The ANC's Mugabe Election tactics - using food-for-votes

The ANC takes a leaf out of Mugabe's book, uses food as a political weapon.

ANC Lures Hungry Voters With Food

Party condemned for ‘unscrupulous’ form of electioneering

The ANC is enticing voters with food parcels — using taxpayers’ money.

The Sunday Times has established that ruling party councillors and representatives have been accompanying officials from the Department of Social Development in dishing out food parcels since February, declaring that the largesse is from “an ANC-led government”.

Such incidents have been confirmed in Gauteng, the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga. Parcels were either dropped at homes or distributed at community centres.

The electoral code of conduct states that it is an offence to offer a reward to a person to vote in a particular manner.

“They wore their ANC T-shirts and told us that the food was from the ANC, and that we should vote for the ANC if we want to get more parcels in the future,” said Sheila Xasa, a domestic worker from CC Lloyd township, East London.

A Gauteng recipient said they were told to vote for the ANC because it would continue to give them food and services.

The woman, from Diepkloof, Soweto, said they were told they would starve to death if they did not vote for the ANC.

“If you know what is right for you, you will vote for the winning party,” people were told while standing in queues, the woman said.

The party officials dishing out the parcels gave preferential treatment to those wearing ANC paraphernalia.

“We know that strategy; they want us to vote for them. After the elections they will disappear. It’s food for votes. They know that we are hungry, so they target our stomachs.

“I counted three of them with T-shirts of the ruling party. But they said they were from social development,” she said.

ANC spokesman Jessie Duarte emphatically denied the party was buying votes, but indicated that “it was true” that parcels were coming from an ANC-led government.

“The fact of the matter is that the ANC-led government will continue to provide social assistance,” she said.

But the IFP, DA, UDM and COPE have accused the ANC of abusing the social distress relief grants. NGOs, including the Black Sash, have also condemned the practice.

The Black Sash’s Sarah Nicklin said it was “one of the lowest, most unscrupulous forms of electioneering, especially when it leads to a scramble for food and the death of vulnerable people in need”.

Minister of finance Trevor Manuel allocated R500-million to the department in November last year to use as relief grants for indigent families, those awaiting the approval of their social grants and people who reside in disaster-declared areas.

KwaZulu-Natal was allocated R119-million and the Eastern Cape R100-million. Recipients get relief in the form of a food parcel or a voucher worth R960 to redeem at recommended supermarkets. The recipients are identified by social workers and receive the relief once a month for three months.

But since February:

• ANC ward councillors have been compiling the list of relief recipients;
  
  
• The food hampers have, in some instances, grown to include bubble bath, canned fruit, chicken, concentrated fruit drinks and branded food;
  
  
• ANC officials are either accompanying government workers or solely distributing the relief aid;
  
  
• In some instances, they have also distributed food to everybody who pitches up, even if they do not qualify; and
  
  
• Recipients who are members of other parties, or turn up wearing opposition parties’ paraphernalia, have been turned away from queues.
  

Xasa , who said she qualified for a relief grant because she has applied for a child-support grant, said she had woken up early at the end of February to queue for her food parcel, which was like “Christmas come early”.

A previous recipient of such aid, Xasa said the February parcel had contained “luxury” items it never had before. “Most of us never have canned fruit or chicken. We buy cheap rice and eat chicken skins,” she said.

An ANC councillor told recipients that it was all “thanks to the ANC”.

But Xasa said she would be voting on the government’s service-delivery record and “no food or chicken will persuade me who to vote for”.

Dorcus Mathe, 72, of Kliptown, Soweto, indicated she could be swayed by the ANC’s largesse. She said the parcels were brought to her house by officials wearing ANC T-shirts, although she has never applied for a relief grant.

“I told them my party of choice. They were happy and said I must vote for the party that cares. I was not told which party to vote for. What they said was I should vote for the one that would meet my needs. I’m happy about the food parcels,” said Mathe.

In Mpumalanga, DA supporters from the Chris Hani settlement in Bushbuckridge were turned away from the food queues, said staunch DA supporter Katlego Shibane.

In Gauteng, Theodora Dlamini, a single mother from Doorn-kop, Soweto, was denied a food parcel because she was spotted wearing a DA cap on the day parcels were distributed.

Department spokesman Zanele Mngadi echoed the earlier statement from her minister, Zola Skweyiya, that it was an insult to suggest that poor people’s votes could be bought with food vouchers.

“We are not going to stop working just because we are approaching the elections.

“As the government, we still have a responsibility to provide services to the people of South Africa, regardless of political affiliation,” Mngadi said.

But ANC ward councilor Koko Qebeyi admitted to the Sunday Times that he personally drew up a list of recipients in his constituency in Duncan Village in East London.

“I registered more than 3000 people, but could only hand out 700 food parcels,” he said.

Qebeyi said he saw nothing wrong with the way the food was distributed, because it was “a fact that it comes from an ANC-led government”.

Independent Electoral Commission spokesman Kate Bapela said she had not personally received any complaints. She was uncertain whether the commission’s municipal offices had received any.

Eastern Cape DA MPL Veliswa Mvenya said she had forwarded several complaints about the practice to the department, but had received no reply.

In KwaZulu-Natal, opposition parties claimed the practice was prevalent in the province.

IFP national chairman Zanele Magwaza-Msibi said: “It’s a very bad thing. We support food parcels, but we don’t think they should be used to garner votes for a particular political party. They must be given to all people, irrespective of political party affiliation.”

See also ANC in food-for-votes scandal Posted 1 Feb 2009