Are anti-ANC voters racist?

Are anti-ANC voters racist?

The ANC should not blame racism for losing votes in the 2009 elections, but should rather look at the party's performance over the past 15 years, opposition parties and analysts said on Monday.

They were speaking after President Kgalema Motlanthe's address to about 5 000 South Africans at Freedom Day celebrations at Absa Stadium in Durban.

Motlanthe told the crowd that the "voting patterns in 2009's national poll disturbingly reflected our old divided past; which only goes to show that more work still needs to be done to de-racialise our society in all its essentials".

IFP national spokesperson Musa Zondi described the statement as unfortunate.

He said it was obvious that Motlanthe was speaking as a member of the ANC rather than the head of state.

"As the father of the nation, for him to make that statement is really sad. Is he implying that if a person votes for a party that is led by a white person, then that person is racist?" he asked.

Speaking of the increased number of votes the DA received, Zondi said political analysts had often commented that those who viewed the DA as a whites-only party, had missed the boat.

"It appears that as long as you vote ANC, then you are a true democratic and you are not racist, but if you vote any other party, then you are racist. That sort of thinking is bad for our country," he said.

Independent political analyst Adam Habib said while he agreed more work needed to be done to de-racialise society, he was not convinced that people who voted against the ANC did so because they were racist.

"I think our election results have less to do with racism and more to do with the quality of a leader people want. For example, in the Western Cape the growth of DA was due to the increased numbers in the coloured vote.

"These votes went to the DA because the coloured people felt the ANC was incompetent, and they wanted performance which they believe the DA could provide," he said.

He said nationally, the situation was a much more complex matter, and there was a pattern that suggested a bit of racism.

However, political analyst Protas Madlala said he felt Motlanthe's statement was an honest one.

He said there was still the trend where white voters would be loyal to the DA and black voters would be loyal to the ANC.

This, he said, was because there was still a lot of mistrust among South Africans.

"As a nation what we should be happy about is that since 1994 we have had no racial incidents where whites and blacks are fighting each other or Indians and blacks fighting each other. We need to speak openly about such issues, it is only then that we can begin to heal our nation," he said.

Newly elected DA leader in KwaZulu-Natal parliament, John Steenhuisen, said the ANC was in the habit of "pulling out the race card whenever their backs are against a wall".

"The fact of the matter is the DA has stopped them from achieving a two-thirds majority nationally, and we won the Western Cape from them. People voted based on a party's performance and not for a particular race group," he said.

He described the ANC as a "sore party that has clearly set out to use the divide and rule tactic".

"If the ANC thinks that only white people voted for the DA, then they're clearly mistaken. South Africans across the spectrum voted for us because we ran a positive campaign and our message went out there, and we had a large number of minorities as well as a large number of black people vote for us," he said.

Motlanthe also paid tribute to the youth and past generations who have fought for South Africa's 15 years of freedom.

"In honouring the memory of these great South Africans let us recommit ourselves to continue with the struggle for the improvement of the lives of all our people, irrespective of race, gender or station in life," he said.