The South African electorate at mid-term

The Helen Suzman Foundation, as part of its Consolidating Democracy project [generously supported by the HSRC), commissioned a national opinion survey in October 1996, at the mid-term date of the country's first democratic government. The survey was carried out by MarkData and was based on a stratified probability sample of 2 227 South Africans of all races.

The Consolidating Democracy project aims at capacity building in opinion research and analysis among black researchers at historically disadvantaged universities, and the questionnaire design was the result of consultation and participation by faculty and students from the Universities of Transkei, Fort Hare and Zululand.

 

Reporting on the opinions and feelings of South Africa's electorate both in the run-up to and the aftermath of the first democratic election of 1994, Johnson and Schlemmer discovered alarmingly high levels of constraint on free choice. In some contexts the constraints were often nakedly physical and intimidatory, but probably more often they were diffuse - respondents simply lived in an atmosphere where open dissent from certain normative views was not welcome.

Often the state of community mobilisation was such that even where respondents genuinely held certain views, those views were powerfully backed up by a sense of community sanction against those who did not hold such views. [See RW Johnson and Lawrence Schlemmer [eds) Launching Democracy in South Africa. The First Open Election, April 1994, Yale University Press, 1996. See especially chapters 4 and 12].

Our first question, as we looked at the electorate halfway through the life of the first democratically elected government, was how far did such constraints still exist? The answer is that to an unhappy degree they still do, exercising a clear and quasi-coercive push towards a particular version of political correctness.

Thus, we found that 46% of all South Africans said that it would be difficult for people like themselves to live in their neighbourhood if their political views differed from those of most other people there, and a further 9% said this would be impossible. Whites were, predictably, least affected by such community pressures, but 27% even of them said it would be difficult or impossible, as compared with 34% of Asians, 45% of coloureds and 64% of Africans.

Whites most affected by such pressures were poorer Afrikaners living in right wing small town and rural communities. Asians most affected were poorer, NP supporting Hindus - though it has to be remembered that in 1994 we found that Asians were by far the most timorous community, more likely than others to report anxiety on every score. Coloureds most likely to feel such pressures were poorer, Afrikaans speaking women who attended the Dutch Reformed Church: they too heavily supported the NP.

Africans worst affected by such pressures were 1FP supporters, 83% of whom said it would be difficult/impossible to hold contrary views in their neighbourhoods, as did 70% of uncommitted voters.

Only in the Eastern Cape and Northern Province did majorities say it would be easy to do such a thing. Everywhere else the social pressures felt -principally by ANC voters - were overwhelming. In Gauteng 74% said it would be difficult/impossible to differ from the community norm, and in Mpumalanga and the North West the figure rose to 79%, with pressures worse in townships than in squatter camps or rural areas.

 

An almost equally poor sign was that 54% of all voters had little or no trust in the police (including 21 % with 'no trust at all'] to protect the citizenry and act against crime. Despite the attempt to refocus and transform the SAPS and its image, almost twice as many non-whites as whites had no trust [with African township dwellers most likely to feel this]. It is difficult to see how a sense of effective citizenship can develop when a majority of the population feel they are living in something approaching a Hobbesian state of nature.

It is clear, too, that South Africans are uncomfortably aware of the potential fragility of their new democracy. Only 29% of all races [including only 16% of whites] were confident that democracy was secure here and that free elections would continue to be held in the future; 39% were not very confident and 20% not confident at all [and even the 12% who replied to this question that they did not know, could hardly be adjudged confident).

This lack of confidence was based not only on concerns about South Africa but on a more general Afro-pessimism, with 53% of all voters [including 71% of whites] saying that 'in most countries in Africa conditions for the ordinary people have not improved and have become worse in recent years'. When asked why this should be so, however, few voters were willing to proffer explanations - the most popular were unemployment and weak democratic values.

The fact that 51 % of all voters simply gave a blank response to this question suggests either a despairing feeling that African failures are simply in the nature of things or, perhaps, an unwillingness to specify reasons which could be interpreted as racially derogatory. Among African voters, this Afro-pessimism was particularly pronounced among those with higher education and in areas like the Eastern and Northern Cape where opinion is already more pessimistic about developments in South Africa. Even 40% of African ANC voters shared this pessimism, as did 61 % of IFF and 70% of PAC voters.

