a n

pr i nce­t on u n i v e r sit y pr e ss pr i nce­t on & ox for d

Copyright © 2022 by Prince­ton University Press Prince­ton University Press is committed to the protection of copyright and the intellectual property our authors entrust to us. Copyright promotes the pro­gress and integrity of knowledge. Thank you for supporting ­free speech and the global exchange of ideas by purchasing an authorized edition of this book. If you wish to reproduce or distribute any part of it in any form, please obtain permission. Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to permissions@press​.­princeton​.­edu Published by Prince­ton University Press 41 William Street, Prince­ton, New Jersey 08540 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press​.­princeton​.­edu All Rights Reserved ISBN: 9780691203003 ISBN (e-­book): 9780691203010 British Library Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data is available Editorial: Bridget Flannery-­McCoy & Alena Chekanov Production Editorial: Ali Parrington Jacket Design: Lauren Smith Production: Erin Suydam Publicity: Kate Hensley, James Schneider & Kathryn Stevens Jacket image: Supporters of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) celebrate election results at a rally in Johannesburg, South Africa, May 12, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings/File Photo This book has been composed in Arno Pro Printed on acid-­free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of Amer­i­ca 10 ​9 ​8 ​7 ​6 ​5 ​4 ​3 ​2 ​1

c on t e n t s

Preface  vii On South African Racial Categories  xi List of Abbreviations  xiii 1 The Campaign: Communicating Frustration

1

2 Citizens Choose: Election Day in Mogale City

25

3 The Value of Democracy

49

4 Before Democracy: Shaky Foundations

69

5 The Bold Experiment: Institutions for a Divided Society

102

6 Democracy ­after Mandela: A Stress Test

134

7 Prosperity: ­There ­Shall Be Houses, Security, and Comfort

169

8 Re­spect, Belonging, and Recognition

206

9 The Final Tallies ​239 Epilogue ​ 261 Acknowl­edgments ​267 Author’s Note on Primary Data and Analy­sis ​271 Notes ​ 275 Bibliography ​ 305 Index ​ 317 v

p r e fac e

during the last week of April 1994, in villages and cities across South Africa, adults of all ages and colors joined long, snaking lines to cast their votes in an election that was broadcast to observers around the globe. Their participation marked the launch of a highly improbable po­liti­cal experiment. ­After centuries of White rule, including over forty years ­under an Apartheid system that separated p­ eople according to racial classification, the po­liti­cal landscape was transformed. The electorate, fi­nally incorporating the Black majority, was now eight times larger than it had been during the last all-­W hite election. The voters would choose a previously banned po­liti­cal organ­ization, the African National Congress, headed by a former po­liti­cal prisoner, Nelson Mandela, to lead them. The new government would integrate ­people, local economies, and po­liti­cal authorities ­under a single system of law and governance. And they would attempt to do this while adhering to demo­ cratic princi­ples with a commitment to the rights of all ­people. I was just twenty-­three at the time of this amazing po­liti­cal transition, and I had already been thinking about and studying South Africa for several years. For me, as an American high school student in the 1980s, Apartheid government presented a rare instance of moral clarity. Th ­ ere was no ambiguity about the fact that this explic­itly racist system needed to be abolished, and college students, ordinary citizens, and heads of state the world over supported the cause of regime change. Before I could vote in my own country, the one po­liti­cal position I was certain of was my opposition to Apartheid. Since then, I’ve spent my entire adult life watching and cheering for this country on the other corner of the planet, to see w ­ hether it would make good on the anti-­Apartheid dreams of a truly demo­cratic and more prosperous ­future. vii

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Looking back now, ­there is one critical question to ask: Did it work? In this book, I reflect on South Africa’s rec­ord with multiracial, demo­ cratic government. Can we say it was a success? Or did the quest for demo­cratic integration in this divided society turn into fool’s gold? In the pages that follow, I document what I have learned in my attempts to understand what came before and what came ­after the transition away from Apartheid. For Americans and for ­others who confront legacies of institutionalized racism in their own socie­ties, South Africa offers a useful point of reference. Reflecting on its history raises impor­ tant questions about social justice h­ ere and in countries around the world that are grappling with the twin scourges of in­equality and intolerance. South Africans themselves vary widely in terms of how they rate their democracy. Frustration is palpable; and commentators’ assessments are often dismal. Is South Africa simply g­ oing the way of past failed attempts at demo­cratic development on the African continent? Several facts could be marshalled to support that conclusion: the country suffers from massive unemployment, poor health, poor education, and widespread corruption. By listing the set of social ills South Africans continue to face, one could quickly dismiss this demo­cratic experiment as an unmitigated disaster. In this book, I recognize t­ hese serious concerns, but I also try to shed light on relevant outcomes in historical and comparative perspective. In turn, my conclusions are far more favorable than local and national interlocutors have generally shared. In a mere twenty-­five years, u­ nder elected Black-­led governments, South Africans made remarkable gains ­toward achieving a more just society, with greater re­spect for the dignity of all ­people—­what I call dignified development. Many prob­lems remain and citizens are understandably frustrated that more has not been accomplished. And yet, we cannot lose sight of the fact that demo­cratic practice has moderated the tensions inherent in governing South Africa’s diverse society. Successive demo­cratic administrations have helped to improve the lives of millions across the country, with housing, basic ser­vices, social security, access to education, and more, and they have done so without resorting to po­liti­cal extremism or the complete

p r e fa c e   ix

exclusion of any minority group—­a fear that many expressed at the dawn of the demo­cratic era. This book is based on observations from de­cades of field research in South Africa and a ­great deal of teaching, research, and analy­sis along the way. During the months before and ­after the 2019 election, I made repeated visits to Mogale City, a municipality that serves as something of a microcosm and a key focus of the book. I conducted several dozen interviews t­ here and engaged in vari­ous types of participant observation, including attending rallies and council meetings, hanging out around polling stations, and occasionally jumping in a pickup truck to watch a politician engage in constituent ser­vice. I followed up on leads and referrals, and tried to use my instincts and knowledge of the context to adjudicate between fact and fiction. A wide range of voices, including ­those of current and former mayors, local councillors, reporters, clergy, business operators, NGO leaders, and o­ thers I met around the municipality, can be heard in the pages and analyses that follow. Throughout the book, I have used the a­ ctual names of public figures (politicians, bureaucrats, and NGO leaders) I interviewed but ­either disguise identities or report no names for all other ­people interviewed in order to protect their privacy. I also drew on a wide range of primary and secondary sources, including existing high-­quality representative surveys, as well as surveys I conducted myself, and a g­ reat deal of administrative data. (See “Author’s Note” for additional details on such data, including the acronyms used to identify vari­ous surveys and data sets.) My own identity—­what some refer to as positionality—­has ­shaped the questions I asked and my access to certain sources of information and data; it has also influenced the conclusions I derived from my analyses. This book is not a memoir by any means, but in some parts I explic­ itly reflect on my own journey through this country over time. I do this in part ­because the fact that I saw and heard certain ­things myself ­ought to enhance the credibility of ­those descriptions. To be transparent, it is also impor­tant to recognize that it was all filtered through me as a person, and w ­ ere I not a White American man and an academic with the resources to travel the country comfortably and in relative security,

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I might have encountered dif­fer­ent ­people and dif­fer­ent places, heard dif­fer­ent facts and stories, and arrived at dif­fer­ent conclusions. Despite more than three de­cades of engagement, I concede many blind spots remain. South Africa has eleven official languages, and I speak only one of them fluently—­English—­t hough I did learn enough Xhosa and a few phrases in Afrikaans to be able to express at least my desire to be empathic ­toward ­others’ views and to elicit smiles from my mispronunciations. Like so many ­others, I was initially drawn to study South Africa ­because the clear and sustained injustices of the Apartheid system ­were impossible to ignore. T ­ oday, ­after Apartheid, the politics of the country remain at least as compelling. Still burdened by the legacies of the past, po­liti­cal leaders face the challenge of building a shared ­future based on an entirely dif­fer­ent set of princi­ples, which themselves are still being worked out. Their efforts, successes, and failures offer the rest of us much food for thought about the possibilities for building more just socie­ties around the world.

on s ou t h a f r ic a n r ac i a l c at e g or i e s

while south african racial categories bear some similarities to ­those used in the con­temporary United States and other multiracial socie­ties, t­ here are also key differences. As a starting point, most recent official (government) South African documents use the term population group rather than race and do not provide the option for individuals to select multiple categories. In South Africa, four main categories inherited from the Apartheid era continue to be widely used—­Black or Black African; White; Indian or Asian; and Coloured—­and largely distinguish ­people based on physical characteristics and continental ancestry. The awkwardness in describing t­ hese categories reflects the real­ity that they are arbitrary social constructions. What made Apartheid South Africa unique was its insistence on rigid classification and legislation—­attempting to give scientific foundations to categories that are themselves not scientifically distinguishable. For example, the 1950 Population Registration Act can be quoted verbatim to remind us that ­these categories are merely conventions: “A White person is one who is in appearance obviously white—­and not generally accepted as Coloured—or who is generally accepted as White—­and is not obviously Non-­W hite, provided that a person ­shall not be classified as a White person if one of his natu­ral parents has been classified as a Coloured person or a Bantu.” The term “Coloured” may be particularly jarring to American readers, as it appears both antiquated and offensive given its connection to racial segregation in the United States, but it is impor­tant to highlight that the connotation is quite distinct in the South African context. In fact, the term was decried in South Africa as being offensive for some xi

xii  s ou t h a f r ic a n r a c i a l c a t e g or i e s

time, but that is largely not the case t­ oday, and it is commonly used, including as a proud source of self-­identification. Specifically, Coloureds are the descendants of mixed-­race parentage; in some cases, like for the South African comedian Trevor Noah, this implies parents of dif­fer­ent races, one Black, one White. However, most ­people who identify as Coloured are the product of many generations of two Coloured parents, each of whose ancestors had much ­earlier (perhaps ­going back centuries) engaged in racial “mixing,” frequently in the form of White men and Black African w ­ omen—­typically enslaved or in other­wise subordinate social positions. Thus, the term “Coloured” refers to a specific subset of the population and not to all p­ eople “of color.” Most Coloureds largely speak e­ ither En­glish or Afrikaans and are predominantly located in the western part of the country. More recently, many who might have been classified as Coloured ­under Apartheid but trace their ancestry to a distinct group of indigenous ­people have demanded recognition as Khoisan. In the Apartheid hierarchy, Whites w ­ ere at the top, Coloureds and Indians next, and Black Africans at the bottom with re­spect to rights, income, living conditions, and just about ­every way in which a person could be treated. In turn, references to Blacks sometimes imply a combination of ­these groups and other times simply to Black Africans. I believe that my use of racial categories in the pages of this book accords well with conventional practice in South Africa ­today. However, some understandably reject such labels and charge t­ hose, including journalists and academics who continue to use them, with perpetuating the very hierarchies that South Africa’s Apartheid system sought to create. Still ­others prefer the use of alternative categories. My use of ­these terms is not meant to cast judgment on their inherent legitimacy over other types of social categories but simply to convey my recognition of their salience in politics and society.

l i s t of a bbr e v i at ions



ANC African National Congress

AWB Afrikaner-­weerstandsbeweging (Afrikaner Re­sis­tance Movement) COSATU Congress of South African Trade Unions

CP Conservative Party



DA Demo­cratic Alliance



DP Demo­cratic Party



EFF Economic Freedom Fighters



FF+ Freedom Front Plus

GEAR Growth, Employment and Re­distribution Plan IDASA Institute for Demo­cratic Alternatives in South Africa (­later renamed as Institute for Democracy in South Africa)

IEC Electoral Commission of South Africa



IFP Inkatha Freedom Party



LRC ­Legal Resources Centre



MK Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation)—­militant wing of the ANC



NP National Party



PAC Pan Africanist Congress



RDP Reconstruction and Development Programme

SACP South African Communist Party

UDF United Demo­cratic Front xiii

­U n t i l W e H av e Won Ou r L i be rt y

1 The Campaign c om m u n ic at i ng f ru s t r at ion

i had just sat down and taken out my notebook when I heard a loud thud. It was a few minutes a­ fter 9 a.m. on the last Friday of January 2019. I had come to meet a prospective research assistant at the Chicken Licken in downtown Krugersdorp, about an hour’s drive from Johannesburg. A modest-­but-­modern fast food restaurant, clean and sparsely furnished, it was one of the most popu­lar spots in a neighborhood that was other­wise filled with unremarkable storefronts, including several tire stores, low-­price clothing boutiques, and pawn shops. Signs for quick and easy abortions adorned many of the adjacent buildings. I noticed that the restaurant man­ag­er was hurrying around the exterior of the building, slamming shut each of the heavy exterior gates used for security after-­hours. The pair of police officers who had been sitting and chatting at the ­table next to me had dis­appeared. Most of the other customers eating and drinking t­ here that morning had also left their ­tables in order to gather close to the exit, huddling u­ nder the threshold as they looked out cautiously onto the street. I stood up and joined the small crowd. We all peered out ­toward the action to our left and could see a loud throng of p­ eople toyi-­toying. The toyi-­toyi is a protest march that became popu­lar in Black townships beginning in the late 1970s in the wake of the growing campaign against White rule in South Africa.1 On that day in January, thousands of p­ eople ­were hopping, dancing, singing, and yelling all along the multiple lanes 1

2  c h a p t e r 1

of Commissioner Street. They held hand-­printed placards in their hands proclaiming, “No ser­vice, no vote” and “2019 no vote.” It was still morning, but it was already getting hot in the summer sun. Sweat streamed down the protesters’ ­faces. The man­ag­er was closing the metal gates ­because the previous week, a dif­fer­ent protest had turned violent and rubber bullets had broken win­dows. She wanted to protect the new win­dows, the restaurant, and, presumably, any customers who remained. Krugersdorp has long been a site of confrontation and conflict. Within a few years of its founding in 1887, it developed rapidly into a hard-­drinking, hard-­gambling, transient mining town and was frequently likened to the American “Wild West.”2 It was established to serve the booming gold mining industry a year a­ fter rich deposits ­were found in nearby Johannesburg. The allure of quick profits attracted thousands of foreigners, mostly from Britain but also from Australia, Ireland, and Amer­i­ca, other parts of Africa, and other corners of the world. Over many generations individual explorers, groups, and sometimes even warring parties came through this town to try to carve out a better life. For most of its history and up ­until the 1990s, Krugersdorp was designated for Whites only. Black p­ eople w ­ ere permitted to work h­ ere only if they carried a special permit, and mostly they ­were relegated to the neighboring Black townships of Munsieville and Kagiso (pronounced Kah-­hee-so). As early as the first few years of the twentieth ­century, the Krugersdorp Town Council deliberately regulated the movement of Black Africans into and out of well-­demarcated areas on the outskirts of town.3 Indeed this distinction between “towns” and “townships” was fundamental to the racial ordering built up throughout South Africa during most of the twentieth ­century. ­Today, downtown Krugersdorp is filled with ­people from all race groups and a wide range of nationalities. By contrast, Kagiso (about seven miles south) and Munsieville (less than four miles north) remain almost all Black, though the latter also hosts Pango Camp, a small informal settlement of poor Whites. On this day in 2019, the approximately two thousand Munsieville residents ­were marching to see Patrick Lipudi, mayor of Mogale City

T h e C a m pa i g n   3

figure 1.1. Site of protest outside Chicken Licken, Krugersdorp.

