Politics of race: The Coloured voter’s dilemma in the Western Cape

The Western Cape is the only province in South Africa which does not have a majority black population, the ANC’s main support base. This has always been a weak point for the ANC. Even during the presidential term of the widely popular Nelson Mandela, the ANC has never won the Western Cape with an outright majority.

Support for either the Democratic Alliance (DA); previously known as the Democratic Party (DP), or the African National Congress (ANC) has always been unpredictable province until 2009 when the DA secured 51.46% of the vote; representing over 1 million of the almost 2.6 million registered voters. Since then, the ANC, which secured 31.55% of the vote, has tried in vain to entice Coloured voters to vote for them in order to win the province.

ID Leader and Cape Town city mayor, Patricia De Lille

When coloured voters were interviewed during the elections, they stated that they were unhappy with the way the ANC ruled the country. Some even went as far as to say that their quality of life was much better during the apartheid era. Although they did not agree with the Group Areas Act and were very unhappy about being forcibly removed from their homes, they were of the view that at least the apartheid government provided for them.

For them the apartheid era provided them with jobs and they were given houses and would rather have that than the perceivably high unemployment rate and homelessness experienced by a considerable amount of the coloured population In the Western Cape. They also noted that the country was a much safer and attribute the low crime levels experienced during apartheid to the death penalty; a penal code that no longer exists in post-apartheid South Africa.

Many in the coloured community feel that the ANC-led government has over the past 18 years treated them like outcasts, and they invoke classic “we were too black during apartheid and too white under black majority government”, perceived as betrayal of the Coloured person, who, like the black South African fought equally hard during to secured South Africa’s freedom.

Affirmative action is also the Coloured person’s biggest gripe with the ANC. Their chances of being employed are lessened because to their race. They feel that black candidates trump coloured candidates for jobs based purely on the colour of their skin.

The ANC’s popularity in the Western Cape continues to decline due to perceived service delivery failures in predominantly coloured populated areas. There is an increasing feeling among some Coloured people that their concerns their plight is heard and appreciated more by the DA than the ANC.

There is also another group of people feel that the DA-led government in the Western Cape, is also guilty of the same crime as the ANC, in that they, like the ANC only cares about the plight of the coloured people during elections and that in between elections, their struggle is largely ignored. This is evidenced by that fact that most young coloured voters are confused about which party to vote for and stated that both parties did little, if anything, for their communities and, therefore, chose not to vote for either party. If the situation was not confusing enough for the coloured voter, plans are currently underway to facilitate the union between DA and the Independent Democrats (ID) before the country’s next elections in 2014.

The ID is a predominantly coloured-supported party and, with the DA and the ID merging, the DA will most likely retain the province. Beyond this, the move by the ID to join the DA; a mostly white party, may complicate the coloured voter’s dilemma, in that with the ID gone, the coloured voter will yet again have no realistically big enough party that represents coloured interests.