Equally striking was the finding that 48% of all voters thought that, whatever the constitution might say about freedom of speech, they had to 'be careful about criticising the government because one never knows how one might be harmed as a result'. The most fearful group this time was whites [54%], particularly Afrikaans speakers [59%). Among those not intending to vote in an election, the figure rose to 71% - though it is impossible to say what was cause here and what effect - and 48% of coloureds emitted the same fearful opinion, with the old, NP supporters, the politically uncommitted, and those living in the Northern Cape particularly scared. The same opinion was held by 30% of Asians [39% of women, 23% of men].

Only 49% of Africans felt confident that anyone could freely criticise the government, including only 46% of ANC supporters. The most fearful groups were PAC [56%) and NP [59%] supporters and those living in the Free State [52%), Gauteng [59%] and the North West [61 %).

This latter point has to be borne in mind when, in answer to one question after another, the North West and Free State showed far higher levels of [politically correct) satisfaction with government than the other provinces. This is not necessarily to say that such responses are not genuine but it would appear, at the least, that support for the government is often unhealthily tinged with apprehension and anxiety and that it is often infused with a fearful deference rather than the free-spirited expression of opinion one would hope to see in a fully developed liberal democracy.

 

	African	White	Coloured	Asian	Total
ANC	72	3.7	39.6	30.7	56
PAC	3.3	0	1,2	0.3	2.4
NP	2.4	41.3	41.3	45.9	13.9
DP	0.2	8.8	1.6	2.5	1.9
IFP	12.4	0.9	0	1	9
FF	0.1	11.6	0	0	2.1
ACDP	0.3	1.7	1.2	0	0.6
Other	0.6	3.4	0.2	4	1.2
Will Not Vote	5	11.8	7.5	6.5	6.4
Don't Know	3.8	16.9	7.4	9.1	6.5

 

From 1948 to 1994 South Africa was ruled without break by the National Party on a racially limited franchise. Throughout this period the NP's dominance was hegemonic and overwhelming, with no real chance that other parties could disturb its hold on power. This was a South African variant of what political scientists term a dominant party system. Such a system inevitably moulds a political culture into acceptance of an unbalanced and overbearing notion of authority. Checks and balances on government power were either weak or non-existent and most of the country's people were not even allowed to vote at all.

 

	1994	1995
ANC	62.66	64.3
PAC	1.26	2.8
NP	20.41	16
DP	1.74	2.2
IFP	10.55	10.3
FF	2.18	2.4
ACDP	0.46	0.7
Other	0.74	1.4

Since 1994 the country has become a democracy but we again have a single, hegemonic and overwhelming dominant party - this time the ANC - which looks unlikely to be disturbed from its hold on power for a considerable time to come. From the point of view of democratic consolidation the problem about this is that the persistence of a dominant party system allows many of the habits of mind and behaviour inherited from the old system to persist around an unbalanced and overbearing notion of central authority.

The ANC's success derives both from the useful minority support it picks up among non-Africans and the fact that no other group is anything like as monolithic in its choice as are Africans. The overall levels of political mobilisation remain extremely high, with 87% of the electorate likely to vote. Whites are the exception: there is a clear sense of political demobilisation here. This is, doubtless, the main reason for the only real change since 1994, the loss of support by the NP.

The overwhelming fact of South African political life remains the ANC's crushing margin of support among Africans - the NP outpolls the ANC among all three minorities but this is nullified by the sheer demographic weight of African voters.

Yet the proportion of Africans voting ANC is actually very unequal from one province to the other: 93% of Africans in the Northern and North West provinces would vote ANC, but only 87% in Mpumalanga, 85% in the Free State, 80% in the Western Cape [where 13% favour the PAC] and 74% in the Northern Cape [where African Don't Knows reach 23%). A serious collapse in ANC support has occurred in the Eastern Cape [72% ANC) where 10% say they will not vote, 8% support the PAC, 3% the NP and 6% don't know. In Gauteng the ANC vote is down to 67% among Africans, with 10% favouring the IFP and 6% the NP, while in KwaZulu-Natal the ANC is now winning 36% of the African vote against the IFP's 48%.