Local Municipality, which now incorporates all of ­these areas ­under a single local government. Lipudi is himself Black. In the 1970s and 1980s, he had served as a u­ nion leader, po­liti­cal activist, and protester; and he danced the toyi-­toyi during the strug­gle for Black liberation. Like so many ­others who once led protest movements and ­were now serving as government officials, he had become the target of anger and frustration. The protesters ­were making demands for better ­water and electricity. It was the last weekend of voter registration for the upcoming national elections, and when interviewed l­ ater that day, the protest’s or­ga­nizer said the p­ eople of Munsie­ ville ­were prepared to boycott further registrations.4 For Lipudi and other government leaders, such boycotts could cost the ruling party precious votes in a close election, and they would be forced to negotiate.

4  c h a p t e r 1

Democracy Up Close I had traveled to Krugersdorp, the seat of Mogale City government, to observe the campaign for this national election. I wanted to learn more about how multiracial democracy was faring ­after twenty-­five years. The country’s first multiracial election, in 1994, had marked an impor­ tant milestone in a highly improbable po­liti­cal transformation. It produced a shift in power away from an eco­nom­ically dominant White minority in ­favor of universal adult suffrage, resulting in a Black-­led government. In terms of population and economic development, ending Apartheid and creating an integrated South Africa was like fusing together the relatively poor African country of K ­ enya and the much smaller and wealthier Eu­ro­pean country of Denmark into a single polity in just a few years’ time. Between 1989 and 1994, the size of the electorate increased by a ­factor of eight, from over 2.5 million to close to 20 million voters.5 During that period, the country transitioned away from civil war—­a fact which itself did not bode well for demo­cratic development if one considered the trajectories of other postconflict countries.6 And now it was time to ask: What can students of democracy and social justice the world over learn from this ambitious po­liti­cal endeavor? That a large protest swept right in front of me on my first day—in fact, in the first fifteen minutes of my time in Krugersdorp—­was an impor­tant reminder of the mood of many of the country’s citizens: they ­were frustrated, angry, and losing patience. In this chapter and in the next, I share what I observed about con­temporary South African politics from the perspective of the 2019 national election as it played out in Mogale City—­first the campaign, and then election day itself. This ­will provide an introduction to the diverse actors and concerns driving the heated po­liti­cal competition in the country. I set my gaze on the midsized South African municipality of Mogale City b­ ecause, at least from afar, it appeared to be a place that could serve as something of a microcosm for learning more about South Africa. It is racially diverse, prior elections tracked national trends ­toward greater competitiveness, and it straddles the country’s very dif­fer­ent urban and rural areas. On the one hand, the municipality abuts South Africa’s

T h e C a m pa i g n   5

megalopolis—­the corridor between “Joburg” and Pretoria, home to over 8 million residents. Yet, even the most urbanized section of Mogale—­Krugersdorp, with a population of about 140,000—is still just a town. Streets can get busy during trading hours, but t­ here are no high-­ rise buildings. Just a few miles away, still very much within Mogale’s borders, lie thousands of acres of farmland. Black and White, rich and poor, urban and rural, and support for dif­fer­ent po­liti­cal parties represent the most impor­tant sources of diversity in South Africa; and all are contained within Mogale. The municipality is located in Gauteng Province, specifically in an area known as the West Rand—­a reference to the Witwatersrand, an approximately thirty-­five-­mile rock escarpment that elevates its residents over a mile above sea level. The Rand is also quite literally the source of continental divide, as runoff from the plateau feeds the Crocodile, Limpopo, Vaal, and Orange rivers, which in turn drain into the Indian and Atlantic oceans. Wanderers and explorers came ­here even before the transformative discovery of ­great mineral wealth in the ground below. No part of Southern Africa has drawn more ­people into such a concentrated area. And on my drive in from Johannesburg that January day in 2019, I noticed the immodest welcome sign, “Mogale City: Cradle of Humankind,” a reference to rich archaeological discoveries within the municipal bound­aries. Mogale’s northern border is drawn by the Magaliesberg mountains, the site of millions of years of ­human occupation, and at least hundreds of years of known trading and conflict between groups of ­people moving into and out of the area. Although I never spent any significant amount of time in Krugersdorp or Mogale prior to 2019, I have been studying South African politics for my entire c­ areer and adult life. And I wanted to take stock of what had and had not been accomplished since the time of the demo­ cratic transition, especially as democracy seemed to be in peril around the world, including in my own country, the United States. Populist leaders and parties have been on the rise around the globe—in Hungary, the United States, Brazil, the Philippines, India, and elsewhere—­ and they have been characterized by increasingly authoritarian tendencies. South Africa was plausibly fertile ground for such appeals.

figure 1.2. Map of Mogale City Local Municipality in South Africa.

T h e C a m pa i g n   7

Anti-­immigrant and anti-­elite sentiment was already strong in many pockets—­and very strong in Mogale City. It would not take much imagination to or­ga­nize highly racist campaigns; and any of a number of well-­worn strategies to identify a culpable elite and/or additional scapegoats had the potential to win votes. Even beyond the seemingly fragile nature of liberal democracy around the globe, South Africa’s 2019 contest appeared pivotal in so many ways: the electoral choices w ­ ere stark, as the competing parties offered very dif­fer­ent candidates and visions; and more than any national election since 1994, this one appeared to be quite competitive. Democracy is about a lot more than just elections, but elections are both necessary and crucial, and I wanted to watch this one up close. I would start by simply observing the pro­cess, particularly as it unfolded in this one municipality, asking: What w ­ ere the leading po­liti­cal parties offering as interpretations of the past and proposals for the f­ uture? How ­were citizens responding to ­those campaigns? And then I would consider the historical rec­ord, look comparatively at other countries, and try to make sense of what I observed with re­spect to the efforts to forge a new government and to deliver. Ultimately, my goal was to assess the strength and value of South Africa’s still young democracy. When I arrived in Mogale City, the municipality and the nation ­were just three months from marking the twenty-­fifth anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s historic electoral victory in the first-­ever truly multiracial election, one that was celebrated as a credible promise to redress the types of indignities that befell Black township dwellers like the p­ eople of Munsieville. It was also a quarter ­century, more or less, since the end of Apartheid—­ literally translated as apartness—­a style of government launched in 1948 with the express goal of keeping ­people from dif­fer­ent race groups apart from one another. Institutionalized White supremacy, including in the form of slavery, had been practiced to varying degrees throughout southern Africa almost immediately a­ fter the arrival of Dutch settlers in 1652. When Krugersdorp was formed, it was contained within the South African Republic, a landmass representing approximately one-­quarter

8  c h a p t e r 1

of modern South Africa. Many of that government’s harsh rules and practices, including issuing passes to control the movement of Black ­people, would become the foundation for sustained racial oppression. Of course, southern Africa was not alone in its institutionalization of racial hierarchies. Most of the African continent was at some point colonized by White Eu­ro­pe­ans; and the African slave trade was built on ideas of racial supremacy. The United States and Brazil both imported massive numbers of slaves, and the lasting results of race-­based inequalities are starkly evident in t­ hese countries even t­ oday. What made South Africa both truly unique and infamous was the degree to which its White government doubled down on segregation and a panoply of racially exclusionary policies during the second half of the twentieth ­century. When the National Party gained power in a surprising electoral victory just three years ­after the end of World War II, Apartheid-­style government came to define South Africa as a White minority persisted in developing a vision of government and citizenship for Whites only. Apartheid planners tried to market their proj­ect to the world as one promoting national self-­determination, a language that was more acceptable to postwar sensibilities as the age of empire had come to an end. And yet, t­ here was no mistaking the fact that the Apartheid proj­ect sought to forcibly segregate and separate ­people of color into the least desirable territories in the region and to control them as sources of cheap l­ abor. All of the Apartheid laws and practices ­were felled in the early 1990s. And yet, the end of Apartheid was not the end of South Africa’s difficult history. Deep Apartheid and pre-­A partheid legacies remained, and while vari­ous negotiating parties agreed to adopt a multiracial democracy, its success was hardly preordained. Moreover, a quarter of a ­century is clearly not sufficient to redress three and a half centuries of racial hierarchy. Nonetheless, the silver anniversary of the first multiracial election presented a fitting opportunity to take stock of what had been accomplished relative to expectations, to the past, and to other countries. In the pages that follow, I show that South Africa’s first twenty-­five years of demo­cratic government w ­ ere extremely successful. Many pro­b­ lems remain and citizens are understandably frustrated that more was

T h e C a m pa i g n   9

not accomplished during this period. However, we cannot lose sight of the fact that demo­cratic practice has moderated the tensions inherent in governing South Africa’s diverse society. Successive demo­cratic administrations have helped to improve the lives of millions across the country, in terms of housing, basic ser­v ices, social security, access to education, and more, and they have done so without resorting to po­liti­ cal extremism. Notwithstanding t­ hese accomplishments, South Africa’s democracy remains fragile. Democracy itself is an imperfect form of government even u­ nder the best of circumstances. Hopes and expectations can quickly outpace concrete change. The machinations of demo­cratic politics are inherently self-­critical, and pro­gress is routinely made through shining a bright light on prob­lems, which itself feeds a sense of frustration. While often effective, ­these pro­cesses can contribute to an underappreciation of the enterprise.

The Issues and the Parties The very proposition of demo­cratic rule in South Africa has long seemed daunting b­ ecause of the profound diversity of its citizenry. Even in relatively small and homogeneous socie­ties, attempts to forge binding agreements through demo­c ratic processes—­t hose that allow for input from and some form of veto power to ordinary citizens and their representatives—­frequently prove to be challenging. Especially with four major race groups, eleven official languages, a relatively even split between ­those living in rural and urban areas, and the highest level of income in­equality in the world, the notion of “common interest” can seem elusive. And yet, one of the ­great promises of demo­cratic competition is that in the quest for votes, electoral candidates ­w ill make appeals to large swaths of the population, forging co­ali­tions among ­people with other­ wise divergent backgrounds. And for the most part, the parties competing in the 2019 electoral contest advanced credible and distinct ideas concerning how to govern South Africa’s highly diverse and unequal society. They provided answers to two central questions that had been

10  c h a p t e r 1

asked for over a ­century, including during the very 1948 election that set the stage for Apartheid. First, ­there was the race question, or r­ eally, a set of race questions: How did the party propose to address the legacies of race-­based in­ equality and conflict? Would it seek to promote integration, autonomy, or something ­else? And what should be the racial identity of the party’s leaders and of its core supporters? Second, and certainly relatedly, ­there was the economic question. On the one hand, just about every­body wants a better life in material terms, to have more comfortable shelter, basic ser­vices, and opportunities for leisure, and to take advantage of new products and new technologies. But how would the parties address the profound economic inequalities that called into question any sense of a shared humanity? All across the country, and certainly in Mogale City, you could find neighborhoods of ­people living in modern homes with all the amenities available in the United States or in Eu­rope just a few miles from t­ hose living in informal structures of corrugated metal without basic ser­vices, such as electricity, clean ­water, or a flush toilet, let alone access to a decent job. What role should the state play in providing economic opportunities and security? What role for the “market” and competition? Should ­those who ­were previously disadvantaged get a leg up? Both issues spoke to a larger question of ­human worth or dignity. How should ­people across the color bar be treated by one another and by the state? If politics is about who gets what, and how,7 the South African parties epitomized a good po­liti­cal contest b­ ecause if nothing e­ lse, in 2019, each of the five leading po­liti­cal parties was offering very dif­fer­ent answers to ­these questions. At the center of the election was the African National Congress (ANC), the ruling party for twenty-­five years and before that a prominent challenger to White government for eight de­cades. In 1963, Nelson Mandela and a group of other ANC leaders ­were arrested for, among other t­ hings, sabotage and conspiracy in the wake of their efforts to

T h e C a m pa i g n   11

topple Apartheid. They served harsh prison sentences on Robben Island, but their heroic efforts at liberation ­were rewarded handily in the first multiracial elections in 1994. Although its support base was overwhelmingly Black African, the party had historically appointed p­ eople from vari­ous race groups to its leadership posts. It espoused racial inclusion and compromise even if its detractors sometimes argue that it does the opposite. On the economy, the ANC’s approach has been center-­left and quite moderate in many ways. The ANC had always had a highly educated middle-­class elite in its leadership ranks; but through its links with ­unions it extended its reach to workers and was even able to appeal to rural peasants through traditional leaders. It promoted economic preference policies (aka affirmative action), but not radical re­distribution; and certainly in post-­Apartheid South Africa, and in the context of the global economy in the late twentieth c­ entury, the organ­ization had bet on the power of competitive markets. For years, Mandela had been celebrated as a saintlike figure. But by 2019, the ANC was treading lightly in its tributes to him and its focus on the organ­ization’s role in ending Apartheid. Months before the election, new critics joined a growing chorus that challenged Mandela’s g­ rand bargain with the very White government that had oppressed Black ­people. They complained that during the transition of the early 1990s, he had given away too much to Whites. ­Others, even Black leaders within the ANC, believed that during the first election campaign, he promised too much to Blacks. E ­ ither way, the charismatic icon who had passed away five years ­earlier, at the age of ninety-­five, was being quietly blamed for some of the mess the country was in. As the incumbent party, the ANC had to stand on its rec­ord. Commentators in the media and the acad­emy shared a steady flow of criticism and sometimes described the country as being “at a precipice” or “on the brink.” Citizens ­were frustrated by all sorts of issues, not the least of which was the load-­shedding or rolling blackouts to ration electricity that was insufficient to meet total demand. Stories of ANC corruption, vio­lence, high rates of unemployment, and newly emboldened

