ANC women councillors at the command post!

On 8 March, two days before the publication of this edition of ANC TODAY, the women and peoples of the world, including our own, celebrated International Women's Day.

In this context, we are pleased to recall the 2006 January 8th Statement of our National Executive Committee, in which it urged our nation to do everything possible to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the 9 August 1956 Women's March on Pretoria in an appropriate manner.

Our movement must respond to this call, working genuinely to advance the cause of the emancipation of the women of our country, of Africa and the world.

At the same time, we must take great pride in, and celebrate what we have already done during the very beginning of the year of this important Anniversary, to confirm our determination to ensure the further advance of the cause of genuine gender equality.

I refer here to the implementation of the decision taken at our 2005 National General Council to present 50/50 gender lists during our 2006 local government elections, which we did.

Like all our organisational and government electoral candidate lists, our local government candidate slates originated from our most basic foundation structures, the ANC branches. I would therefore like to take this opportunity to thank and salute the hundreds of thousands of ANC members throughout the country who made it their responsibility to ensure that we succeeded to present our electorate with the possibility to take a giant step forward of placing many more women in decision-making positions in the critically important sphere of local government.

Because of this historic intervention by the ANC, the results of the 2006 local government elections mean that our country has moved further forward towards the achievement of our movement's goal of gender equality and the emancipation of women. This, surely, must be one of the highlights of this important year of the 50th Anniversary of the 1956 Women's March on Pretoria.

Many among our readers will not be familiar with an important conference of South African women that took place in Luanda, Angola, 25 years ago. This was a Conference of the then ANC Women's Section, which stood in the place and acted as the legitimate representative of the ANC Women's League during the years of extreme repression and the illegality of our movement.

Understanding the importance of both the Women's Section and the challenge of the emancipation of women, the then President of the ANC, Oliver Tambo, addressed both the Opening and the Closing Sessions of the 1981 Luanda Conference of the ANC Women's Section. In his address at the Closing Session of the Conference on 14 September, he said:

"Women in the ANC should stop behaving as if there was no place for them above the level of certain categories of involvement. They have a duty to liberate us men from antique concepts and attitudes about the place and role of women in society and in the development and direction of our revolutionary struggle.

"In fear of being a failure, Comrade Lindiwe Mabuza cried, sobbed and ultimately collapsed on top of herself when she learnt she had been appointed ANC Chief Representative to the Scandinavian countries. But, looking at the record, could any man have done better or even as well?

"The oppressor has, at best, a lesser duty to liberate the oppressed than the oppressed himself. The struggle to conquer oppression in our country is the weaker for the traditionalist, conservative and primitive restraints imposed on women by man-dominated structures within our movement, as also because of equally traditionalist attitudes of surrender and submission on the part of women.

"We need to move from revolutionary declarations to revolutionary practice. We invite the ANC Women's Section, and the black women of South Africa, more oppressed and more exploited than any section of the population, to take up this challenge and assume their proper role, outside the kitchen, among the fighting ranks of our movement and at its command posts.

"The Women's Section is not an end in itself. It is a weapon of struggle, to be correctly used, against all forms and levels of oppression and inequality, in the interests of a victorious struggle of the people.

"If I have perchance overstated the case for a more balanced distribution of tasks and responsibilities within our movement, it remains true that the burden that women carry is seldom recognised. Their silent fortitude as they toil under the weight of man-made hardships often passes unnoticed and unsung."

All those among us who identify themselves as true cadres of the ANC must respond practically to the directives to the women and men members of our movement that Oliver Tambo so clearly spelt out in Luanda, 25 years ago. It is what we do in this regard, in actual practice, that will define whether we are the democrats and revolutionaries we claim to be.

In this regard, the question we must answer in action is - are we, as a movement and a nation, ready to take all necessary action to ensure that:

• we defeat traditionalist, conservative and primitive restraints imposed on women by man-dominated structures and practices within our own movement;
• the women of South Africa no longer act as if there was no place for them above the level of certain categories of involvement in the struggle to achieve the objectives of the democratic revolution;
• we defeat traditionalist attitudes of surrender and submission on the part of women;
• the women help to liberate all men in our country from antique concepts and attitudes about the place and role of women in society and in the development and direction of our national struggle for social transformation;
• our society recognises and acknowledges the silent fortitude of the women of our country as they toil under the weight of man-made hardships, which often passes unnoticed and unsung;
• because they are more disadvantaged and exploited than any section of our population, the women take up the challenge of leadership and assume their proper role, outside the kitchen, among the fighting ranks of the movement for fundamental social change and at its command posts; and,
• we move from declarations about women's emancipation to measurable practice and results, which must reflect actual progress in this regard.