Similarly, if we express the same data in ethnic terms we find 100%of Venda/Lemba speakers supporting the ANC, followed by the Ndebele [96%) and Northern Sotho [91%] and so on down to the Xhosa [73%) and Zulus [44%).

Thus, ironically, although support for the ANC is overwhelming it is weakest among the two biggest black groups - and although the party is widely perceived as centring on the Xhosa, its support there is actually far less solid than elsewhere. This in turn is clearly explicable by the high price the party has paid for the shambles in the Eastern Cape: on issue after issue voters there exhibit an angry disillusion amounting almost to fury.

On the other hand it seems clear that the ANC had, at the time of our survey, benefited significantly from the popularity of Patrick Lekota in the Free State [who was still the province's premier at that point): on one measure after another levels of satisfaction with the government were higher there than elsewhere.

 

Throughout the survey it was striking how the results were structured by two factors above all, party and region. Religion was quite often a significant influence but income, age, occupation and sex were usually weak indicators.

Interestingly, the ANC has a perceptible upper income bias among all racial groups, even whites. In effect ANC rule, by abolishing artificial barriers to racial competition, has increased the intensity of competition at the bottom end of the social scale with predictable political results, while those better insulated from such competition or, in the case of Africans, actually benefiting from it, are better equipped to face the rigours of the new South Africa.

The significance of party came as little surprise -though even there one notes that on many issues the two largest black groups, ANC and IFP supporters, were often almost indistinguishable in their preferences. What is at first sight more surprising is the strength of the political sub-cultures of the regions given that these are new political entities.

But, of course, the nine new regions are a much truer representation of regional reality than the four old provinces were. Indeed, we suspect that an even greater sub-division [for example, separating the Transkei from the rest of the Eastern Cape] would further strengthen the sense of separate regional sub-cultures.

In order to examine what the parties' fields of influence and attraction were, we asked voters to name their second choice party. As can be seen, South Africans are still tightly locked into their party sub-cultures, with over 43% unable to offer any second choice party. The number rises to 49% if the real effective choice [that is, a choice of one of the seven biggest parties] is considered. The anti-ANC polarisation of whites is very clear: 94% of them are unwilling to consider the ANC even as a second choice. The PAC continues to enjoy the potential sympathy of up to a quarter of the African electorate while the DP and (particularly] the NP have a substantial reservoir of potential support across all races.

When we broke these choices down by party the picture of extreme party loyalism was reinforced. This was particularly true among Africans - only 20% of ANC voters cited the NP, DP, IFP or ACDP as second choices, and only 20% of IFP voters cited the ANC, NP or DP. Of African NP voters, 55% gave the ANC (23%], IFP (1 8%] or DP [14%] as

second choices but even among them 40% of voters were completely flummoxed by the thought of having to find a second choice party.

Considerably more flexibility was evident among Asian and coloured voters, although they tended to view politics as an ANC-NP duality. Thus 49% of Asian ANC voters and 38% of coloured ANC voters cited the NP as their second choice, while 45% of Asian NP voters and 22% of coloured NP voters cited the ANC as their second choice. Among whites there was far greater polarisation: among NP voters only 5% (and among DP voters only 1%] cited the ANC as second choice, and while 67% of DP voters cited the NP as their second choice, only 20% of NP voters [and 4% of Freedom Front voters] gave the DP as second choice.

 

Respondents were then asked the key barometer question; had their lives and those of their family got better or worse since the 1994 election?

By far the gloomiest group were whites [51 % of whom said things had got worse, against only 12% who said they'd got better], particularly white men over the age of 45. Opinion was more balanced among coloureds [of whom 31% said things had got worse against 23% who said better] and Asians [32% worse against 31% better], though only among Africans was there a small (29% to 25%] margin saying things had got better.

In fact what this boiled down to was that a 35% to 22% plurality of ANC voters took a positive view while all other African groups were negative; indeed.