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as well as newly formed po­liti­cal parties calling for change all dominated the news. In fact, one of the country’s major scandals was centered in Mogale City. It involved Bosasa, a private South African com­pany with headquarters in Krugersdorp that, among other ­things, provided prison ser­vices to the government. In January 2019, the owner—­a White businessman with long-­standing ANC ties—­was caught paying out bribes to ANC officials, all the way up to President Jacob Zuma, in exchange for comfortable government contracts and leniency with re­spect to affirmative action rules.8 For fifteen years, the country had confronted an almost endless battery of protests like the one that passed by Krugersdorp’s Chicken Licken. While ­those protests had many messages, they ­were mostly a rebuke to ANC rule or at least to par­tic­u­lar ANC leaders or factions. The main opposition g­ oing into the election was the Demo­cratic Alliance (DA). Like the ANC, they ­were also a big-­tent party and by 2019 had a much more racially diverse support base than the ANC. While their leader at the time of the election was a Black man—­Mmusi Maimane—­most of their leadership was White, and the party was born of White liberals, many of whom challenged, but also lived quite comfortably within the Apartheid system. Unlike the ANC, the DA is more explic­itly pro-­market, and more critical of Black preference policies, while stopping short of being rabidly laissez-­faire. For years the DA had campaigned on good government, arguing that the one province it controlled (the Western Cape) and the several municipalities it governed performed better than in t­ hose provinces and municipalities where the ANC was in power. Many of the DA’s White leaders could often be attacked for flat-­footed comments that failed to appreciate the challenges still faced by Black South Africans in the post-­Apartheid context. When its then-­leader Helen Zille tweeted in 2017 about some of the positive legacies of colonial rule, she was eviscerated on social media and faced widespread charges of racism from ANC and other party leaders and commentators. If the DA and the ANC w ­ ere fighting over a big center and a wide and diverse polity, the other major contenders in the election had much

T h e C a m pa i g n   13

more focused constituencies and distinct answers to the questions of the day. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) was a relatively new party, but they w ­ ere taking up ideas that had been around for generations, espousing a more exclusionary Black nationalism and a very central role for the state in the economy. Although its ideology was strong, the party was very much embodied in the thirty-­seven-­year-­old firebrand, Julius “Juju” Malema, who had been expelled from the ANC, where he had been the leader of their influential Youth League. Malema had been convicted of hate speech and was a divisive figure in an ANC led by an older generation of liberation activists. He epitomized rebellion and nonconformity. He and his EFF had creatively captured the imagination of Black, disaffected urban dwellers, particularly the young, by reminding them of the per­sis­tent inequalities and indignities of everyday life in the country and by laying virtually all the blame on the ANC for such outcomes. Malema was clearly a populist candidate in the sense of being someone who tried to appeal to ordinary citizens through anti-­elite messages. But unlike many populist contemporaries elsewhere in the world, he did not seek to scapegoat foreigners. In fact, he was out­spoken in his rejection of xenophobic vio­lence, promoting instead a pan-­Africanist vision. He and his party spotlighted the real­ity that the country remained deeply, devastatingly unequal and that t­ here had been very l­ ittle re­distribution of land from the White minority to the Black majority even u­ nder ANC government.9 Malema was demanding a radical re­ distribution of income, wealth, and power in one of the most unequal socie­ties on the planet. Malema scared the ANC and he ­really scared South Africa’s White population, who saw him as the greatest threat since the advent of this multiracial democracy. Whites would certainly be losers in any serious redistributive scheme. To date, they had not paid dearly for the sins of the past, and in the ­grand scheme, their comfortable lifestyles had remained as such. And Malema would continue to remind them and the Black majority of such basic facts.

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Beyond ­these three parties, with their respective ideas, a fourth idea was still very much on the South African po­liti­cal menu. Ethnocultural autonomy was advocated in dif­fer­ent ways by two dif­fer­ent parties—­both with much smaller support bases as compared with the first three, while representing groups that are central to the South African story. The Freedom Front Plus (FF+)10 is largely, but not entirely, the party of extreme-­right Afrikaners. While numerically small t­ oday—­W hite South Africans who speak Afrikaans at home comprise less than 5 ­percent of the population11—­this group has always managed to carry outsize po­ liti­cal influence through military might and tight po­liti­cal organ­ization. As early as the eigh­teenth ­century, Dutch descendants, along with French Huguenots and a few other Eu­ro­pe­ans, increasingly spoke a variant of the Dutch language and came to think of themselves as a ­people attached to this land. Many began to self-­identify as Afrikaners—or, simply, Africans. (They would also self-­identify as Boers, or farmers.) The Afrikaners developed a strong identity and po­liti­cal strength by mobilizing around narratives of persecution and the quest for self-­rule. Indeed, Krugersdorp’s namesake, and one of the country’s most famous Afrikaners, Paul Johannes Kruger, r­ ose to be president of one of the two Afrikaner republics that predated the formation of modern South Africa. Born in 1825, Kruger was a boy living on the Cape when his parents de­cided that they could no longer remain u­ nder recently imposed British rule, which included banning the use of the Dutch language. They abandoned their home and took Paul, at around the age of nine, to participate in the storied “­Great Trek,” the Afrikaner migration from the Cape to the eastern and northeastern parts of southern Africa, including around modern-­day Mogale City. Ultimately, the rise of the National Party, which designed and implemented Apartheid, was the product of an Afrikaner effort to wrest control from English-­speaking South Africans and t­ hose with more cap­i­tal­ist and internationalist orientations. Arguably, one of the most far-­reaching affirmative action programs ever implemented—­and successful in terms of promoting economic re­distribution—­was that in f­ avor of Afrikaners during the Apartheid era.12

T h e C a m pa i g n   15

And now in 2019, a collection of Afrikaners mobilized by the FF+ ­were playing a similar card decrying cultural oppression by a Black majority and Black-­led government. ­Going into this election, the Afrikaner quest for autonomy was not expressed explic­itly in terms of the inherent supremacy of one group over another, but their core po­liti­cal proposition was that dif­fer­ent ­people, marked by language and history, share distinct values and prefer to be among themselves, and to do as they please, at least within their own community. Although they w ­ ere White and generally eco­nom­ically privileged relative to the majority, they w ­ ere using the same language of claims-­making—­calling for recognition and autonomy—in the manner frequently articulated by marginalized indigenous groups in countries around the world. One might say it was a bit of chutzpah. The FF+ had not earned many seats in the national Parliament or in the Mogale City council. But in a tight election in South Africa’s par­tic­ u­lar electoral system, it could potentially play a decisive role and get at least some of what it wanted. And it continued to broadcast a foundational idea that remained strong in South Africa: address the country’s diversity by staying apart. Like the DA, they rejected affirmative action, arguing that twenty-­five years was long enough for Black preference policies. The party’s leaders routinely argued that White p­ eople w ­ ere “scapegoated” for the prob­lems of the ANC government. Also clamoring for ethnocultural autonomy was the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), the party most closely tied to the Zulu Kingdom, with Zulus constituting the largest language-­based ethnic group in the country. Zulus could boast a long history of military might and recorded numerous strong stands against the incursions of Eu­ro­pean settlement and eastward expansion. On the one hand, the IFP drew its support from a largely poor, rural, and Black base and was less overtly at odds with the ANC government, which might make it appear quite distant from the FF+. But on the other hand, ironically, like the FF+, the IFP embraced many Apartheid-­created institutions, including structures for incorporating traditional leadership and an appeal to a distinctly Zulu electorate. While the IFP certainly advocated for more social spending on the poor, particularly with regard to

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health care and the el­derly, the party’s views on ethnic autonomy w ­ ere much more aligned with t­ hose of the FF+ than with t­ hose of the other leading parties. At the dawn of the demo­cratic era, the IFP had been a significant po­liti­cal force, but by 2019, its influence had clearly waned.

A Last Push for Votes Despite my long-­standing fascination with South African politics, and having traveled to the country regularly over almost thirty years, I had never been pre­sent for an election, and I was excited to observe this historic one up close and unfiltered. A ­ fter my initial visit to Mogale in January and February during the South African summer, I returned in early May to cooler temperatures as winter approached. I arrived at Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport—so named for the celebrated, former ANC leader, Oliver Tambo—on the Friday morning before the election and efficiently made it through passport control and customs and into a rental car. Having driven from the airport so many times, I could almost take for granted the glimmering infrastructure that lines the sides of the wide and modern highway connecting the airport to vari­ous corners of the country. I dutifully obeyed the driving instructions broadcasting from my phone, took a ­couple of turns off the highway, and then became suddenly much more conscious of the goings-on outside my car. My driver’s-­seat view of sleek, glassy exteriors had given way to plumes of black smoke on the side of the road. The street-­side stores ­were unevenly finished with hand-­painted signs; p­ eople w ­ ere burning open fires and walking across the multiple lanes of the wide street. Several stores advertised that they would ­either buy or sell metal scraps. The division between road, commerce, and residential life had blurred, and I slowed down as the rules of the road had clearly changed. I was now in Alex—­“Alexandra” township—­which in the weeks before had been home to multiple election-­related protests akin to what I had observed in Krugersdorp a few months ­earlier. I continued on to ascend a small hill, and when I arrived at the top, I could see out in the not-­so-­far distance a set of tall office buildings. If

T h e C a m pa i g n   17

you wanted a single image to capture the contrast between the haves and the have-­nots, this was the place to take that picture. As I exited Alex, I proceeded into Sandton, one of the wealthiest areas of the country. It is where some of the leading companies—­including the large mining concerns and vari­ous multinationals at the core of the country’s industrial economy—­maintain their corporate offices. Just a few days e­ arlier, on May 1, Julius Malema stood before a packed crowd at a Workers’ Day Rally—­held in Alex—in which he communicated the EFF’s aspirations, warning of the revolutionary potential born of such stark inequalities, and had this par­tic­u­lar contrast in mind: “How do White p­ eople in Sandton sleep when they see their neighbors ­here in Alex living like this?” he asked. “We keep blaming government‚ yes let us do that, but what are Sandton p­ eople d­ oing to help their neighbors? They are not ­doing anything, but they are staying ­behind high walls ­because they are scared of us. They are eating alone and when you are eating alone your subconscious tells you to build high walls before ­these p­ eople come.”13 The message was a power­ful one. More than anything e­ lse, profound in­equality—­mostly, but not entirely, race-­based—­remains the source of po­liti­cal tension in this country. For the have-­nots, the question is, who is to blame, and what is to be done about this sorry state of affairs? The parties would need to offer compelling answers to address the frustrations associated with such questions. During the final weekend before the election, each of the three largest parties—­the ANC, the DA, and the EFF—­would wrap up their campaigns with rallies in Soweto, a name born as an acronym for South Western Townships. It was arguably the country’s most impor­tant Black township ­because of its size, its po­liti­ cal history, and its attachment to Johannesburg, the economic heartland of the country. It abuts Mogale City’s largest Black township, Kagiso.

ANC Rally The ANC held its rally at Ellis Park soccer stadium. It followed a well-­ worn approach: warm-up remarks from lower-­ranking party dignitaries to build momentum, followed by a clean-up speech by the face on the

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ballot. Despite the party’s claim to be “of the p­ eople,” the stadium floor was filled with VIPs separated from the masses in the bleachers. From the podium, the speaker frequently shouted, “Amandla” (“Power”), extending the ­middle “a” out over several seconds. The crowd’s dutiful response: “Awaaaaaaay-­too” (“Awethu” or “to the ­people”). When the state president and the ANC lead candidate in the election, Cyril Ramaphosa, fi­nally appeared onstage, he was wearing a T-­shirt and baseball cap instead of his usual business suit. At the time, Ramaphosa was sixty-­six, and he had lived many lives. He was born in Soweto, attended university, and, like so many liberation leaders, both studied law and faced multiple bouts of incarceration for breaking unjust Apartheid laws. He helped launch a major mine-­ working u­ nion in the 1980s, and the chairman of Anglo American described him as the “toughest, ablest, and shrewdest negotiator he’d had to deal with during his tenure.”14 And though Ramaphosa played a central role in po­liti­cal and constitutional negotiations, his early post-­ Apartheid ­career was in business, not politics. In just the first few years of the new democracy, he was widely courted to run vari­ous businesses and to sit on multiple corporate boards. He went on to become a leading mining executive, a veritable business titan worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He always remained closely tied to the ANC, however, and was generally well regarded by a range of constituents from the dif­fer­ent circles in which he traveled. He did have one glaring blemish on his rec­ord—­one that was still relatively fresh. In 2012, in the wake of a wildcat strike at the Lonmin platinum mine in the town of Marikana—­less than fifty kilo­meters north of the northern boundary of Mogale City—­Lonmin’s management asked him to play the role of “fixer” during this moment of growing conflict. Ramaphosa, the former u­ nion leader, a­ dopted the views of management and argued that the strikers ­were acting as criminals, and he called in the police. Approximately 400 members of the South African Police Ser­vice arrived with assault r­ ifles and they opened fire, leaving 78 injured and 34 mine workers dead.15 What came to be known as the Marikana Massacre triggered additional strike waves across the mining sector and left many inside and outside of the ANC suspicious of

T h e C a m pa i g n   19

who Ramaphosa r­ eally represented. The massacre also fueled anger at an ANC already ­under fire from its core constituents. Nonetheless, he worked to resuscitate his image; l­ater that year he ran and won an internal ANC election for deputy president of the party. He would soon become deputy president of the state and, following the resignation of Jacob Zuma in 2018, president of the country. On this sunny day in 2019, and with this crowd, he presented himself more as ­labor or­ga­nizer and man of the ­people than as boardroom mogul. He respectfully paid tribute to the local dignitaries pre­sent, as well as special guests from other African countries, including the former Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan. Ramaphosa acknowledged the swelling negative sentiment around the ANC. “We admit that we have made ­mistakes and we put ourselves before our ­people,” he said, adding: “but it is only t­ hose who are d­ oing nothing who d­ on’t make m ­ istakes.” Th ­ ose convicted for corruption would not be able to serve in leadership roles in the ANC, he promised—­ leaving aside the question of ­whether anyone would actually be investigated, let alone convicted. What he w ­ asn’t saying explic­itly, but what was well known, was that over the previous two de­cades, the ANC had become a ­house divided. Beyond Malema’s a­ ctual split from the party, ­there ­were major factions within the party, including ­those who still supported former president Zuma and a style of government that rested on patronage—­ the granting of f­ avors and appointments for supporters. Ramaphosa was trying to clean up the ANC’s image, to recapture supporters who had left in disgust. Along ­these lines, he had expressed remorse about the recent direction of the ANC almost a year before, when he reached out to the Nobel prize-­w inning, octogenarian, and former anti-­A partheid activist Archbishop Desmond Tutu.16 Tutu had made no public statement about ­w hether he accepted the apology, and the uncertainty about Tutu’s vote mirrored the pos­si­ble uncertainty of many Black voters. On the other hand, Ramaphosa also would not want to fully alienate ­those card-­carrying ANC members who had supported his rivals, certainly not a few days before the general election.

