South Africa is going to the polls today. News services are trying to put an interesting spin on it: they look at the issues, examine the different perspectives of groups within country, and look at twenty years of democracy in the country, with special focus on those born after apartheid, who are voting for the first time. And then they admit that the ANC are going to win again.
If you haven't taken notice of the country since the eighties, the African National Congress (ANC) was the party of Nelson Mandela, and has formed the government there ever since the end of apartheid. What's weird is that there's a great deal of dissatisfaction with the state of the country. Unemployment is high, infrastructure is unreliable, and much of the country still lives in poverty. I can't figure out how one party stays in power through all that.
Yes, I know, I've written about how people stand by unimpressive politicians no matter how far they go, all using Rob Ford as the ultimate example. But that's over a short term. I don't really expect that Ford could keep his nation together for twenty years, even in the unlikely event that he lives for twenty more years.
And yes, there are examples of parties that have stayed in government for a long time. Mexico's Industrial Revolutionary Party governed for 71 years, but that was with questionable means. Japan's Liberal Democratic Party governed from 1955 to 1993, but that was through tremendous economic growth.
This doesn't seem healthy in a country that is still new to real democracy. Of course, saying that means I am implying that a healthy democracy is one in which people change their minds. So perhaps I should have new respect for places like here in Ontario where we tend to vacillate from one side to another. And perhaps I should worry for Canadian and American federal politics, where the parties' support is more static than ever.
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