 

	African	White	Coloured	Asian	Total
ANC	9.1	2.3	14.1	25.8	8.9
PAC	22.8	0.2	3.9	3.9	16.6
NP	11	15.2	18.4	19	12.6
DP	3.1	10.2	13.2	10.1	5.4
IFP	2.9	6.1	2.6	3.2	3.4
FF	0.5	9.3	-	-	2
ACDP	1.6	3.3	2.9	0.6	2
Other	7	3.4	1	5.8	5.8
Would not vote	15.2	4.1	13.3	7.8	12.9
Don't know	11.2	15	11.4	5.6	11.7
No answer	15.5	30.8	19.2	18.2	18.6

All other groups within the entire population were negative. Most unhappy among Africans were, predictably, the unemployed and rural dwellers, but feeling was also heavily negative in KwaZuIu-Natal and the Eastern Cape and marginally negative in Gauteng.

Overall, 30% of all races said things had got worse compared to 26% who said they had got better [and 42% who said they had stayed the same). There is no doubt that the government would have been shocked when it entered office to think that a plurality of the electorate would be making such a judgment by mid-term.

Not only has the initial euphoria dissipated but only the loyalism of ANC voters is propping up what positive views there are; and this gloom is prevalent despite fairly rapid economic growth since 1994. With the economy now slowing sharply, it is difficult to imagine opinion becoming anything but gloomier.

 

Yet the electorate is far from accepting this: overall 50% thought life would get better over the next year or two and only I 6% thought it would get worse. This surprising optimism suggests that some part of the original 'honeymoon effect' is still in place. Only whites [by 48% to 18%) believed things would get worse rather than better, while large majorities of other groups, particularly Africans [byS8%to 9%) were determined to believe that things would get better.

It is impossible not to see something wishful in this and one cannot but wonder what the political fallout will be if slower growth and rising unemployment shatter these remaining traces of the initial euphoria.

At a political level the clearest expression of this clinging to the old euphoria lay in the way 68% of the whole electorate - including large majorities of all races - professed themselves satisfied or very satisfied with President Nelson Mandela, with only 28% saying they were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. But the same voters were dissatisfied with the Cabinet by a 49% to 43% margin, dissatisfied with Parliament by a 49% to 42% margin, with their provincial legislatures by 53% to 36%, and with local councils and the public service by 54% to 36%.

Moreover, when asked to rate the government's performance on issues, majorities of the electorate gave negative verdicts on every single issue. Thus voters seem to have encapsulated their initial euphoria in feelings about the President, feelings which virtually float free from their sentiments about the rest of the political system - sentiments which are increasingly negative the closer to their daily cares the various parts of that system are.

Satisfaction with the President is, given Mandela's special status, an almost talismanic touchstone, betokening faith in a certain vision of the future. Among non-Africans such faith is clearly bounded by class while among Africans class is an insignificant factor. Satisfaction with Mandela was at its peak among higher earning whites, coloureds and Asians, with the poorer (and thus the economically more threatened) in each community strikingly more dissatisfied.

Ironically this means that while [richer) Asian Muslims are extremely satisfied with Mandela [poorer] coloured Muslims are strongly dissatisfied - indeed, they are one of the most alienated groups in the entire electorate. Among Africans 85% of ANC supporters were satisfied with the President, with all others far less enthusiastic. The most striking fact here was that in the Eastern Cape only 50% were satisfied, not much more than in KwaZulu-Natal [47%).

The key to understanding popular attitudes to government at present seems to lie at four levels. On the one hand the mood is structured by an admiring attitude towards the President and the associated and still strong traces of the original post-liberation euphoria and the massive weight of the ANC bloc, inspiring a mixture of passionate enthusiasm and fearful deference. These two factors together crudely reinforce the general affirmation of the new post-1994 settlement and also support a prevailing 'political correctness'.

Against this are less positive impulses deriving from a considerable degree of dissatisfaction with concrete conditions of everyday life. This sometimes shows up in the data in dissatisfaction with the provincial legislatures, but this is contradicted by responses to later questions and we suspect that, given the rather slight impact of these legislatures on most people's lives, they were in this case merely being used as a sort of code to express dissatisfaction with matters closer to home.