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Then he pivoted to the issue of voter turnout, smiled, and offered practical advice in a gentler tone. “If you sleep with someone in your bed, wake them up and say, ‘Sweetheart, let’s go and vote.’ ”

DA Rally The DA hosted its final rally at the stadium in Dobsonville, Soweto, childhood neighborhood of the party’s leader, Mmusi Maimane, who was born in nearby Krugersdorp. In its early years, the DA attracted mostly White and Coloured supporters. On this Saturday before the election, the audience ­here looked to be at least 90 ­percent Black African. Every­one received a T-­shirt, a goody bag with snacks, and a large ­water ­bottle. One cannot underestimate the importance of the giveaways to induce attendance and create goodwill in the days before the election. The planners smartly avoided booking one of the larger stadiums, as images of empty seats ­don’t play well anywhere. They seemed to just fill the 24,000-­person arena. When Maimane arrived, the crowd predictably erupted. Handsome and slender, with a shaved head and trim beard, wearing a suit and open-­collared shirt, he walked around the edge of the stadium. I had to give him credit—­Maimane was surely comfortable in a stuffy boardroom, but when the m ­ usic was blasting and he was on the spot to dance and move while greeting supporters, he appeared totally at ease. He took the stage and bellowed, “Vote us in. If we d­ on’t do what we promise, vote us out!” He outlined lots of policies; not all received the same level of enthusiasm. “I want to reform our politics so that ­people of all races can work together ­towards one goal, instead of retreating back into separate corners. . . . ​I want e­ very home to have at least one job. That way all South Africans ­will have the dignity of an income.” I was surprised by how loudly the audience applauded his call for “secure borders.” I had interviewed Maimane a few years e­ arlier, and his precise and philosophical ruminations reflected his advanced degrees in theology and public administration. On this day, he a­ dopted the voice and intonation of a traditional ANC politician, a low and guttural voice, interspersing En­glish and Zulu, and led the crowd in a few call-­and-­responses of

T h e C a m pa i g n   21

“Amandla” and “Awethu.” He surely delivered very dif­fer­ent speeches when addressing audiences in the White suburbs. Trying to appeal to a multiracial, multiclass electorate was a tall order. Yet in a country where mixed-­race marriages had long been forbidden and ­were still rare, the fact that he was married to a White w ­ oman suggested that maybe he could be a bridge-­builder. Born to a Xhosa m ­ other and a Tswana f­ ather, and still ­under forty, Maimane could be a youthful incarnation of the New South Africa. As the rally reached a climax, the question of “who is us?” returned to the fore. Maimane proclaimed, “They want us to . . . ​fear each other.” In response, the campaign slogan is a single word: “One.”

EFF Rally Malema started his speech at the EFF rally at Soweto’s Orlando Stadium on a somber note. His beloved grand­mother had passed away the day before. And he was clearly shaken. In acts of gracious civility—­but ones that ­were widely expected as appropriate gestures—­vari­ous party leaders, including Ramaphosa and Maimane, sent notes of condolence, and he acknowledged t­ hose with appreciation. “I am b­ ecause of her. . . . ​She stood by me . . . ​she always believed in my innocence . . . ​I always knew my grand­mother was t­ here to support me.” But from t­ here he quickly pivoted to an attack against the older generation of ANC leaders: “They are old . . . ​they must all go to old age or straight to prison. They are too old. . . . ​We are the ­future of South Africa.” His speech offered some concrete proposals. Focusing on his youthful core, he called on the government to shift resources from social grants to education. He argued, “That’s what we mean by economic Apartheid. Po­liti­cal freedom without economic freedom is meaningless.” Malema spoke forcefully to the crowd: “I am h­ ere to talk about you . . . ​ground force of the EFF, you are amazing . . . ​you have shaken the A . . . ​N . . . ​C.” On banks, “why do they hate Black ­people? . . . ​W hen we say economic freedom, we mean Black ­people ­will own productive farms.” He returned to the meta­phor he had invoked the previous week in his Workers’ Day speech—­referring to food and mealtime as

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symbolic of material wealth. “You have been watching them eat. Now it’s your time to eat.” He promised, “We are not fighting against White. We are fighting to sit at the dinner ­table. White ­people, you ­w ill no longer eat alone. We are coming to sit [at] the dinner ­table, and if you are refusing us . . . ​we are g­ oing to destroy that dinner ­table. No one is ­going to eat u­ ntil all of us in South Africa eat from the same dinner ­table.” “Let the p­ eople of the West Rand own the mines,” he said, referring to the area including around Mogale City where the country’s wealth was generated through the extraction of gold and platinum upon which the racially unequal economy was built. I ­imagined that this line was playing well among some back in Mogale City but frightening ­others. The EFF did not have a rec­ord of engaging in serious vio­lence, but in his speech, Malema dared the police to shoot ANC leaders. “If you want to shoot, go to Parliament and shoot the ­house which is full of criminals.” Was this ­really a call for murder? No. But the tone and the EFF brand more generally ­were certainly not focused on civil engagement, and he fired up the base as they smelled po­liti­cal blood.

Poles and Polls The final days of the election generated a burst of heat in the winter air. Lamp poles sprouted signs broadcasting the parties’ respective sound bites. From the opposition parties: “Jobs not corruption.” “Jobs in e­ very home.” “Fight back!” From the ruling ANC: “Let’s grow South Africa together.” Depending on the area, such signs would appear in one or more of the country’s eleven official languages. Pundits on talk radio, tele­vi­sion, and social media and in the newspapers opined over the issues and prospects for po­liti­cal realignment. ­After increasingly disappointing results in elections over the previous de­cade, opinion polls revealed even more apprehension about the ANC. Just a week before the election, a widely publicized poll generated a lot of excitement and attention. It appeared that the ANC’s majority support had stunningly vanished, down to 49.5 ­percent, a drop of more

T h e C a m pa i g n   23

than 5 points since a February poll; the EFF was up to almost 15 ­percent, and the DA was holding steady at about 21 ­percent.17 Other surveys gave the ANC an edge, and of course, ­there is always sampling error. But the specter of 49.5 ­percent was power­ful. And the influential progressive weekly newspaper the Mail & Guardian published ­these results with the headline, “IRR Poll Shows National Loss for the ANC.”18 The media loves a good story. And the results showing that the ANC might not get a majority generated page clicks. Their numbers held out the possibility that the ANC would lose not just the Western Cape Province, which had long been in DA hands, but other provinces as well: KwaZulu-­Natal, the country’s second-­most populous province that was also former president Zuma’s home; and Gauteng, the industrial heartland, which encompasses Mogale City, Johannesburg, and several other municipalities and contains more than a quarter of the country’s population and more than a third of its economic output. And maybe, just maybe, the ANC would even lose the national election. It had the makings of a serious contest. ­Under dif­fer­ent electoral rules, or with a clear ANC majority in sight, small parties like the FF+ and the IFP might not ­matter very much. But if the election was actually ­going to be this close, a party with even 1 or 2 percentage points of the vote, translating into a few seats in Parliament, could become the linchpin in forming a co­ali­tion ­after the election. They would use their last days to appeal to their more narrowly defined constituencies. Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi was serving out his final months as head of the IFP at the advanced age of ninety. He had founded the organ­ization in 1975 and had both worked with and opposed the Apartheid government. And he closed out the party’s 2019 campaign with a speech at a rally on May 5 in Ulundi, once the capital of the Zulu Kingdom and still populated almost entirely by Zulus. He took similar swipes at the ruling ANC as the other opposition parties did and urged his constituents to heed the words of Nelson Mandela: “If the ANC does to you what the Apartheid government did to you, then you must do to the ANC what you did to the Apartheid government.” Not once did he explic­itly talk about Zulu autonomy, but he made reference to

24  c h a p t e r 1

KwaZulu-­Natal ten times, making a plea to vote in order to reclaim provincial leadership. He recalled his own more “pragmatic” approach to the strug­gle against Apartheid, including opposition to economic sanctions and destructive po­liti­cal campaigns in order to “protect the economy.”19 In speeches and official documents, the FF+ was more explicit in its calls for cultural autonomy. “As far as self-­determination is concerned, the FF Plus strives for autonomy . . . ​in education, care for the el­derly, sports, heritage conservation and other similar ­matters.” And as far as the economy, “The FF Plus is convinced that only the f­ ree market can fully unlock economic value.”20 And now, the voters would need to assess what they had heard and what they had seen. The el­derly and the infirm would get to vote early and election officials would go to them. Most of the population would head to the polls on May 8. The voters would get to decide the ­future of the country, no doubt ­shaped by their views about democracy and Black rule in South Africa over the previous twenty-­five years.

2 Citizens Choose e l e c t ion day i n mo g a l e c i t y

on election day, despite the many differences in the way p­ eople actually live in any given democracy, millions perform the same ritual in more or less the same way. I wanted to see this for myself and to hear what was on the minds of the very diverse citizens at the precise time that they ­were fi­nally being forced to make this impor­tant decision. Using the geo-­coordinates of the polling stations posted online by the electoral commission (IEC), I planned a tour of Mogale City. I set out to trace the history of the development of the area, while trying to minimize driving distance between stops. In preparation, I charged two mobile phones, one with an American SIM card, one with a local SIM. ­These devices would guide me throughout the day, and I needed some redundancy in case one failed or got poor ser­vice, eventualities I had previously experienced. I also brought a notebook that fit in my back pocket and a few pens. A friend and colleague who is an expert on election observation advised me to wear neutral colors, to carry a clipboard, and to review an election observation handbook.1 During the previous few days, the weather had been absolutely stunning: warm, with clear skies—­winter in Gauteng is nothing like its Boston counterpart. On this morning, however, it was distinctively chilly and overcast. Adding to my sense of apprehension, as I departed from my guest­house at about 6:45 a.m., I saw that several birds had de­cided to mark this special day by crapping all over my white rental car. 25

figure 2.1. My election day route, Mogale City, May 8, 2019.

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monument primary school, kruger sdorp ward 37, 7:00 a.m. My first stop was Monument Primary School. Although I had hoped to get t­ here a bit before the election station was set to open, I arrived at exactly 7 a.m. Monument refers to the Paardekraal Monument, just half a mile away, where almost 139 years ­earlier Paul Kruger and approximately 6,000 fellow Afrikaners built a cairn—­a large statue of stones— to mark their unity and common cause in resisting British rule.2 Always a group to mix religion and politics, they declared it a symbol of their covenant with God, recalling unlikely past victories against their foes.3 Monument Primary School sits just a block away from Voortrekker Road—­yet another nod to the Afrikaner legacy. In Ward 37, just shy of 50 ­percent of ­house­holds speak Afrikaans at home. It had grown to be a solid DA constituency, and in the 2016 local election, that party raked in over 83 ­percent of the vote ­here. In this well-­manicured neighborhood, large but hardly ostentatious homes are mostly vis­i­ble from the street. Outside the gates of the school, the DA set up what looked like a small office, with a canopy and a t­ able. I ­didn’t see any other parties. ­Either they ­were conceding this ward, or—­more likely—­they just had not gotten their acts together to arrive before voting began. Election day is a national holiday in South Africa—­a ­simple tribute to its importance that some have advocated for in the United States.4 But that ­doesn’t mean every­one had the day off from work, and in any case, many ­people like to vote early. About sixty ­people ­were standing in line outside when I arrived. Apart from one ­woman, every­one I saw was White; ­there was a fairly good mix of young and old, and many ­people came with their kids. A few pulled up in high-­end “bakkies,” white, tricked-­out pickup trucks, with stainless steel crossbars in the front. One DA sign said, “Stop the ANC and EFF.” In other words, stop the two Black parties. Th ­ ere w ­ ere no ANC signs around h­ ere. In the last election, the ruling party barely eked out 7 ­percent of the vote in this ward, even though almost 30 ­percent of the population was Black. On the one hand, ­because ­today’s elections ­were for the provincial and

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national legislatures, it was not as if a vote in one part of the municipality would have a greater impact than anywhere ­else in the province. On the other hand, local party officials would be held accountable for each polling station, and the returns in this election would serve as a benchmark for local contests scheduled for two years in the ­future. The respective parties would make decisions about which local officials could stand in ­those elections with this information in mind. I found a spot that was outside the IEC’s taped-­off bound­aries but close enough that I could greet exiting voters. At 7:15, just fifteen minutes ­after the school opened to voters, I approached a White ­woman, prob­ ably in her thirties, who spoke quickly with a strong Afrikaans accent. “Aagh, they ­weren’t quite ready for us,” she told me. “The left hand ­doesn’t know where is the right hand. But it was not too much of a holdup.” She was skeptical that the vote would be totally f­ ree: “I think they ­will try to put in votes,” she said, which I took to mean that the ANC would stuff ballot boxes with fraudulent ballots. Of her friends and ­family she said, “Most w ­ ill vote. Some ­will say it’s not worth it. But we need to try.” When I asked about pos­si­ble prob­lems so far, she said she was not aware of any vote buying or intimidation. Just before 7:20, I saw that a few ANC party representatives had arrived to set up shop near where the DA decamped. The major parties set up t­ hese small booths outside the election stations to provide a last bit of party marketing, to stand by to monitor for any funny business, and to allow party supporters to come by to check in. The ­actual vote is secret, but this system allows the parties to keep track of who actually shows up on election day. Next, I spoke with a forty-­something White man who described the pro­cess as very efficient and recounted that he had voted in ­every previous election. “I think you need a strong opposition . . . ​and I think the fear f­ actor of the EFF is what’s causing a lot of ­people to vote.” A young ­woman, prob­ably in her early twenties, came out with her ­father, and when I asked her about her decision to come to vote, she said, “It’s the right ­thing to do.” As I drove away I saw well-­ordered rubbish bins set out at the end of driveways, in greater order than I was accustomed to in my Brookline,

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Mas­sa­chu­setts, neighborhood on collection day. Basic ser­vice delivery was just about 100 ­percent in Ward 37. But I did notice a few guys picking through the trash bins. The very poor would try to survive on the salable, salvageable items from the detritus of the well-­to-do. west rand primary school, kruger sdorp ward 37, 7:40 a.m. My next stop was a voting station on the other side of Coronation Park. It was established in 1902 to commemorate Edward VII’s coronation as British king in 1901 and just following the British defeat of the Boers in the 1899–1902 war, also known as the Boer War. The park may have been built over a concentration camp run by the British, largely to contain their Afrikaner enemies, and remains as yet one more remembrance of the b­ itter tensions that once stood between ­these two White groups.5 While bloody and costly, the peace for that war paved the way for the formation of the Union of South Africa, which integrated two Boer-­run republics and two British colonies. The IEC station h­ ere was the second of three in Ward 37 and was set up at the West Rand School, which had a long driveway and well-­ manicured grounds. As I entered, I cynically assumed it was a place filled with White, square-­chinned rugby players. I ­later learned that it is a multiracial primary school for physically disabled ­children, many of whom have ce­re­bral palsy, and it was heartening to recognize that the most vulnerable ­were enjoying access to what appeared to be a beautiful fa­cil­i­ty. The voters ­were again mostly White, a mix of old and young. Some likely worked desk jobs; o­ thers wore the fluo­rescent vests and pants that help to protect ­those working on the street as cleaners, parking attendants, and road pavers. “They already say that the voting papers [ballots] ­were not stamped,” a White ­woman, perhaps in her early sixties, said in response to my question about the integrity of the voting pro­cess. “They say we must write in a pen.” Apparently, some votes cast somewhere in the country ­were in pencil and had been changed. The stamps are used on election