The critically important step we took to achieve gender equality in our local government election lists and the ANC councillors who actually got elected, demonstrated our determination to refuse to be satisfied merely with declarations about the emancipation of women.

The results of the 1 March elections make an important statement about the success we achieved to increase the numbers of women in our system of local government.

The best performing provinces in this regard, which have between 54% and 50.5% women of the elected ANC councillors are, in descending order, the Northern Cape, Gauteng and the North West, led by the Northern Cape.

The next best group of provinces, with between 48.8% and 45% women in terms of the elected ANC councillors, are, again in descending order, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, the Eastern Cape and Free State, led by Limpopo.

The Western Cape and KwaZulu Natal are our worst performing provinces, with the former registering 39.7%, and the latter 35% with regard to women's representation among the elected ANC councillors.

Nationally, 46.08% of the ANC councillors are women. Significantly, only just over 40% of these are Ward Councillors.

Nationally, women will constitute about 40% of all councillors. Of these, 78.7% are ANC women councillors. Even in our worst performing provinces, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, we still made an important contribution to the total number of women elected in these provinces. The relevant figures in this regard are 49.4% and 52.6% respectively.

These figures confirm the national impact of the ANC decision to increase women's representation and the countervailing effect inflicted on the country by the other parties, which made little effort to strive for gender equality.

The outstanding results we achieved in the Northern Cape, Gauteng and the North West demonstrate that given the will, it is indeed possible for us to achieve the objectives we set ourselves with regard to advancing the cause of gender equality, which is a fundamental component part of our movement's outlook and programme.

We must also acknowledge the fact that, obviously, the ANC in Limpopo, Mpumalanga, the Eastern Cape and Free State did make a serious effort to meet the target of gender equality set by our movement. However, the votes we obtained in these provinces fell slightly below our expectations, resulting in these provinces suffering shortfalls of between 1.2% and 5% below the targeted number for elected women ANC councillors.

None of us, including our leadership in the Western Cape and KwaZulu Natal, can express satisfaction with the results we achieved in these two provinces. It is true that ever since our liberation in 1994, to date, these provinces have presented us with the most serious challenge in our political struggle to secure the support and allegiance of the masses of the people.

Our poor performance with regard to achieving gender equality in these two provinces in terms of our elected councillors, unfortunately communicates the clear message that we have continued to treat the matter of women's emancipation as a hindrance or an 'add-on' to our struggle to emerge as the majority political formation in these provinces.

This is also reflected in the proportion of women Ward Councillors. The figures for the Northern Cape and the North West are 55.6% and 49% respectively: those for the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal are 31.4% and 21.4%. The outcomes in the latter two provinces represent our continued acceptance of the societal prejudices against women, which Oliver Tambo spoke against in 1981, which led us to present many more males than females as our Ward candidates.

We must therefore openly recognise the fact that the majority of our women councillors have been elected on the basis of our proportional representation (PR) lists. Thus, in good measure, their strong presence in the new municipal councils reflects the confidence of the masses of our people in the ANC.

None of this subtracts from the great blow our movement struck for women's emancipation and genuine democracy in our country, reflected in the large number of women that will now sit as leaders of their communities in the critically important sphere of local government.

Nevertheless, precisely because of our seriousness and unwavering commitment to the cause of the emancipation of women, we must carefully study the entirety of our experience as we acted boldly to achieve gender equality in local government.

The lessons we will draw will help us to improve our performance in this and the other spheres of government, as well as all structures and levels of our movement. This must also help us to determine the steps we must take to ensure that, immediately, our women councillors live up to the expectations of our movement and people.

We must do everything possible to empower the ANC women councillors so that, as Oliver Tambo said, they assume their proper role, outside the kitchen, among the fighting ranks of the movement for fundamental social transformation, and at its command posts.

The Platform of Action adopted at the Beijing UN Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995 said: "Achieving the goal of equal participation of women and men in decision-making will provide a balance that more accurately reflects the composition of society and is needed in order to strengthen democracy and promote its proper functioning.

"Equality in political decision-making performs a leverage function without which it is highly unlikely that a real integration of the equality dimension in government policy-making is feasible. In this respect, women's equal participation in political life plays a pivotal role in the general process of the advancement of women.

"Women's equal participation in decision-making is not only a demand for simple justice or democracy but can also be seen as a necessary condition for women's interests to be taken into account. Without the active participation of women and the incorporation of women's perspective at all levels of decision-making, the goals of equality, development and peace cannot be achieved."