On November 18 fast year Zambia went to the polls in a farcical election in which President Frederick Chiluba had bent every rule to ensure his re-election. It was a dreadful betrayal of the principles of his Movement for Multi-Party Democracy which came to power in 1991, ending 27 years of Kaunda's one party rule.

A number of Zambian NGOs united to form two monitoring bodies, the Committee for a Clean Campaign and the Zambia Independent Monitoring Team, Afronet [the Inter-African Network for Human Rights and Development) provided the chairman of the CCC, Ngande Mwanajiti; while ZIMT was headed by Alfred Zulu.

As the campaign proceeded from one gross foul to another it became clear that these bodies were critical of the election's conduct and so the Chiluba-aligned Christian Council of Zambia set up its own pro-government monitoring team. Patriotic Rescue Monitors [PAREMO). PAREMO followed the election for just two weeks, while the others had monitored developments since the beginning of 1996.

On November 20 the CCC announced that the election 'cannot be said to have been free and fair' while PAREMO did the opposite. Disgracefully, the CCZ called for police action against Afronet, the CCC and Z!MT - and this duly followed. Their leaders were detained, their offices searched, all manner of documents confiscated (many illegally), and their bank accounts were illegally frozen. The organisations had their electricity and phones cut off and the CCZ, their landlord, took action to evict them.

Initially the three organisations were able to get a magistrate's ruling that much of the police action had been illegal and that the police must hand back items that had been wrongfully seized. However, when the case went before the High Court the court upheld the police action in every respect even though the Acts and ordinances cited made no provision for the actions taken by the police.

The judge, justice Peter Chitengi, ruled that in effect the police could issue warrants at will, irrespective of need, 'genuineness' or, in effect, the law. The judge's argument was that if the complainants did not like this they were free to sue the Attorney-General. This would have involved enormous delay and expense and there seemed little point given that Chitengi's shameful judgment merely reveals how thoroughly the Zambian judiciary has collapsed under Chiluba's pressure.

Not the least shameful aspect of this affair is the way that neither South Africa nor any of Zambia's SADC neighbours have uttered a word in defence of the democracy that is being throttled in Zambia; neither has the SADC and nor, of course, has the OAU.

All this does is to pass the buck - as usual - to the major western donor states and international agencies. While these are clearly displeased at Chiluba's behaviour they are likely to refrain from decisive action.

Chiluba has privatised 164 concerns to date and in effect western donors are more forgiving of a lack of political liberalisation if economic liberalisation is going ahead. The SADC states do not have even that rationalisation to offer for their apparent lack of concern.

Perhaps the most important lesson to be learnt is the necessity of constituting independent monitoring teams, based in the region but outside the affected country. Such teams would not be subject to the pressures now exerted upon our Zambian colleagues.

Once again, responses to this question were regionally extremely uneven. Thus, while African voters in the North West professed 75% satisfaction with their provincial legislature, only in the Free State (54%] was there a satisfied African majority, with satisfaction levels in a 29% to 33% range in most provinces, falling to a nadir of 24% in the Eastern Cape. And African voters, buoyed by their predominant ANC affiliation, were by far the most positive - all other racial groups were even more dissatisfied with their provincial legislatures.

 

Disappointment with the government was patent, though partly still concealed under the remnants of the early euphoria. Only 5% of the population thought the government had fulfilled its promises completely and another 36% said it fulfilled them only partly, with 33% saying it had fulfilled very few of its promises and 25% saying none at all. If one grouped the last two responses together, it emerged that all races took a predominantly negative view, with Africans [56%] even more negative than coloureds [53%). Asians were 70% negative and whites 71%. Damningly, even 48% of the ANC's core African supporters took such a view. Rural Africans [61%] and higher earning Africans [60%] - normally strong ANC groups - were even more negative, as were Africans living in KwaZuIu-Natal [66%), and the Eastern and Northern Cape [61 %].

