SOUTH AFRICA's second election on a full non-racial franchise has resulted in an overwhelming victory for the ANC slate, led by Thabo Mbeki, achieving an even bigger victory than Mandela's.
The ANC, with 66.4 per cent of the vote, fell short of its target of a two-thirds majority. That would have allowed it to change the constitution, which Mbeki has stated that he had no intention of doing. The minority opposition parties fared very badly. The former ruling National Party, the begetter of apartheid, got only 7 per cent of the • votes. Four years ago it received 20.7 per cent. The majority of white voters deserted it, voting instead for the raciallytainted right-wing Democratic Party. This party fought on the slogan 'right Back', which its supporters interpreted as 'Fight Blacks'.
The main beef of the whites is the affirmative action legislation, forgetting that affirmative action has been endemic in South Africa for more than 300 years - in favour of whites, of course.
A white farmer who was found guilty of killing a black child was sentenced to a fine. The judge who sentenced him was JHOL appointed to the judiciary because he was the best person for the job. He benefited from affirmative action because he was white. Today, nearly ten years after the ending of apartheid, there only one black senior judge.
Undoubtedly the election result is a vote of confidence in the ANC, but it is more than that. There is also great disappointment that all the hopes engendered the end of apartheid has not been realised.
As Winnie Mandela put it in one of her campaign speeches; «The people did not fight against apartheid just to be able to go to the polls once every four years. They want to see a redistribution of wealth which is still overwhelmingly in the hands of the whites:"
Thabo Mbeki mildly echoes the came sentiments. Wealthier whites, he said, can afford to make a greater financial sacrifice. But how does he hope to achieve this when, in the same speech, he said his government would continue the 'market led economy'? He also says nothing about by Mbeki (right) celebrates: What happens when the laughter stops? renouncing the crippling international debt inherited from the apartheid regime.
Both Mandela and Mbeki promised that they have no intention of reversing the protection for property rights [indecipherable in original] on the grounds it would undermine international confidence [dittol in the South African government.
Women will certainly be watching to see if he means what he said about continuing "to strive for their enlightenment and emancipation". A recent survey shows that in the still dominant private sector of the economy, women have gained little.
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