In the Western Cape, coloured people are the largest ethnic group, yet their votes for the ANC are elusive.

But why is this? In an attempt to make up for the lack of media coverage and political analysis, The Mail & Guardian’s Ebrahim Harvey discusses the topic.

Let’s start off with two “important facts”:

One, the powerful United Democratic Front (UDF) was launched in the biggest coloured township in Cape Town, Mitchells Plain, in 1983. Two, under apartheid the UDF had achieved what no other party had before: substantial unity in action of coloured and African working-class communities around a wide range of common political and socioeconomic demands.

In 1992, the ANC “prematurely disbanded the UDF” just two years before the 1994 elections. Ebrahim considered this the biggest political and strategic mistake the ANC made regarding the coloured vote…

..seemingly under pressure to do so by the exile-based ANC leadership, which had seen the UDF as a potential opponent or competitor and for many as too militant with its socialistic undertones.

The vacuum that resulted from the disbanding of the UDF was assiduously exploited by the Nationalist Party, especially since the ANC was still struggling to re-establish itself in the country after it was banned for decades.

The result was that the ANC was roundly defeated in the Western Cape in the first-ever non-racial elections in our history in 1994, from which it has never recovered. That the ANC lost in the birthplace of the UDF – which was overtly pro-ANC – was a massive and tragic irony.

Never, ever, in the history of the world, has the oppressed voted for the oppressors in their first-ever democratic election. Instead, they celebrate liberation from them.

This was the most damning paradox in post-apartheid South Africa, the consequences of which still persist to this day. The ANC mistakenly took it for granted that the massive groundswell of support the UDF had, especially in the Western Cape, would automatically translate into ongoing electoral support for the ANC but it was not to be.

Another matter is that since the ANC gained power, the coloured community is seemingly disgruntled from not benefiting from their efforts for black economic empowerment.

If you have immersed yourself in the coloured community, their disdain for black people is evident. There is a clear divide between the two racial groups, with much animosity coming from the coloured people who still dominate the Western Cape.

For this the ANC must take primary responsibility, especially since coloured people have always been an organic and inseparable part of the oppressed and exploited peoples of this country.

The non-racial fraternity in struggle between African and coloured people of the UDF days is sadly dead. Whereas the coloured and African working-class communities, by virtue of largely similar socioeconomic conditions, should have been natural allies, they seem more apart today than before.

The DA has succeeded in infiltrating the coloured communities across the country over the past decade as a result of alienation from the ANC, and this will only see loss of support for the ANC, especially from coloured youth.

This is unfortunately due to the fact that the ANC has still not imbibed lessons from our history.

[source: mg]