Once we cued respondents by asking whether they agreed with 'some people' who were critical that more positive changes had not been delivered more quickly, there was an almost unanimous response: even among African ANC supporters 96% agreed with this criticism. When asked who they blamed for that failure, Africans were more likely (21 %) to blame the President than white [8%] or coloured (14%] voters, though Asians were more critical still [34%). The Cabinet was the most popular target of reproach among all voters (26%) but Africans were slightly more likely to put the blame on provincial governments.

It is, however, important to remember the fearful-ness of many voters about seeming to criticise the ANC or government: to blame Mandela or the Cabinet would have been difficult for those who felt timorous, but to criticise the provincial government would have been far easier. Some ANC activists would like to insist that 'resistance to change by the

Voters were clearly less inhibited when asked how satisfied they were with the government's record on specific issues, for less blaming of a party or specific individuals was involved. It must make depressing reading for the government that 70% to 75% of all races were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied over many issues and that on every single issue there was majority dissatisfaction among African voters, with more usually describing themselves as 'very dissatisfied' rather than just dissatisfied. Moreover; even African ANC voters felt little different.

It will be seen that dissatisfaction was at its greatest over economic issues and housing. Some will be surprised that there were negative majorities even over national reconciliation; improved water supplies [despite much favourable publicity and the good rains) and education [despite the completion of school integration] and it is tempting to conclude that the deep disappointment felt with the government's performance on economic issues has created a general mood of dissatisfaction which has dragged down other issue ratings.

Certainly, the ANC's election promises of one million houses and 'jobs, jobs, jobs' have rebounded disastrously and the party has received no apparent credit for the economic growth achieved since 1994.

The centrality of economic issues again shows just how dependent the government now is on the success of its macro-economic strategy. The situation could well worsen as the economy slows down in 1997 - though in the Eastern Cape dissatisfaction levels are already at 80% to 90% on many issues.

 

On the other hand, the extraordinary fact is that even these levels of dissatisfaction have had no impact at all on ANC support. A powerful reason for this emerged when we found 67% of both IFP and ANC African voters agreed with the statement that 'no matter how good their policies may be, I will never feel able to support parties that used to be supported by whites before 1994'. Interestingly, however, only 39% of Eastern Cape and 29% of Northern Cape Africans (and 39% of Swazi speakers) agreed with this statement, suggesting that it is there that the ANC vote may fray first.

Such feelings denote not only the depth of racial resentment generated by apartheid but suggest that this has produced a fairly undiscriminating racial solidarity - for the DP is given little credit at all by African voters for its long struggle against apartheid.

Beyond that, there is as an extremely strong identification with the two main black parties and their leaders. Thus 48% of all African voters agreed that they would 'support and stand by my political party and its leaders even if I disagree with many of its policies'. Moreover, 57% of unemployed Africans took this view even though they were understandably the most alienated voters on many counts.

 

Issue	Very Dissatisfied	Dissatisfied	Total	African ANC Voters
Reducing unemployment	44	32	76	74
Improving incomes/S.O.L.	40	32	72	68
Housing	36	35	71	68
Managing the economy	36	31	67	63
Reducing inequalities	32	32	64	62
The RDP	35	28	63	59
National reconciliation	29	29	58	54
Improving water supplies	32	22	54	50
Health	26	28	54	48
Education	25	26	51	45

While such loyalties remain entrenched the ANC can act with virtual impunity, secure in the belief that its support is solid whatever happens. This is an obviously dangerous situation which has, in other parts of Africa, led to corruption and authoritarianism by elites who felt they could effectively get away with whatever they liked. Interestingly, the ANC heartland of the Eastern Cape was actually the region where the fewest Africans [39%) agreed with this view.

The public ethos of the new South Africa is, of course, one of national reconciliation in which all citizens are equal and notions of racial solidarity have been set aside. And indeed we found that 80% of voters of al! races believed that 'South Africans of whatever race, belief or political views should be treated equally and should all have exactly the same opportunities'. However 19% [including 11% of Asians and 24% of Africans) believed that 'South Africa is mainly a country for Africans, and although others should not be treated badly, they will have to take second place'.