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day by election workers to mark the validity of the ballots. Reports of any malfeasance circulate instantaneously on social media. I asked, why vote? “Actually, it’s a privilege to be part of the pro­cess. I have a nineteen-­year-­old son who did not register but he regrets it. I hope they [young ­people] have a say. It’s exciting for me to see ­people get involved. To do something about it.” I saw just one Black African ­woman, wearing a faded pink cotton apron that peered out under­neath her jacket. She was originally from Soweto but had lived in this area for a long time. I made it a point not to ask anyone about their vote choices, but she quickly informed me, proudly, “I am ANC . . . ​I have voted in all of the elections.” I saw it was 8 a.m. on my watch, the sun was coming out, and I headed to my car. On my drive, I passed a tall statue of Paul Kruger, the last Afrikaner president of the Afrikaner Republic that predated the Union of South Africa. rand en dal klinieskool, kruger sdorp/dan pienaarville ward 17, 8:05 a.m. At about 8:05 a.m., I arrived at the first of my two stops in Ward 17, the Rand en Dal Klinieskool. This is in Dan Pienaarville, the site of significant po­liti­cal tension in the 1980s when its White residents clamored for Black residents of nearby Munsieville to be moved ­because they ­were, simply, too close for comfort. Dan Pienaarville remains a largely White area, but compared with my first stops, the neighborhood homes ­were smaller, the grass was less tightly manicured, and t­ here ­were more vacant, scruffy lots. Nonetheless, most voters arrived in their own cars, reflecting a certain level of wealth or employment status that most South Africans do not enjoy. For the first time that day, I saw a large ANC Mogale City tent. The DA was also ­there, as was the FF+. The skies turned gray again. “One hundred ­percent. Nice and smooth,” a forty-­something White man with a goatee explained to me as he stood next to his wife. “This was a bit better, b­ ecause last time they started late. We need to vote for

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the opposition to try to end the corruption. It’s a beautiful country, but we must set the politics right.” A Black man in his thirties also described the pro­cess as smooth. He had moved to the area only six months ­earlier. “I think it was ­free and fair, but I would prefer a system like in the United States, where you have the opportunity to vote directly for the president.” I ­didn’t ask his party, but I did ask what influenced his vote choice. “It’s not easy. You look at the past and, well, job creation is critical. Our economy is moving at a slow pace. We need to get that right.” Any irregularities? “I just saw on TV and social media an issue with some ballot papers,” he said, referring to the same incident that the w ­ oman had referenced e­ arlier in the day. “But besides that, nothing.” As I looked around, I was struck by the fact that many p­ eople brought their youngish ­children. I was reminded of the idiosyncrasies of election day: ­people with ­children are likely to vote at dif­fer­ent times than ­those without. On a day like ­today, with changing and unseasonably cold and wet weather, some may not bother at all. At 8:30 a.m., I also felt how chilly it had become, and the South Africans w ­ ill tell you how much they d­ on’t like the cold. P ­ eople w ­ ere still streaming in. Many c­ ouples walked to the voting station holding hands. An older White man told me, “No prob­lems. I’ve voted and lived ­here all my life.” Then he corrected himself: “I came from Namibia in 1978.” At that time, Namibia was controlled by South Africa, essentially governed ­under Apartheid policies as an additional province and called Southwest Africa. He then uttered a man­tra that I would hear throughout the rest of the day: “If you ­don’t vote, you ­can’t complain!” I supposed that t­ here is a g­ reat desire to complain, and if you feel that you w ­ ill be denied this opportunity if you ­don’t vote, it’s a small price to pay. He described the system as f­ ree and fair. “Yah, I think so. But t­ here are too many parties involved.” Indeed, forty-­eight parties had registered for the national election. I asked about ­people not voting. “In my ­family, every­ one wants to vote. My c­ hildren, my wife. First, we must try to get rid of the ANC. The next stronger party must be given a chance.” He saw no intimidation or vote buying. He told me that his wife, who is in her sixties and frailer, was able to vote ­earlier as they let older ­people vote first.

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I approached the DA tent and asked the attending representative how the day was ­going. “It’s cold. That ­will affect the vote.” Any irregularities? “I ­haven’t seen anything. But it’s still early.” I went to the ANC tent, where just one man was holding down the fort. I asked if they had many supporters in the area. He d­ idn’t directly respond to my question, but the answer was clear: “Well, it’s mostly White ­people who live around ­here.” At 8:48 a.m., I got back into my now thoroughly bird-­crap-­stained rental car to visit one more voting station in the informally constituted border area between Dan Pienaarville and Munsieville. To do so, I crossed the road that was built in the 1980s expressly to keep t­ hese White and Black communities apart.6 It was still working. town view high school, kruger sdorp/dan pienaarville ward 17, 8:50 a.m. At Town View High School, I met a thirty-­something Black w ­ oman who told me, “I want a better life. I need a h­ ouse. I need work.” Perhaps wishfully, she predicted a co­ali­tion would unseat the ANC: “I think the DA and the EFF ­will win.” At 9:18 a.m., according to my rough plan of allocating thirty minutes per stop, I was right on time, and I headed off to Munsieville Ward 24. If I had been in Cape Town, traveling to the Black township of Khayelitsha or Langa, I would have been preparing for a solid twenty-­minute ­ride, or more with traffic. The Apartheid government kept t­ hose townships truly apart from the city center. But key to the ­whole conflict in Dan Pienaarville of the 1980s was that Munsieville . . . ​is right ­there. And within five minutes, I found myself on Mangope Drive, Mmamogale Drive, and Matlaba Street, arriving at Phatudi Primary School. I was no longer in White South Africa. phatudi primary school, munsieville ward 24, 9:23 a.m. On my way to the voting station, I passed right by the Desmond Tutu Library and a police station that had been burned down by protesters a year ­earlier. A frustrated group had demanded action on a list of items,

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including crime, drugs, and h­ uman trafficking. One of the b­ itter ironies of many South African protests held in the name of poor public ser­vices is that they frequently involve the destruction of existing ones, contributing to the misery of ordinary citizens. The area had a long history of protest, including in the mid-1950s when Desmond Tutu himself was a teacher at Munsieville High School.7 In 1955, in his early twenties, he de­cided he could no longer participate in the White government’s administration of inferior “Bantu Education” designed to equip Blacks for a life of servitude and he resigned. (Technically, “Bantu” refers to a group of languages spoken by Black Africans in southern Africa, but that term and “Native” w ­ ere frequently used by the White government as administrative categories and, in turn, generally rejected as pejorative by Black Africans.) Tutu left teaching for the priesthood, initially as a sub-­deacon in Krugersdorp,8 and went on to pursue additional education and opportunities in church councils overseas. Within a few de­cades, he emerged as one of the world’s most storied liberation activists in his tireless campaigns, not simply against Apartheid but also against sexism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination. So it was fitting that a library should be built ­here in his name. Standing in the center of Munsieville, I was now less than two and a half miles from the polling station where I started the morning in Ward 37. However, ­these ­were very, very dif­fer­ent places. The median ­house­hold income in Ward 37, where 67 ­percent of residents w ­ ere White, was 115,000 rand, and over 20 ­percent of the ­house­holds had an annual income of at least 300,000 rand (nationally, just about 8 ­percent of ­house­holds ­were in this bracket). ­Here in Ward 24, where 99 ­percent of residents are Black African, median ­house­hold income was a mere 30,000 rand (about $2,100 US at the time), and just 1  ­percent of ­house­holds took in 300,000 or more. Back in Ward 37, about 99 ­percent of ­house­holds ­were built as formal structures and basic ser­vice provision (­water, toilet, refuse) was over 97 ­percent. Moreover, 49 ­percent had a computer, 68 ­percent had a car, and 71 ­percent had a washing machine. The situation was very dif­fer­ent h­ ere: a full 38 ­percent of h­ ouse­holds ­were informal dwellings—­shacks or shanties, usually made in large part with corrugated metal. Over 95 ­percent also enjoyed basic ser­v ices,

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albeit of lesser quality. Only 11 ­percent had a computer, 14 ­percent a car, and 27 ­percent a washing machine.9 As I traveled up the hill, I saw a massive taxi depot filled with dozens of the white vans (known as taxis in South Africa) with yellow stripes that bring residents to Krugersdorp, Joburg, and elsewhere. The largely un­regu­la­ted taxi industry is central to life in South Africa, serving a mostly Black clientele and accounting for approximately 75 ­percent of all daily transport,10 as neither the Apartheid nor post-­Apartheid governments developed successful or integrated mass public transportation systems. On this holiday, the taxis w ­ ere mostly idle. A few men sat on the passenger floor of a taxi with its door open, their feet hanging over the side. In Munsieville, p­ eople live outside. Unlike the subdued atmosphere around Monument and Dan Pienaarville, it was loud with ­music, and ­people ­were laughing. The first person I chatted with was a young ­woman, maybe in her twenties. When I asked her about her voting experience, she said, “It went well. Took about an hour.” We w ­ ere now in ANC territory, and 75 ­percent of the voters ­here had stayed with the liberation party in the 2016 local elections. It’s also fairly ripe EFF ground, and they managed over 15 ­percent in ­those elections, making it unclear what would happen this go-­round. “I want to make a change. I ­don’t want to complain for nothing. I did something about it.” She highlighted the catchall phrase of “ser­vices” and called out housing and unemployment as the issues she cared about most. A tall, older but quite sturdy-­looking man came through the gates. “I ­didn’t wait five minutes. Pensioners [se­nior citizens] get to cut the line,” he explained. “I was born in Munsieville. . . . ​Most of us w ­ ill vote ANC.” I walked over to the ANC tent. “Good turnout?” I asked. “Not yet. But we d­ on’t expect a prob­lem. Some went to work and many ­will come ­after 3 p.m.” I was a l­ ittle surprised to see representatives from the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), whose electoral fortunes had waned over the previous quarter c­ entury. The organ­ization itself was born out of differences with the ANC regarding how to address the race question. In 1959, ANC leaders had been planning a defiance campaign against the country’s

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pass laws, but Robert Sobukwe, who rejected many key tenets of ANC philosophy, including “non-­racialism,”11 broke away to form this rival organ­ization. In turn, the PAC was b­ ehind one of the most impor­tant defiance campaigns of all time—­the 1960 Sharpeville Protest—­during which the peaceful burning of passes was met with a lethal police response. That day, a massacre made martyrs out of t­ hose victims and began to turn global opinion against White South Africa. The organ­ization was prominent in Munsieville back in the 1980s and gained some seats in the national Parliament in 1994, but they had not had any repre­sen­ta­tion in Mogale City in recent history, and I had been wondering what had happened to them. One of the three men at the booth said, “We are struggling b­ ecause of the finances. We have many supporters. We are not buying ­people to vote. We ­haven’t changed. We stand for land to Africans t­ oday. . . . ​At the top of the elections, land is impor­tant for survival. For hospitals to build. Land is every­thing! In the elections of 1994, we focused on land. The other parties did not follow that route. The EFF has been making a big push for land re­distribution in recent years, and the ANC has made timid murmurings along t­ hese lines.” I asked if the PAC and EFF have similar views on land. “­There is a huge difference between the EFF and the PAC,” he said. “On the land issue, the EFF [says] we are only entitled to land taken in the past hundred years. We say, look at the land from 1652 that must be taken. . . . ​We believe in Africanism. The ruling party fears us, so we are infiltrated by them.” Land in­equality is one of the many remaining sources of wealth in­ equality, one that remains emotive from de­cades of forced removals and centuries of land grabs. While a land claims court has settled a handful of cases, the White minority continues to retain the majority of the best land, and the EFF has campaigned hard on this injustice. I had been through this neighborhood several times on past trips, but I was struck again by how dif­fer­ent the vibe was on election day compared with White Mogale City. First, the density: the streets are narrower, so many p­ eople in so few square meters. The school was noticeably smaller, starker. ­There was no grass or lawn. I looked at the line into the voting booths, and I noticed that ­people stood very close to one another, often touching, certainly as compared

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with the much wider zone of personal space maintained in the White areas. A decent-­sized group congregated ­under the DA tent. Ten years ago, I would never have i­magined that this largely White party could have such a presence in a place like Munsieville. But it was clearly building a support base. The sun broke through again and, realizing that I had stayed in this Munsieville ward for longer than my planned half hour, it was time to move on. pro-­p racticum skool, kruger sdorp west ward 26, 10:12 a.m. Ward 26 is one of Mogale’s more racially diverse neighborhoods, about 35 ­percent White and 62 ­percent Black, according to the 2011 census. I approached the ANC tent outside the Pro-­Practicum school, and I introduced myself. The agents quickly referred me to a ­woman in a dif­ fer­ent caliber of ANC regalia: a zip-up dress with the party’s green, gold, and black, rather than a T-­shirt. She is Peace Mabe, a Member of Parliament. I asked if t­ here w ­ ere any challenges being made so far, and she could point only to a voter in Magaliesburg, who was turned away on a technicality that might have been an honest misunderstanding of the rules. “We are hoping for the best. We want to win Gauteng.” This was not the “ANC w ­ ill rule South Africa u­ ntil the sun d­ oesn’t shine” that I remembered from previous elections. This was a party knowing it might—­unlikely though it may be—­actually fail to get 50 ­percent of the votes, particularly in Gauteng. Peace said they ­were working hard. “Every­one has been out campaigning. We ­stopped campaigning t­ oday to get ­people out. In other areas, the queues are long.” The line to check in ­here was certainly longer than at the DA tent. Meanwhile, an EFF car was just now showing up with guys in red plastic hard hats. I spoke with a Black c­ ouple in their thirties. The man held a car key in his hand. “We would like to see a few changes in the country and let

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other parties get a chance. Whoever wins, we need to close the borders. To come, you must have your own money. If that can be pro­cessed, it would end crime. ­People jump over and come to do crime.” As he said this, I could see that his wife cringed a bit, knowing that such talk was not polite. But she did not say anything. The group of young EFF supporters ­were struggling to get their stand set up, and they ­were situating themselves pretty far from the entrance. At the Sunday rally, Julius Malema had talked about their disciplined ground game, but it was not evident ­here. I approached a Black w ­ oman who had moved to the area from Soweto in 2002, and I asked how the dif­fer­ent race groups got along in this diverse neighborhood. “We only see each other for meetings at school. It goes well. We have dif­fer­ent views. You see, we integrated into their space,” she explained with a tone that wavered between empathy and resentment. “For them, integrating us is very difficult. They have to adjust. Since 1994, I think ­people are beginning to adjust but it’s still very difficult. The majority of the Blacks have voted ANC. Some are loyal to the party. Some would say you ­can’t be loyal if the leaders are not loyal. Some say the DA is White. ­Others say they like Mmusi Maimane. We must integrate. We are afraid of one another. We ­don’t trust one another.” I asked if that lack of trust is also within race groups. “Definitely! Blacks ­don’t trust one another where our leaders promise but d­ on’t deliver.” Surveys bear out what she said: in one conducted in Mogale City in 2017, only 26 ­percent said “Most ­people can be trusted,” while 70 ­percent said “You need to be very careful.”12 “We focus on faults and downfalls. We build parties on one another’s negativity,” she explained. At 10:55 I got into my car and keyed in the coordinates. Waze, my virtual driving assistant, told me I would have a fifteen-­minute trip to my next stop. I had developed a fairly good sense of the geography of Mogale City, traveling around quite a bit and studying maps. But I was not prepared for the fact that within about a minute, I would pass by the entrance to Mintails gold mining. ­Because the industry had been in such decline in recent de­cades, apart from the large heaps of mining dumps vis­i­ble from