The ANC is proud of its sustained, positive and practical response to this clear call issued one year after our liberation by the women and peoples of the world. We are especially proud that during this year of the 50th Anniversary of August 9th, we radically improved the participation of the heroic women of our country in the decision-making structures of the vitally important sphere of local government, the echelon of government that is closest to the people.

We congratulate all the women councillors elected on 1 March, including those who do not belong to the ANC. Our movement is committed to ensure that at least those who are our members, and are therefore deployees of the ANC in local government, receive all necessary support to ensure that they succeed in their important tasks.

Thus will these women cadres of the democratic revolution, as Oliver Tambo said, help to "liberate us men from antique concepts and attitudes about the place and role of women in society and in the development and direction of our revolutionary struggle".

Election 2006 results

'We will not take growing support for granted'

Over a million more voters placed their crosses next to the ANC on the ballot paper in last week's local government elections than in the 2000 local elections, reaffirming the continued support of the South African people for the ANC as the leading force for meaningful change.

Not only did the ANC significantly improve its percentage support, and increase the number of councils it controls, but it did so in the context of a much higher turnout of the actual number of voters than in 2000.

Nearly 1.3 million more people voted for the ANC in 2006 compared with 2000. The ANC controls more councils than in 2000. In five provinces the ANC controls all councils outright. The exceptions are Gauteng, where one council - Midvaal - was won by the Democratic Alliance (DA), the Eastern Cape (where two councils are hung) and the Western Cape and KwaZulu Natal.

Of the 303 municipal structures in the country, the ANC has outright control of 228. This includes 5 metro councils, 174 local councils, 34 district councils and 15 District Management Areas (DMAs). The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) controls 4 district councils and 23 local municipalities. The DA controls 4 local councils. A further 40 structures are 'hung', in that no single party achieved more than 50% of the vote.

Comparing overall council control with 2000 reveals the extent of the DA's decline and the ANC's gain. Out of the 237 local councils (including the metros), the DA controlled 12 outright in 2000, including 8 in the Western Cape, 3 in the Northern Cape and 1 in the Eastern Cape. In 2000 it was reduced to only 8, losing control of all its councils in the Northern Cape and controlling only 2 councils in the Western Cape outright, with the rest being hung. The IFP also took a significant hit, being reduced from control of 33 councils in KwaZulu Natal in 2000 to only 23 in 2006. The ANC was the beneficiary of all of these shifts, increasing its control of local councils from 162 in 2000 to 179 in 2006.

Turnout

As a percentage of registered voters, turnout was slightly higher in 2006 (48.4%) than in 2000 (47.6%). But the number of citizens who voted was significantly higher than in 2000. More than 10 million South Africans cast their ballot in 2006, up from 8.8 million in 2000 - this amounts to a growth in participation of more than 16%.

The growth in turnout was across all provinces, with Limpopo, North West, KwaZulu Natal and Eastern Cape recording the largest increases. The Eastern Cape had the highest percentage turnout (56%), while Gauteng had the lowest participation of registered voters (43%).

Aside from the Eastern Cape, the provinces with the largest turnout were those in which there was significant contestation for power among parties: KwaZulu Natal, Western Cape and Northern Cape. This pattern is reflected at the municipal level, where the areas with the highest turnout are largely in these four provinces.

The lowest turnout in the country was Merafong. Aside from the unique situation there, municipalities with the lowest turnout tended to be the large urban areas (including Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and Durban). Rustenburg, which had the lowest turnout in 2000, had the lowest turnout in the country after Merafong.

Performance of parties

In terms of proportional representation (PR) votes, the ANC attracted 1.3 million additional ballots in 2006 compared to 2000. The ANC's overall percentage of the vote was 66% in 2006, with the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and Limpopo all giving the ANC in excess of 80% of ballots cast. The ANC is the largest party in every province.

In general the ANC's vote increased in almost all municipalities. Some of the largest increases were in KwaZulu Natal, where the ANC's vote increased significantly in every council. In Ethekwini the ANC's vote increased by 115,000. Large increases in votes for the ANC can also be seen across the Eastern Cape.

Compared with 2000, the Democratic Alliance got fewer votes in most municipalities and lost 330,000 votes overall. The largest absolute declines in DA support were in the metros, where 171,000 fewer people cast their ballot for the party. The largest decline was in Cape Town, taking the DA from higher than 50% of the vote in 2000, to only 42% in 2006. Outside the Metros, the DA's decline in votes was most apparent in the Western Cape and Northern Cape. The DA remains the largest opposition party in all provinces with the exception of KwaZulu Natal

The Independent Democrats (ID) emerged as the third largest party in both the Northern Cape and Western Cape with 8.4% and 10.5% of the votes cast respectively. In Gauteng the ID scored 1.3% of the vote and everywhere else less than 1%. In the Eastern Cape, the ID managed to secure more than 5% of the vote in Kou-Kamma and Baviaans. It did not achieve this in any municipality outside the Western, Eastern and Northern Cape.