The suspicion lingers that this 'Africanist' view is being artificially minimised by political correctness for even Africans who supported the NP were more likely [28%] to take such a view than their ANC counterparts (24%). Africanist sentiment reached 29% among PAC supporters, 30% among members of Zionist churches, 31% among IFP supporters and squatters, 36% in KwaZulu-Natal and 38% among Africans in the Western Cape. Interestingly, Africanist sentiment was weakest in the Eastern Cape [10%).

Such sentiments often find their sharpest practical application, of course, in the disputed area of affirmative action employment policies. Given that affirmative action has become an almost universally binding principle under the new government, it is widely believed that this policy enjoys majority support. But when we first tested opinion on it in September, 1995 (see Schlemmer and Johnson, Launching Democracy, p370] we found 61% of all voters [including 52% of Africans) against it -even ANC voters preferred to see appointments made strictly on merit 'even if some people do not make progress' as a result. This finding was not as surprising as many people imagined, for affirmative action can, of course, only benefit a minority.

This time we tested opinion in greater depth by giving respondents five graded alternatives from which to choose. After each alternative is noted the proportion of all voters preferring it.

 

Candidate	African	Asian	Coloured	White	All
Thabo Mbeki	31	5	26	6	25
Cyril Ramaphosa	21	13	11	5	17
FW de Klerk	5	52	41	34	14
Mangosuthu Buthelezi	10	-	2	2	8
Tokyo Sexwale	7	3	2	4	6
Bantu Holomisa	7	1	-	1	5
Constance Viljoen	-	-	3	15	3
Trevor Manual	-	-	1	1	-
Kader Asmal	-	5	-	-	-
Other 12 options	8	5	1	4	8
OK/None above	11	16	13	28	14

It is important to realise that only the first two categories fit within a tough definition of affirmative action, for most employer organisations would snatch at the chance to appoint blacks with equal qualifications. When it is announced that 'this post is an affirmative action appointment', the meaning is that whites should not bother to apply, not that they will get the job if they are the best qualified.

Among all voters there was a 76% to 23% majority against affirmative action on that definition, but still a 53% to 45% majority against even if the first three responses are grouped. In fact 68% of coloureds, 81 % of Asians, 90% of whites and 41 % of Africans opted for the relatively hard-line anti-affirmative action positions represented by the last two responses above.

Thus the real question becomes how affirmative action has become an almost unquestionable principle throughout the public and much of the private sector - which most people believe is universally backed by black opinion - when in fact it is massively rejected even by ANC supporting Asians and coloureds, opposed even by the bulk of Africans and when in fact it seems possible that black opinion has hardened against affirmative action since September, 1994.

Partly the answer lies in the greater support for affirmative action among its likely beneficiaries -more educated, upper income Africans - though even among these groups the support for the first two options never rises above 35% [conversely, opposition to affirmative action rises among poorer Africans, particularly the unemployed]. The most concentrated support for affirmative action comes from IFF voters and from KwaZulu-Natal in general [48% support] - for the IFP often leads the ANC on such Africanist issues. But even there the conundrum remains for we are still talking about minority support. The conclusion is inescapable that the fierce demand for affirmative action at government level is rooted in an even narrower and more elevated elite on the fringes of power.

Indirect support for such a view was provided by the responses to the question, 'what kinds of people have benefited most from the changes made since 1994?'. Only 14% of voters said 'the mass of the ordinary people' had benefited most, while 28% instanced 'the new people who have got jobs in government', 22% 'better educated people', 18% 'people of a particular tribe or language' and 8% politicians.

When respondents were offered a second choice they overwhelmingly chose politicians. The perception that one particular tribe [the Xhosa] was doing unfairly well was much more common among non-Africans than Africans, but otherwise there was a clear and disabused consensus that the political class and their hangers-on were the main beneficiaries of democratisation to date.

 

Instancing a wide gamut of personalities, we asked voters who they would like to succeed Mandela as President. We included figures such as Trevor Manuel and Kader Asmal so that we could see if there was an ethnic 'favourite son' effect. There wasn't.