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many vantage points around Mogale City, it can be easy to lose sight of how impor­tant mining was to the development of this town and region, and to South Africa more generally. Mintails is now better known as a major culprit of local environmental damage than as a productive contributor to the economy. And as I passed by, I saw a set of old hostels—­ the often squalid residence halls established for mine workers—in front of which t­ oday ­were rows of men and beer ­bottles. The hostels looked out onto metal shacks, outdoor plastic toilets, and burning fires. The mostly toxic mining excavations ­were everywhere, and certainly not where p­ eople ­ought to be living. Many stayed ­here nonetheless. I took the R28—­Main Reef Road—to Paardekraal Drive, and then made a right, away from Krugersdorp, ­toward Azaadville. It began to rain, lightly, and my heart sank a bit as ­people are less likely to vote in inclement weather. Rainy election days are bad for democracy. azaadville communit y hall, azaadville ward 3, 11:15 a.m. I entered the gate of Azaadville Ward 3, on Taj Mahal Street, one of the few communities that actually maintains an active security gate. It was still drizzling, I needed a caffeine jolt, and my gas tank was getting low, so I pulled up to the Engen petrol station on my right and asked for 200 rand worth of 93. Another guy came up to me asking if I wanted him to check the oil and to wash the car, and I said, no, it’s a rental. Then he pointed to the bird shit all over my car, and he looked at me and explained in so many words that I ­really ­can’t have that. I am not known for keeping my own car clean, let alone a rental, but p­ eople ­really take good care of their cars h­ ere, and I was apparently an embarrassment. As I went in to get a Diet Coke, he washed the windshield but left the rest of the cleaning for me. Fair enough. I paid for the fuel, tipped him, and drove across the street to the Azaadville community hall. Once again, the cultural terrain changed. Of course, cities the world over have lots of ethnic enclaves. Chinatowns, ­Little Italys, and Brazilian districts in the United States always provide that sense of arriving somewhere ­else. The modern remnant of the Apartheid legacy is far more

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extreme, the result of deliberate machinations to keep groups apart, and Azaadville is not-­so-­little India. Hanging around the front of the center ­were several older men, who looked to be of South Asian descent. Families—­mostly ­women with ­children—­entered and exited the center. Almost all ­were wearing Muslim head coverings. Although South Africa’s Indian community has always been concentrated around Durban, on the east coast of the country, Indians came to represent a small but prominent minority in greater Krugersdorp and remain largely in Azaadville. They came to the town as it was forming in the 1880s and settled geo­graph­i­cally between Whites and Blacks.13 This position was forced upon them in a manner that was broadly reflective of the British Empire’s perspective on racial hierarchy and subsequently inherited by South Africa’s White governments. South Africa’s other impor­tant “intermediate” racial group—­the Coloureds—­never comprised a large share of the local population around Krugersdorp or anywhere on the West Rand. Though commonly described as Mogale’s “Indian township,” Azaadville itself is not homogeneous, and certainly not in economic terms. A few months ­earlier I had visited a much wealthier neighborhood, in which some single-­family ­houses even had small pools. This voting station was surrounded by nondescript blocks of flats or apartments, low-­end stores, and a petrol station. For e­ very eight South Asians t­ here w ­ ere about two Black Africans and no Whites. ­People hung out around the parking lot of the community center, ­others coming in and out to vote. ANC, DA, and EFF representatives positioned themselves outside as their counter­parts had done elsewhere. The ANC and DA groups w ­ ere not too receptive to my questions. I spoke some Xhosa with the ANC folks and that lightened the mood, especially when they corrected my broken salutation. I had forgotten that “Thanks very much” is “Enkosi kakhulu” (pronounced “loo” at the end) not “kakhuhle” (with a “lay” at the end). The two EFF reps ­here ­were happy to talk. “It’s hard to knock on doors in this area,” they explained. “­People live ­either in closed buildings or ­behind gated ­houses,” so the ground game is well-­nigh impossible. In front of the community center, a reigning elder seemed to be holding court—­a tall man with a curly gray beard and no mustache, sporting

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sunglasses and a Liverpool soccer club scarf. He arrived h­ ere nineteen years ago from Johannesburg near Emirates stadium, still known by its original name, Ellis Park. I introduced myself and asked my standard opening line: “How did the voting go?” “Veeery smooth,” he seemed delighted to report. “Only ­thing . . . ​the IEC guy, I had to teach him a ­thing or two. He ­didn’t know the alphabet.” He took out a small slip of paper that was generated as part of the pro­cess, and he showed me how it was necessary to match the slip against the individual’s identity card to gain admission. Apparently, the IEC official seemed to be struggling with this. “Now he’s on it.” “I have voted in all the past elections from 1994. E ­ very four years14 it’s something dif­fer­ent. What ­we’ve come through. State capture and corruption. We must make an informed decision about our f­ uture. I am a grand­father and we need a better ­future for all the races. Education, homes, pensions. Every­one should have equal opportunity to prosper.” I ­didn’t see lines to get into the community center to vote, and I asked him about turnout. “From what I can see, over 90 ­percent vote. Azaadville is a small community, most p­ eople come in the morning. Then after­noon prayer. Oh look, over ­there, ­these are the pioneers of Azaadville.” He pointed to some much older men who w ­ ere slowly descending the steps into the community center. “On our WhatsApp group, one message that came through is that during special voting, some p­ eople came with pencils and the ballots w ­ eren’t stamped.” I found it amazing that this one story had clearly reached so many South African voters so quickly. “So I came with my own pen. So ­people are sharing information to make sure to use a pen and verify that the ballot is stamped on the back. We’ve come now twenty-­five years, a quarter c­ entury. Compared with the first time, the queues ­were longer then.” A shorter man, also Indian but without a head covering, introduced himself as Farouk. He is an ANC “PR councillor,” which meant he was placed on a party list, not directly elected in a ward constituency, the two options in South Africa’s mixed system of local government. Without mentioning Jacob Zuma’s name, he addressed the cross that ANC ground forces must bear: “The prob­lem is that when an individual does wrong,

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they associate it with the party. We cling onto the wrong. But t­ here is a lot of good to be appreciated. ­There is a lot of potential in this country. I am happy w ­ e’ve come a long way in 107 years. The current president has a massive job. The ANC has large support, but some swung from the ANC.” I asked about the campaign, and he echoed some of the EFF concerns: “In Azaadville, we ­don’t go door-­to-­door—we knock and drop pamphlets.” The man with the Liverpool scarf, Cllr Farouk, and I chatted more about the local concerns, and the standard man­tra of “ser­vice delivery” came up—­a broad label frequently used to decry frustrations with what is not provided usually in the form of basic ser­vices but sometimes can mean almost anything at all. I was surprised that Cllr Farouk ­didn’t take the easy path of pandering to the primacy of his own neighborhood’s concerns: “In Azaadville, some p­ eople want speed bumps. In Magaliesburg, some ­people are suffering without ­water. What’s more impor­tant? In Azaadville, ­people complain, complain and they have every­thing.” He looked to the o­ thers to nod, but none w ­ ere forthcoming. “Township p­ eople have nothing and they smile.” Of course, many p­ eople in the townships are not smiling, but I ­didn’t disagree with his sentiments and much of my own research supports what he said. Th ­ ose who have done best u­ nder post-­Apartheid government have in recent years been the least likely to vote for the ANC.15 Once again, I recognized that in c­ ouples, the men w ­ ere more likely to speak. Several ­women did come to vote alone or in pairs, and I looked to approach a few of them, but they averted my gaze. I was again very conscious of the male bias in my unsystematic sample. When social scientists conduct systematic surveys, we try to match up the race and gender of interviewers, but I was traveling alone on this day and was reminded of this effect. rietvallei extension 2 communit y hall, rietvallei ward 3, 12:25 p.m. I got back into my car at 12:05 p.m., and a few raindrops again dotted my windshield. The radio announcers reminded listeners of the duty to vote. “Remember: If you ­don’t vote, you ­can’t complain!” Maybe that’s why every­one’s saying it, I thought to myself. I headed back out on Taj

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Mahal Street. I ­didn’t have time to stop at another voting station in Ward 3, which was mostly Azaadville, but I had noticed on the map that an area just south of Azaadville, Rietvallei, was also in the ward, and de­ cided I would check it out. ­After pulling over to write down some of my thoughts for about twenty minutes, hoping the pouring rain would stop—­which it did—­I drove in for a look. It was bleak: an extremely depressing, barren area filled with cinder-­block structures and shacks, some gutted and burned out. In the rain, the tall lampposts that tower way above the neighborhood looked like they ­were spitting fire. ­There’s very ­little commerce, except for a few small spaza (informal, home-­based con­ve­nience) shops. ­People walked in the ­middle of the streets, and I drove slowly. The ANC tent ­there seemed well staffed, as did the EFF tent. It was easy to imagine that this was where the EFF would fare well: if one wanted a narrative of deprivation and failure to deliver a better life, this ­little pocket would provide just that. thembile primary school, kagiso ward 10, 1:30 p.m. My next stop was Kagiso, the much larger of Mogale’s two Black townships, which spans several wards. I headed to Ward 10, in the ­middle. Seventy p­ ercent of voters went for the ANC in 2016, but the EFF was also strong with more than 17 ­percent of the vote. I plotted a course to Thembile Primary School, which is located right next to the Kagiso Methodist Church, where I had visited a c­ ouple of times. I had met the pastor t­ here and interviewed a few congregants. I had been struck then, as I was on this day, by the quality of the housing stock, the nice streets, the friendly vibe of the neighborhood. As it had been in Munsieville, election day was a party. The po­liti­cal tents w ­ ere filled with ­people, the m ­ usic was again on full volume, and some p­ eople ­were literally dancing in the street in front of the entrance to the school. I chatted briefly with a man who told me that all the voting had been fine. A man who helped a lady into a van subsequently approached me and asked if I was a reporter. It was a reasonable assumption considering

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figure 2.2. ANC party representatives in Kagiso on election day, May 8, 2019. Credit: Evan Lieberman.

the fact that I was the only White guy for miles and carry­ing a clipboard. I explained my intentions and he introduced me to the local ward councillor who was on site that day: Councillor Maxwell Kuswayo, a member of the mayoral committee and, according to him, a ward councillor for nineteen years. I knew from my research that ­there is very high turnover among councillors, so this was indeed an impressive po­liti­cal feat. I could see that Kuswayo was ­going to stand ­here, perfectly legally, but definitely in the path of pretty much anyone who wanted to vote at this station. I asked if he minded if I talked to p­ eople coming out of the voting booth, and he thought for a bit and said ok, but as I approached someone to talk, he stayed close by. ­After this first brief interview, I chatted with him some more. I asked about the low registration among young voters.

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He boasted that about 80 ­percent of young p­ eople had been registered in the area. “We listen to them all. ­These kids, their complaint is unemployment. ­Here it is very high.” Of the EFF, he says, “You ­can’t promise every­thing ­here. How w ­ ill you pay for it? South Africa is the only country where you can get a ­free ­house. We are becoming a welfare state. ­There are too many social grants. We have seventeen million pensioners.” Kuswayo was born ­here in 1960. He argued that if you look at this township and consider what it was like back then, you c­ ouldn’t imagine the changes. He was an MMC (Member of the Mayoral Committee) for electricity, ­water, and sanitation. He was the ser­v ice delivery guy—­the very issues so many ­people are complaining about—­and I put it to him that his portfolio is the source of complaint. In response, he highlighted that basic shares of w ­ ater and electricity w ­ ere ­free to the poor. He seemed not ready to discuss some of the more serious concerns—­not ­here, not on election day with this American guy asking questions. Soon enough, it was time for me to go, and I did. tsholotsega primary school, kagiso ward 15, 2:45 p.m. I ­stopped at several other voting stations in Kagiso, including in Ward 15, at the Tsholotsega Primary School. Ward 15 is a po­liti­cally in­ter­est­ ing area b­ ecause it h­ ouses a strong base of Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) supporters, enough to have made it pos­si­ble to attain a single seat on the Mogale City council in 2016. As I mentioned, the IFP is largely a Zulu-­based party, run out of KwaZulu-­Natal Province. It is the one major Black party strongly associated with a par­tic­u­lar ethnic group; and it was badly hurt when Jacob Zuma, a Zulu himself, headed up the ANC, drawing away the votes of other Zulus from the IFP. A few Zulu speakers are interspersed throughout the municipality, but only in Ward 15 do they constitute a sizable minority (of 32 ­percent), delivering 15 ­percent of the total vote share in that ward in the prior local

C i t i z e n s C h o o s e   45

figure 2.3. DA party representatives in Kagiso on election day, May 8, 2019. Credit: Evan Lieberman.

election. The EFF has also been strong h­ ere with 17 ­percent. And the ANC’s position is most precarious for an all-­Black area, with less than 59 ­percent of the vote in the last election. The fancy schools of central Krugersdorp ­were distant memories from the morning; this school had the charm of a passport office, and ­there was no ­music or partying outside. This voting station was at the crossroads of a few dif­fer­ent communities, also on the edge of a more industrial area. I parked along the sidewalk and walked down to the first booth, the bright red one. “The EFF is very strong in this area b­ ecause ­people are tired of the ANC. The ANC ­doesn’t know how to do groundwork. Even old ­people want to be members. We’ve got five signups,” the EFF desk rep said proudly showing me the forms. “We have been g­ oing door-­to-­door, ­every day. Even t­ oday. I was very active in the ANC, but I switched at the time they put Zuma in as president.”

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figure 2.4. EFF party representatives in Kagiso on election day, May 8, 2019. Credit: Evan Lieberman.

As we ­were talking, a ­woman with a DA T-­shirt came to chat. I smiled and asked, “So you guys get along ok?” “Yah, the DA and EFF are friendly. We d­ on’t want to be near the green and yellow,” she said, referring to the ANC colors. I asked if that extends into her personal life. She nodded. “We d­ on’t have friends who are ANC.” I popped over to the DA tent, where two ­women and one man ­were presiding. “We hope all is ­going well. Seems like it’s a ­free and fair election. The pro­cess is ­going smooth,” one of the ­women explained. The man, about my age, wanted to talk and pulled me aside to share his story. “I used to be ANC, three years ago. But I am not happy with how the government was run. Th ­ ere is no system of accountability. Incompetency. Dysfunctional. I studied the manifestoes and thought the DA was for me.” He was the first person I met who complained that ­there should not be a paper ballot; he feared that some votes would be stolen and believed they should switch to electronic voting.