The decline of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) accelerated with the 2006 election. While the party gained additional votes in much of its rural heartland, this was more than offset by huge declines in support in the small towns and urban areas. At the same time the ANC significantly increased its votes across the province, in both rural and urban areas, taking control of a number of councils formerly run by the IFP.

The National Democratic Convention (NADECO) does not appear to have made much of an impact, despite the decline in the IFP's support. It failed to get 10% of the PR vote in any municipality, and only scored more than 5% in Mtubatuba, Imbabazane, Newcastle and Dannhauser. The party won 24 of the 1,651 seats in KwaZulu Natal and one in Gauteng.

The Vryheidsfront Plus (VF+) did not stand in most areas in the 2000 election, but gave support to the 'Alliance 2000+'. Compared with the combined performance of the two in 2000, the VF+ made significant gains in 2006. It has emerged as the third largest party in Gauteng and the Free State in terms of seats won, and has a presence in all the other provinces except Northern Cape. The VF+ also achieved more than 10% of the vote in three municipalities in Limpopo (Mookgopong, Modimolle and Thabazimbi).

The African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) experienced moderate growth in votes cast for it. However, the party failed to make more than 1% of the vote nationally. The party managed to win a number of seats in Western Cape, Gauteng, North West and Limpopo.

The United Democratic Movement (UDM) lost control of the King Sabata Dalindyebo municipality, but still managed to poll 25% of the PR votes in that municipality. Other municipalities where the party got more than 10% of the vote were Mbhashe, Mnquma, Mhlontlo and Engcobo in the Eastern Cape and Richmond in KwaZulu Natal.

Interestingly, the United Independent Front (UIF), which split away from the UDM prior to the election made an insignificant impact in the Eastern Cape, but won the majority of UDM seats in Limpopo, getting 14 seats in that province against the UDM's eight. This may indicate a further narrowing of the UDM's base towards its ethnic heartland.

Former Bantustan parties, such as United Christian Democratic Party (UCDP), Dikwankwetla and Ximoko all remain players on the local government scene with pockets of support, but with reduced representation.

Independents did not emerge as a significant force in this election. Only 2.68% of the ward votes cast in 2006 was cast for independent candidates. However, independents organised into political parties did achieve some successes. Notable among these is the Independent Civic Organisation of South Africa (ICOSA), which became a force in the Western Cape outside the Metro.

In its comment on the ANC's improved results, the ANC National Working Committee this week said that: "The ANC cannot and will not take this growing support for granted. We understand that it is based not only on the achievements of the organisation to date, but also on the expectation that the ANC will effectively unite all South Africans to tackle the challenges our people continue to face. The ANC will not disappoint the people."

What the media says

Gloomy commentators still try to prove the people wrong

On many occasions in the past our movement has drawn attention to the fact that we have to wage an unrelenting political and ideological struggle as part of our offensive for the promotion of our democratic revolution. This necessary condition for our progress has been confirmed by the recent sustained onslaught against us, focused on issues related to the 1 March 2006 local government elections.

In the run-up to these elections, there was much domestic and international media speculation and elaboration of intended self-fulfilling prophecies that our movement, the ANC, would fare very badly. It was said that especially our core constituency was so enraged by "lack of delivery", "corruption" and other failures, that it would punish us by denying us its votes.

To give strength to this projected gloomy outcome, the pundits pointed to demonstrations that had taken place in some municipalities. They said that at least 900 of these had taken place since the 2000 local government elections. The disturbances at Khutsong served as grist to their mill, providing them with a news story they enjoyed reporting because they were happy and satisfied that it represented the fulfilment of their prophecy, and bad news for our movement.

However, as we predicted throughout the election campaign, the masses of our people proved the doomsayers wrong. We garnered more votes than we did in the 2000 local government elections. We increased the number of municipalities governed by ANC councils. We increased our majorities in the very localities where demonstrations had taken place.

We had pointed out that the masses of our people were very familiar with and fully appreciated the enormous strides we had made in the 12 years of our democracy, towards the achievement of the goal of a better life for all. We had also said that even when a minority among these masses took to the streets, these were calling on their movement to improve its performance.

Their demonstrations did not represent a rejection of a movement they consider their only political home. They constituted an appeal to their movement to act on their concerns, knowing that only this movement has the will and capacity to address those concerns. We therefore said that when the time came, during the local government elections, even those areas where demonstrations had taken place would come out without hesitation to express their confidence in the ANC.