Table 5 has several striking features - particularly the relative weakness of Thabo Mbeki who was, by the time of the survey, clearly the ANC's anointed heir apparent: his 25% support should be contrasted with the 68% of all races expressing satisfaction with President Mandela.

that stage left politics and renounced all presidential ambitions. [Mbeki's lead was derived solely from rural and squatter Africans; in black townships he and Ramaphosa ran neck and neck, 27% to 26%.) The large number ofv oters refusing to support any of the leading candidates or refusing all options suggests a certain anomie, perhaps a dislike of the whole notion of political life without Mandela.

It will be seen that while Mbeki, thanks to his backing from the broad apparatus of the ANC, has support right round the country, his weakness is that he is hurt by 'favourite son' effects - Holomisa in the Eastern Cape, Ramaphosa in Northern Province, Buthelezi in KwaZuIu-Natal, and Sexwale in Gauteng

 

Few politicians can have been expelled from their party and government while gaining such massive approval as was evident in our survey: 54% of all voters thought Holomisa had behaved correctly and 64% thought the ANC had behaved incorrectly. Moreover, a full 50% of ANC voters approved of Holomisa while 60% were, uniquely, willing to break the very strong ties of party discipline and loyalty to censure their party for the way it had behaved in this matter. Nonetheless, as Table 5 shows, very little of the approval Holomisa won among non-Africans translates into actual support.

 

Province	Mbeki	Ramaphosa	Buthelezi	Holomisa	Sexwale
Western Cape	37	37	-	18	3
Northern Cape	38	17	-	3	2
Eastern Cape	22	19	-	25	6
Free State	49	10	-	4	9
KwaZulu-Natal	15	13	45	4	4
Mpumalanga	48	20	3	-	-
N. Province	37	31	-	2	2
Gauteng	18	25	4	8	16
North West	46	26	-	1	12

Among African voters (who gave Holomisa 53% approval overall] the highest levels of approval were seen among Xhosa speakers [67%], squatters [63%], PAC supporters [72%] and in the Eastern Cape [65%) and Western Cape [74%]. Most remarkable of all was his 92% approval among the Lemba/Venda - a group whose annoyance at the dropping of its favourite son, Ramaphosa, may leave it available for dissident causes in general.

Much the same picture emerged of those who condemned the ANC over the affair. Criticism reached a peak in the Eastern Cape [82%], among Xhosa speakers [77%], the unemployed [72%] and the Lemba/Venda [94%]. Quite clearly this gives Holomisa a wide penumbra of potential support, His new party may have the ability to be of serious nuisance value to the ANC in a number of provinces but it is most likely to dig in in the Eastern and Western Cape, where Holomisa's appeal will be reinforced by regional and ethnic factors.

 

Thus at this stage our picture of the post-Mandela political scene is one of fragmentation. Even Mbeki is winning only two ANC votes out of five and less than one African vote in three. Similarly, we know that some 30% of Asian voters regularly support the ANC but Mbeki picks up only one in six of these.

All of which leaves one pondering Mandela's irreplaceability. As we saw [Table 5] none of the contenders comes within a long distance of winning majority approval from all racial groups in the way Mandela has. It may turn out that this was a one-off achievement by the founding president of the new order, and that South Africa after Mandela may again have to live with higher levels of ethnic and racial division than are visible now.

What is even more striking, however, is the signal failure of all leaders even to capture imagination within their own groups. Even among whites De Klerk got only 34% support; even in KwaZuIu-Natal Buthelezi got only 45%; and even among Africans Mbeki got only 31 %. Such leaders are far from able to deliver the whole of their own constituencies, let alone build cross-racial majorities in the way Mandela does.

One also cannot help but feel that the post-Mandela transition will be difficult for other reasons. As post-liberation euphoria continues to fade and the economy slows down, levels of popular dissatisfaction are bound to grow just as Mandela leaves the stage. The great question will be whether Mbeki, his authority enhanced by the mantle of power, will be able to continue Mandela's broad, reconciliatory and inclusive style. Perhaps one should hope so, for from what one can discern of the workings of our young democracy so far, the symbolism and popular optimism concentrated at the presidential level is one of the key supports of the whole system.