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The ANC folks w ­ ere confident that they would do well in Ward 15. “Let’s grow South Africa together,” a ­woman, possibly in her fifties, smiled as she repeated the tag­line u­ nder which Cyril’s name is plastered all over the country. I asked her what she thought ­were the biggest issues in the ward. “The hostel dwellers. They break our win­dows, stone our cars.” She pointed down the way to the hostels. “They are vicious p­ eople. Some are IFP. Involved in mining. But our resources are almost depleted. So just dumps.” I saw no vis­i­ble manifestation of the IFP in the area, but they may have been at another polling station within the ward. It was time to leave Kagiso and head north. noordheuwel country club, noordheuwel ward 22, 3:30 p.m. The sun came out again around 3:30 p.m., when I arrived at Noordheuwel Country Club, the site of a polling station near where I had started the morning. Looking around, it was clear that I was back in White South Africa. At the entrance, I saw Tjaart Steenkamp, one of Mogale City’s two FF+ councillors. I had interviewed him several months ­earlier and now he was standing in front of his party’s flag, posted to the side of a walkway. Ward 22 had been solidly DA, close to 90 ­percent in the last election, but this kind of White, high-­income, largely Afrikaans-­speaking (over 60 ­percent) area was fertile ground for the FF+, as many of the typical, White DA supporters w ­ ere not so sure about a party run by Mmusi Maimane. As I headed down to the voting booth, I could see tennis courts off to the right and a lawn bowling pitch, perfectly manicured, off to my left. I introduced myself to a tall young man with a flop of brown hair, glasses, and a white button-­down shirt. He said he ­didn’t know whom he was ­going to vote for ­until he got into the voting booth. The issues? “It’s work . . . ​jobs . . . ​quotas in sports.” That last one felt out of the blue, and I guessed t­ here must be a back story. ­There was: he was a cricketer—­a sport long dominated by Whites—­and frustrated that he had not been initially admitted to

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university ­because, according to him, of his color. He shared that he would soon start at the University of South Africa, UNISA. “The biggest ­thing is my sport. I love it. I just wish we could look past race, gender, identity.” A White man’s pushback against gender-­and race-­based affirmative action would be familiar in many circles of the United States. I chatted with Tjaart and when I asked how it was g­ oing, he smiled. “­We’re ­doing very well. W ­ e’ll be strongest in the West Rand.” A key platform for the FF+ is opposition to affirmative action, and the appeal of that message goes beyond Afrikaners to many English-­speaking Whites, and even Coloureds and Indians, who say they are overlooked for jobs, promotions, and other opportunities in ­favor of less-­qualified Black Africans. last stops: rietfontein supermarket, rietfontein, mulder sdrift ward 23, 4:01 p.m. i m age s of a fr ica , cr a dl e of h u m a n k i n d, wa r d 39, 4:40 p. m . ­ fter 4 p.m., I made two more stops. The first one was the Rietfontein A supermarket in Ward 23 up in Muldersdrift, a rural part of the municipality where I first went on voter registration day; the second stop was at the polling station in Ward 39 located next to a taxidermist, where it is dead quiet. Most of the voters who would cast a ballot in this election had already come and gone. And as the light was getting low, with winter setting in, I de­cided that it was time to call it a day. As I drove back to my guest­house on the largely empty road, I continued a conversation in my head that had started as I de­cided to write this book and persists with me now: Had South Africa’s demo­cratic proj­ect been a success? So many of the prob­lems I had learned about for de­cades ­were still unresolved, and so many ­people had grown cynical. But ­others ­were proud of what had been accomplished. Quite clearly, my answer could not be a s­ imple “yes” or “no.” But I would aspire to sum up what I could learn with something more useful than “it’s complicated.”

3 The Value of Democracy

the central questions I raise in this book concern the value of democracy. Specifically, how did po­liti­cal competition and the structure of government change once South Africa ­adopted truly demo­cratic institutions that incorporated a previously excluded racial majority? Did the quality of p­ eople’s lives improve or deteriorate, and in what ways, during this period? And can we plausibly link such changes to democracy itself, to extract more general lessons about the prospects for demo­cratic government in diverse and divided socie­ties? The portrait of the election campaign I painted in the prior two chapters revealed a wide range of perspectives on such questions. Of course, as South African voters went to the polls in May 2019, they w ­ ere making a choice about what they wanted for the ­future. Yet, the moment also marked an impor­tant opportunity for them to look back and consider ­whether the prior quarter ­century of multiracial democracy had been a success. The long strug­gle against Apartheid government had been a quest for liberty, for freedom from domination by a minority, and to build a more just society. Did t­ hose who worked so hard to bring about change get what they wanted? Or w ­ ere they experiencing a form of buyer’s remorse? Was this r­ eally the best solution to institutionalized White supremacy? The ruling ANC party could not simply take a victory lap. The party’s leaders had long been confronting a string of protests of the kind I witnessed in Krugersdorp, frequently or­ga­nized by their own members. The opposition parties, ranging from a Black nationalist left to White 49

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autonomists on the right, ­were relentless in their critiques. With a few exceptions, citizens seemed more inclined to discuss what had gone wrong than what had gone right. And as the campaign wound down, I considered the fact that in recent years, South African colleagues and acquaintances from a range of backgrounds had begun to express a surprising sentiment, one that occasionally appears in print in serious media outlets: “What this country needs . . . ​is a benevolent dictator!”1 Ordinary South Africans had become increasingly disillusioned with democracy.2 In one survey conducted at the end of 2016, 54 ­percent of respondents said they w ­ ere dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the way democracy was working.3 And by 2018, the share of “dissatisfieds” had grown to a full 57 ­percent of the population. In a summary report from Afrobarometer, whose survey data I analyze throughout this book, they cautioned, “Afrobarometer survey findings from mid-2018 show support for democracy weakening and ac­cep­tance of authoritarian alternatives growing.”4 It left me wondering: Was South African democracy actually at risk? Listening to the rallies, the campaign speeches, and the incessant commentary on talk radio in and around Mogale City during the first half of 2019, one could not help but be struck by the distinct scent of frustration. Not just with the pre­sent but with the ­whole post-­Apartheid proj­ect. Even the ANC’s own representatives seemed more apol­o­getic than proud. The expressed antipathies of White South Africans ­were already very familiar to me. As a White man, I have always had the easiest access to White South Africans. Many unabashedly told me that they longed for the past. “They made this country into a ball of shit,” explained one man, about my age, whom I met while dining at a restaurant in Muldersdrift one eve­ning on my first trip to Mogale. He and his girlfriend w ­ ere sitting at the t­ able next to mine and they must have heard my American accent while I was placing an order, and like so many in the area, they ­were friendly and happy to share their po­liti­cal views and reflections with me. The culprit for the country’s decline, in this man’s view, was the Black ANC government. I would hear the same from most of the other White residents I met while touring the area and had heard the same for years in other parts of the country.

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What I did find more surprising, perhaps even offensive, was the man’s suggestion to me to “ask the Black ­people around ­here. ­They’ll tell you the same ­thing, that life was better in the old days.” It would be like suggesting that African Americans preferred life ­under segregation. On the other hand, only with solid data could I debunk such a claim. As part of my research, I conducted a Historical Memories Survey among adults in Mogale City—­the results of which I detail in subsequent chapters—­and asked citizens to compare their current overall quality of life (theirs and that of their f­ amily) to life in the Apartheid days. Is it better ­today? Worse ­today? Or about the same? The White responses w ­ ere fairly predictable: 55 ­percent said life was worse t­ oday. Many Whites truly yearned for the time of White rule. If a politician had appealed to them with the slogan “Make South Africa ­Great Again,” they would have embraced the message with open arms. To my g­ reat disbelief, perhaps shock, it turned out that the White man I had met in Muldersdrift had correctly predicted Black public sentiment and I had been way off the mark in my skeptical reaction to his claims. In fact, a full 50 ­percent of Black residents surveyed said that life was better then, as compared with 40 ­percent who said t­ hings w ­ ere better now.5 ­After months of talking to citizens and leaders around town, I had heard plenty of negative perspectives, complaints about government, crime, lack of jobs, and so forth.6 However, I had not expected that this would be the conclusion of so many in a random sample of forty-­and-­over adults from a municipality where Apartheid had been harshly enforced. If even Black South Africans ­were unhappy with the democracy that they had strug­gled to produce over so many generations, might they consider something ­else? Only a few years ago, the notion of citizens voluntarily forgoing democracy for authoritarian rule might have seemed radical and unimaginable, but ­these concerns have become particularly salient ­because for several years we have been witnessing a global retreat in demo­cratic government.7 Seemingly stable democracies have given way to more authoritarian styles of rule. When my po­liti­cal science colleagues Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt wrote an op-ed in the New York Times,

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and further developed their argument in a 2018 book, How Democracies Die,8 they provided a power­ful wake-up call by connecting the dots to illustrate an emerging pattern: in the United States and in many other countries, the key foundations of democracy w ­ ere being undone not through military coups or armed insurrections but at the ballot box. Citizens ­were increasingly choosing leaders who, in their populist bravado, ­were saying, “I alone can fix every­thing,” as Donald Trump said on the campaign trail in 2016. Given real and perceived prob­lems in ­those socie­ ties, such calls w ­ ere warmly received by many voters, and once in power, ­these leaders have worked to change the rules of the game to help entrench their power, undermining demo­cratic institutions. And perhaps as both a cause and a consequence of such changes, even surprising numbers of Americans no longer take for granted democracy as the “only game in town,”9 imagining other types of po­liti­cal systems as preferable. Many reasons have been offered for the more recent rise of populist authoritarianism that has caused something of a reverse wave away from democracy, but among the most compelling explanations is that large shares of citizens in demo­cratic countries are increasingly dissatisfied with their lot, in large part due to per­sis­tent and growing economic insecurity alongside perceived threats to status owing to immigration and other demographic trends.10 Ethnic and racial diversity can provide fodder for frustration and scapegoating. U ­ nder such conditions, populists promise swift and assured gains, with l­ittle tolerance for “special interests” in the form of ethnic minorities. I argue that the case of South Africa between 1994 and 2019 offers a compelling alternative to populist authoritarianism—­a positive model of what democracy can offer truly divided socie­ties: peace, the ability to influence leaders, increased material prosperity especially for the poor, and, ultimately, greater re­spect for ­human dignity. ­These ­were remarkable achievements in light of the country’s history, and the findings on dignity in par­tic­u­lar help paint a fuller view of the value of democracy itself. While the rhe­toric of everyday politics can be dismissive of the South African rec­ord, a more sober and considered evaluation reveals a democracy that has worked better than is often appreciated—by both pundits and citizens alike.

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In the remainder of this chapter, I describe why the question of valuing South Africa’s demo­cratic proj­ect is a critical one; I outline the approach I took to answer this question; and I summarize the central findings detailed in the subsequent chapters. I highlight the profound value and remarkable achievements of South Africa’s first quarter c­ entury of multiracial, demo­cratic government in terms of what I call dignified development, while recognizing the enormity of the prob­lems that remain and that new challenges have emerged.

Why Ask? Throughout modern history, historians, phi­los­o­phers, and social scientists have all reflected on the value of democracy for the h­ uman condition. In so ­doing, they have considered ­whether democracy is intrinsically valuable, simply as an expression of freedom. And they have asked ­whether it leads to better outcomes for society. For example, does democracy promote economic development better than other systems of government?11 Is democracy good for the poor?12 Such questions are routinely asked and answered in more general terms, with re­spect to large numbers of polities. However, I focus on the value of democracy for the single country of South Africa. In this “case study” approach,13 I draw on many relevant comparisons, but I believe the narrowed attention is warranted. To begin with, South Africa is an intrinsically impor­tant case. Although only about the twenty-­fifth most populous country in the world, the country’s plight has long been central to global po­liti­cal movements and ideas about justice and democracy. In the late twentieth ­century, perhaps no single po­liti­cal issue galvanized ­people around the world more than the idea that Apartheid government must come to an end. Apartheid, or apartness, was a full-­ blown system of social engineering relentlessly implemented on the southern tip of the African continent. It effectively relegated a Black majority to third-­class citizenship. In turn, songs, plays, movies, and books captured the injustices of this system, and the very term “Apartheid” came to symbolize the essence of injustice, a retrograde form of internal colonial rule.

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Over the course of three de­cades, students at American and other foreign universities followed the lead of their South African counter­ parts, protesting and staging massive “sit-­ins” inside and outside administrative offices to demand divestment from companies ­doing business in South Africa. Even a youthful Barack Obama cut his teeth in public speaking by railing against the Apartheid regime as a student at Occidental College in 1981, an opportunity he used to also shed light on racial issues in the United States.14 The organizers of major sporting events, including the International Olympic Committee, barred South Africans from competition. The South African government and its privileged White citizenry became global pariahs, while its Black citizens, and especially their famed po­liti­cal leaders—­who sat in jail or lived in exile—­ earned the empathy and support of allies around the world. Sometimes for good and other times for bad, outsiders have always played an impor­tant role in the South African story. Citizens and po­liti­ cal leaders from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Cuba, and the Soviet Union, and particularly from countries across the African continent, ­were all intimately involved and/or interested in the long-­standing conflict over Apartheid-­style government. Depending on their po­liti­cal orientation and their own views on Amer­i­ca’s racial order, American po­liti­cal leaders took dif­fer­ent sides in support of or against White government. Moreover, while South Africa may be somewhat extreme in the extent to which it combines enormous ethnic and racial diversity along with high levels of income and wealth in­equality and a history of conflict, it is not alone in t­ hese regards. American history echoes many strands of South Africa’s, an idea expertly documented by George Fredrickson in his classic text, White Supremacy.15 Not just the United States but also Israel, Australia, Brazil, India, ­Kenya, and many other countries face similar conditions for building cohesion and prosperity given the overlap of diversity and in­equality. The degree to which South Africa underwent an extremely deliberate po­liti­cal transition offers possibilities for thinking about how to address such challenges in other contexts. For ­those interested in the making and breaking of racial bound­aries, ultimately one must confront the South African example.