The results of the 1 March elections have proved that we were right and that the doomsayers were wrong. We had expected that the honest ones among the prophets of doom would have the decency and courage to tell their readers, viewers and listeners that they had been wrong in their predictions, and that we had been right.

However, it seems that this time we are the ones who were wrong. Those committed to the objective to present our movement in a negative light were and are not about to allow facts and the will of our people to stand in the way of their mission. They are clearly determined to sustain their offensive to project us as a traitor to the people's interests.

To our surprise, we have seen that even the Middle East broadcaster, Al Jazeera, seems ready to lend its weight to this partisan offensive against the ANC. On 4 March, when the outcome of our local government elections was clear, Al Jazeera said: "The African National Congress victory in local elections was less a reflection of widespread popularity than of the South African opposition's inability to take advantage of the government's shoddy record and in-house feuds."

Thus, according to Al Jazeera, regardless of how our people voted, and indeed contrary to the outcome of the free and democratic expression of the will of our people, the opposition parties are more popular than the ANC. Obviously, therefore, as they voted, the masses of our people were not intelligent enough to realise this on their own, and the opposition parties did themselves a grave disservice by failing to tell the people that they were more popular than the ANC.

In our election manifesto we said that, among other things, as a result of what the ANC, the government and our people as a whole had done since 1994:

• More people than ever have access to clean water and have electricity in their homes.
• More people have opportunities to improve their lives, to become educated and acquire skills, and to help build a better South Africa.
• The economy is growing and is creating more jobs, enabling us to reduce poverty.
• More South Africans have gained access to housing, land and education, and services in clinics are improving.

Whereas no reasonable South African would contest any of this, especially the millions of poor people who voted for the ANC on 1 March, Al Jazeera boldly came to the conclusion that all these achievements amounted to nothing more than a "shoddy record".

To emphasise how shoddy this record is, triumphantly it said: "The ANC trumpets the fact that more than 1.5 million households have moved from shacks to subsidised brick homes with a bathroom since the end of apartheid, but more than 5.6 million families still live in abysmal conditions."

As we would expect, Al Jazeera said absolutely nothing about the very simple and obvious fact that our democracy is only 12 years old, and that we face the enormous challenge to eradicate the legacy of 350 years of colonialism and apartheid. Clearly, as part of the strategy to discredit our liberation movement and government, this broadcaster is happy to blame this historic legacy on the very same movement that led our people in the struggle to defeat colonialism and apartheid, a phenomenon described in social science as "blaming the victim".

The reference by Al Jazeera to supposed ANC "in-house feuds" betrayed the fact that our opponents had entertained the hope that the controversial matters relating to our Deputy President would alienate the masses of our people from the ANC. Their hope blinded them to the simple reality that the principal preoccupation of these masses is the challenge of improving the quality of their lives, and not so-called "in-house feuds".

In any case, drawing on experience that extends over more than nine decades, these masses know that our movement will solve any "in-house feuds" that may erupt from time to time. Regardless of the hopes of our successive opponents over these decades, such "feuds", whether real or imagined, have never succeeded to divert the masses of our people away from their strategic goals, and will not do so now.

Supposedly to give authenticity to its views, Al Jazeera cited a number of South African sources. These included:

• Adam Habib, whom it said comes from "the respected Human Sciences Research Council";
• "analyst" Paul Graham from the Institute for Democracy in South Africa, whom it said "also interpreted the results as a victory by default";
• Steven Motale, it described as the "political editor of The Citizen daily - which has an overwhelmingly black readership"; and,
• The Sowetan, it said is "another prominent black daily".

As South Africans we would of course understand why, deliberately to communicate a false image of "objective and balanced media reporting", it was absolutely necessary to attach such descriptions to Al Jazeera's Oracles of Delphi as "respected", "analyst", "overwhelmingly black", and "prominent black".

Anybody familiar with the international media would be amazed that the hatchet job we have sought to describe, which is clearly informed by a particular political agenda, is the work of Al Jazeera.

For the sake of fairness we must inform our readers that Al Jazeera merely, and perhaps carelessly, carried a report prepared and distributed internationally by Agence France Presse (AFP), the French news agency. Responding to this, many of those among us who have followed AFP reporting about our movement and country during our years of democracy will undoubtedly say - but of course: we are not surprised.

The historic French Revolution took place 205 years before our own democratic revolution. It would be very interesting to hear from the AFP, the French news agency, whether 217 years after its democratic revolution, France has solved the problems of unemployment and poverty, homelessness, pervasive mass social alienation, and human misery, which the French news agency clearly believes South Africa should have solved in 12 years.

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