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As we know now, the formal Apartheid system was dissolved through the removal of discriminatory laws and institutions in the early 1990s. Nelson Mandela went from prisoner to president. South Africa was welcomed back into the global community with open arms, and external scrutiny turned ­toward other hot spots around the globe. Like dozens of other countries at approximately the same time, South Africa ­adopted a set of demo­cratic institutions to select its leaders and make its policies. Against this impor­tant backdrop, a wide range of interested observers deserve to know what happened. Was it simply “case closed” in the sense that ­there was a prob­lem, it was fixed, and now it’s time to move on? Given widespread interest, it is impor­tant that we get this case right with re­spect to the success or failure of democracy writ large. ­W hether South Africa is a case of success or failure has enormous implications for how we think about the promise of democracy more generally. A key concern that motivated me to write this book was my own appraisal that the more recent po­liti­cal history has been mischaracterized. In fact, a dominant narrative argues that the post-­Apartheid period has been one of ­great expectations followed by profound disappointment. In summary form: thankfully, Apartheid fi­nally came to an end; the greatest anti-­Apartheid leader, Nelson Mandela, was elected president and ushered in a momentary period of calm and forbearance. But ­after his one term in office, the country descended into a sea of corruption and incompetence, leaving South Africa, as it is ­today, at a dangerous precipice. South Africa’s leading scholars and analysts have painted an increasingly grim picture of a still young demo­cratic order, which cannot help but contribute to a sense of dismay about the possibilities for demo­ cratic development. For example, Xolela Mangcu, a South African sociologist and journalist, penned his condemnation of the new order in a 2014 book titled The Arrogance of Power: South Africa’s Leadership Meltdown.16 This was a sequel to his 2008 book, To the Brink.17 Alex Boraine, a White politician who helped negotiate the terms of the country’s historic demo­cratic transition ­behind the scenes and worked closely with Archbishop Desmond Tutu to manage a national reconciliation pro­cess in the aftermath of Apartheid, was initially bullish on what could be

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accomplished. Nonetheless, in his 2014 book What’s Gone Wrong? South Africa on the Brink of Failed Statehood, he shared the notion that ­things are simply falling apart. Both Mangcu and Boraine recount examples of venal politicians acting in narrow self-­interest to the detriment of the greater public good. For example, according to Boraine, “If corruption ­were an event in the Olympic Games, the ANC government would be festooned with silver and bronze—­and perhaps a few gold medals as well.”18 Anton Harber, former editor of the leading South African newsweekly, the Mail & Guardian, documented his riveting and power­ful investigation of the po­liti­cally, eco­nom­ically, and socially dysfunctional township of Diepsloot, which lies on the edge of Johannesburg, not very far from Mogale City. In it, he makes the case: “You want to see South Africa . . . ​come to Diepsloot.”19 Foreign scholars have frequently amplified this “glass mostly empty” view of South African democracy. For example, the British university professor Nic Cheeseman analyzed the range of African experiments with demo­cratic rule since the 1990s in his impor­tant book, Democracy in Africa (2015). With re­spect to South Africa, he describes only what has gone wrong since 1994—­pointing out real disappointments in terms of government AIDS policy, xenophobia, and other foibles (as I also recount in the chapters that follow). One would not be able to read that book and fathom that almost anything had been accomplished during the period of ANC government.20 From the Zambian economist and best-­selling author Dambisa Moyo21 to the British journalist and po­liti­cal analyst R. W. Johnson22 to the foreign correspondents covering South Africa at the New York Times and other leading international news publications, close observers inside and outside the country have identified a range of prob­lems that contribute to a shared understanding of collective failure. And White South Africans—­those who left the country, as well as ­those who stayed—­are frequent interlocutors to American and Eu­ro­ pean audiences. Many of them have promoted what I call the “Specter of Zimbabwe” theory to anyone who ­will listen. That is, they point to the country to the north, once known as Southern Rhodesia, which was also ruled as a White settler society with an Apartheid-­style government. It

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is a country that similarly experienced a war for liberation and a transition to Black rule a ­little more than a de­cade ­earlier than South Africa did. U ­ nder President Mugabe, the country, now called Zimbabwe, went from being a robust exporter of agricultural products to one characterized by hyperinflation, food shortages, corruption, and wide pockets of state failure. And according to this formulation, South Africa is ­going down the same path. In this final analy­sis, it is hard not to detect a racist logic—­that Black rule inevitably leads to failure. The subtext is often, “You may not have liked Apartheid, but it was better than this” and sometimes more explic­itly, “This is what happens when they take over.” And on the day of the 2019 election, when I interviewed dozens of voters around Mogale City, many angrily raised concerns about jobs, lack of basic ser­vices, and crime. They ­were particularly incensed about the per­sis­tence of reports of government corruption. Viewed together, very dif­fer­ent commentators—­ranging from unapologetic Apartheid beneficiaries to former anti-­Apartheid activists, from all racial backgrounds—have painted an alarmingly negative portrait of the state of South Africa. In turn, my point is that such a picture can be dangerously misleading if it is presented on its own with the implicit or explicit caption, “This is what democracy delivered.”23 To be clear, I do not dispute the veracity of reports of bureaucratic failure, malfeasance, vio­lence, or abject poverty. I have sat through load-­ shedding power outages myself; on many trips and tours of South Africa, I have observed the per­sis­tent in­equality and squalor of many parts of the country firsthand and have analyzed the data confirming broader prob­lems. On vari­ous trips, I have worried about my own personal safety, cognizant of the prevalence of vio­lence. I know and trust many of the journalists, scholars, and civil society organ­izations that focus on ­these prob­lems. Rather, my concern is that if we take a larger macro-­historical perspective—­trying to summarize what happened ­after one of the world’s most anticipated po­liti­cal transitions—we need to pre­sent such facts in context regarding what happened in the past and what has been feasible given local and international constraints and challenges—­and,

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most importantly, with re­spect to what has gone right. In this sense, I follow more in the footsteps of the late Hans Rosling, who urged us to consider the big picture of global h­ uman health and development in order to recognize that even when ­things sometimes seem to be getting worse, they are actually getting better.24 Ultimately, the final judgment about w ­ hether the evidence illustrates a case of a glass half full or half empty is in the eye of the beholder. However, I believe that the influential group of interlocutors I just described has overwhelmingly focused on the prob­lems and largely ignored the accomplishments evident in post-­Apartheid South Africa. Perhaps this is not surprising given the tendency of ­human judgment to be characterized by “negativity bias.” That is, the devaluing power of bad ­things tends to be greater than the redeeming power of good ones.25 Relatedly, we do not expect news outlets to report on the millions of airplanes that land safely—­only on the ones that do not, even though ­those extraordinary stories of statistically outlying events can contri­ bute to a false sense of insecurity. Moreover, demo­cratic practice frequently incentivizes negative over positive appraisal ­because by design, demo­cratic government opens up channels for dissent and for challenging the exercise of power. Even when they are not governing, opposition parties and social groups, abetted by an open media, can cajole and pressure the government to rethink or revise its policies. Critical dialogue can help citizens to imagine what to even wish for. Th ­ ese are virtues. However, in so ­doing, demo­cratic practice feeds a degree of discontent. It puts a spotlight on prob­lems, particularly on malfeasance, and it gives special attention to t­ hose who are suffering and/or articulating their frustrations. And with the advent of social media, such tendencies are broadcast and shared with greater speed than ever thought imaginable. While such sharing of information plays an impor­ tant and positive role in driving accountability and social justice, it can lead observers to focus on shortcomings over pro­gress. In turn, social and po­liti­cal commentators must, at least on occasion, take stock of a fuller substantive and historical rec­ord in a more holistic manner. In fact, one of the inherent challenges of democracy is that ­because it is rooted in competition and transparency, citizens and actors are privy

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to more information about the failings of government per­for­mance and leadership, contributing to depressed perceptions relative to what they might experience if facing other­wise similar prob­lems in systems where information and critical voices w ­ ere absent. One is freer to complain louder in a democracy. Po­liti­cal competition, the media, protests, activists, courts, calls for redress, and dissenting voices are not the prob­lem in South Africa. They are the essence of democracy. Fiery words from po­liti­cal actors—­including ­those that tell the ruling party or president, “Democracy is broken”—­may reflect just the opposite. Critical po­liti­cal discourse in demo­cratic practice needs to be separated from evaluation of the quality of democracy itself. This is a subtle but impor­tant point. Throughout my research on demo­cratic South Africa, I have found p­ eople shouting, more or less, that “every­ thing is awful ­here,” which would not be pos­si­ble in strictly authoritarian countries from North ­Korea to China where every­one must say, on fear of prosecution, “It’s ­great ­here.” With re­spect to the latter, one scholar has aptly observed that the sudden collapse of the East Eu­ro­ pean communist regimes caught many observers by surprise b­ ecause ­under this form of authoritarian rule, citizens did not publicly express their views—­rather, they engaged in preference falsification.26 For democracy to survive, citizens must ultimately be convinced of its value. And it is certainly conceivable that democracy might not work best. Many organ­izations—­households, firms, universities—­operate successfully without truly demo­cratic rules for leadership se­lection or everyday operation. We should not promote democracy simply as a ­matter of blind faith. Even the most ardent defenders of democracy point us to certain key limitations, which often prove frustrating to citizens. Two of the most impor­tant modern theorists of demo­cratic development offered warnings at the onset of the “Third Wave” of democ­ ratization, of which South Africa was a part, concerning what might go wrong and what citizens might prefer instead. Describing several paradoxes of democracy, Larry Diamond observed that in trying to represent diverse interests, demo­cratic governments often move slowly; and compromise can undermine the prospects for effective solutions.27 And Robert Dahl pointed out that citizens may frequently won­der ­whether

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they would do better with informed “guardians,” who are experts at governing ­because of their superior knowledge or virtue, rather than ­those who convince the citizenry of their credentials.28 Despite real and perceived prob­lems, we must remind ourselves of democracy’s value, and that value may differ somewhat according to the arc of a country’s po­liti­cal development. Demo­cratic retreat w ­ ill surely continue u­ nless the intrinsic and extrinsic benefits of the demo­cratic proj­ect can be credibly established and communicated. Yes, we need to recognize what has gone wrong. Nonetheless, South Africa has the potential to demonstrate to democracy skeptics the world over what is pos­si­ble in a highly unequal, diverse, post–­civil war polity. To focus solely on the disappointments is to miss the bigger picture.

How to Know? If we are not ­going to rely simply on the subjective judgments of citizens and local observers and commentators, how does one evaluate the success of a democracy? Indeed, the motivating query for this book—­has the post-­Apartheid demo­cratic proj­ect been successful?—is imprecise and unanswerable without more direction. The first response to that question must be, “Compared to what?” If you ­were asked ­whether twenty-­three minutes is a good time for a par­tic­u­lar road race, it would not be pos­si­ble to answer that ­until you knew how long the race was, ­under what conditions it was taking place, and who e­ lse was r­ unning. Importantly, one would also want to know what was expected of that runner before the race began. In the same way, my own conclusions about successful demo­cratic development are based on attempts to establish reasonable benchmarks across time and space. ­Because the outcomes are complex and not easily mea­sured, I use a wide variety of data sources, ranging from my own personal interviews and observations across several de­cades, a wealth of secondary sources, newspaper archives, more than a dozen individual-­level large-­sample surveys, including a few I conducted myself, and administrative data from the South African government, research organ­izations, and

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vari­ous international organ­izations. Where pos­si­ble I try to highlight convergences and divergences between ­these dif­fer­ent sources of data and the relationship between subjective perceptions and outcomes that can be mea­sured more objectively. To assess demo­cratic per­for­mance using such data, I deploy a few key strategies. First, we need fair comparisons. I try to understand what has been achieved relative to the past (especially as detailed in chapter 4) and compared with other countries that share impor­tant similarities (chapters 6–8), especially, but not only, other African and other Upper-­ middle-­income countries. Given South Africa’s po­liti­cal history and using the experiences of many other countries as the basis for expectations, I show that a lot more failure is what we ­ought to have expected. As a highly unequal society with a harsh history of oppression by a White minority and a long tradition of vio­lence across groups throughout its history, the hard real­ity is that vio­lence and bloodshed could easily have been the defining features of post-­Apartheid South Africa. Indeed, we need to think about the proverbial dogs that ­didn’t bark to appreciate the history that in fact tran­spired: genocide akin to Rwanda’s or Yugo­ slavia’s, economic collapse akin to Venezuela’s, or ­actual state failure akin to Zimbabwe’s—­the latter two countries faced inflation, currency collapse, and food shortages. Second, it is useful to fix some goalposts, lest we create a framework of shifting expectations in which success is not theoretically pos­si­ble. We can be guided by prior declarations of hopes for a successful democracy, particularly as made by ­those who enjoyed popu­lar support during periods of po­liti­cal re­sis­tance. For example, liberation leaders set forth demands and expectations in the Freedom Charter of 1955 and in the final negotiation for a new democracy, as detailed in the preamble to the 1996 constitution (discussed in chapter 5). Across more than forty years, a key set of hopes remained remarkably consistent, including to develop a demo­cratic and open government, to improve the material quality of life for citizens, and to build unity while redressing past indignities. During ­these periods, and even ­earlier in the twentieth ­century, liberation leaders placed a heavy focus on the protection of basic ­human rights.

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Fi­nally, with re­spect to t­ hese vari­ous perspectives, we need to consider a diverse range of actors and stakeholders in their lived realities to assess how they have participated in and have been affected by the new po­liti­cal dispensation. In this re­spect, while I do consider the national picture, I also de­cided to focus my attention on a single municipality, about which I had no preconceptions of its successes or failures, and which I selected as a plausible reflection of the larger South African story. ­There is a saying that “all politics is local,” but in South Africa, it might be more apt to argue that “all politics is national,” in the sense that national issues are constantly played out in local arenas, both through centralized po­liti­cal parties that control local government positions and, perhaps more importantly, b­ ecause the everyday concerns of South Africans frequently relate quite directly to the country’s national history. And this is certainly true in the place I studied, Mogale City Local Municipality. Of course, Mogale’s story, like South Africa’s story, like that of any place, is unique in certain ways. But a focus on this one area—­a case within a case—­allowed me to dig more deeply into the lives of South Africans, to learn how they relate to one another and why they express the views and take the actions they do. I wanted to hear how ­people discuss issues, form their attitudes, participate in politics, and simply coexist and to examine the extent to which old patterns have changed or stayed the same, within the confines of a relatively well-­bounded geography. B ­ ecause I was largely unfamiliar with this municipality prior to conducting the research for this book, it allowed me to test ideas that I had generated from observations of other locales in South Africa. And while Mogale City Local Municipality is neither the economic nor the po­liti­cal capital of South Africa, and not even one of the country’s major metropolitan municipalities, its story is both representative of and in some cases surprisingly central to the larger national picture, including in the ways vari­ous forms of racial and ethnic conflict played out ­here, the building of Apartheid, and its eventual fall. Like much of the rest of Africa, South Africa is rapidly urbanizing, and approximately two-­thirds of South Africans now live in urban areas. About half of all South Africans reside in midsized local municipalities,

T h e Va l u e o f De m o c r a c y   63 ­table 3.1. Racial Demographics 2016, Mogale City and South Africa, Compared Population Group

Mogale City Local Municipality

Gauteng Province

South Africa

Black African White Indian or Asian Coloured Total Population

76% 21% 2%