S. Africa Blacks Voting No on Local Elections

This black township of 70,000 was supposed to elect a new town council this month. But so far there have been no campaign speeches, no party rallies, no posters and, truth be told, no candidates.

The South African government did put up a billboard to urge residents to vote and “make it happen.” But the sign was torn down, stand and all.

One man tried to promote the election over a booming loudspeaker on the bare, wind-swept town square. His influence, however, was blunted by the fact that he was hiding inside a police armored personnel carrier at the time.

‘We Zip Our Mouths’

“If you talk about voting here, we just zip our mouths and say we’re not going to do that,” Thabo Msizi, a 27-year-old store clerk, said recently. “Not even one person wants to go against the will of the people.”

South Africans of all races are scheduled to elect more than 7,500 councilors in 1,100 racially segregated municipalities on Oct. 26. The elections are crucial to President Pieter W. Botha’s government, which is facing formidable challenges from opposite ends of the color spectrum, for opposite reasons.

Many black activists want to boycott the entire local election process, denying the white minority-led government the big turnout that it needs to claim popular black support for its apartheid reform program. That program has been criticized worldwide for achieving too little, too slowly.

On the other side, in the white municipalities, the far-right white Conservative Party wants to use its growing political might to oust Botha’s ruling National Party from local councils and begin implementing its long-term goal of strengthening apartheid.

To lure blacks to the polls, the government has spent more than $2 million on an advertising campaign that features talking squirrels--and millions more on projects to upgrade township roads and facilities. The authorities also have made illegal any attempt to discourage voting and changed the rules to allow inconspicuous voting, days before the election, for those who fear intimidation. And, hundreds of anti-apartheid activists who could disrupt the election are being held in jail without charge.

Even so, filling the 1,763 posts for black town councilors has been an uphill battle. In a few townships, such as Motherwell, no candidates have registered. Candidates in most other townships are running unopposed and will win five-year terms no matter how meager the vote.

“People are afraid to run for office,” said one young anti-apartheid activist in Motherwell, who asked to be identified only as Vusi. “People who used to side with the system have been scared away. Everybody seems to be against these elections.”

White officials who administer Motherwell, 12 miles from Port Elizabeth on South Africa’s southern coast, say election apathy is the result of an uninformed public, a lack of community spirit and intimidation by young radicals.

Hopes for Change of Heart

“This election is something completely new to them,” said Johan Lampreght, electoral officer for the three-year-old township. “Perhaps they want to have a look at what happens elsewhere. Maybe that will motivate them.”

Motherwell’s election has been postponed until next year.

In contrast, the nearby township of Ibhayi, population 350,000, has 42 candidates running for 21 council seats. Of 50 townships in the eastern Cape Province, Ibhayi is one of only three with enough candidates to contest each seat.

Cinder-block polling stations the size of small houses are being built behind rolls of razor-sharp wire throughout Ibhayi these days. The construction projects are guarded by half a dozen or more white soldiers and black township police officers.

Anti-Apartheid Hotbed

The eastern Cape, long a hotbed of anti-apartheid activity, was the scene of violent riots from 1984 to 1986, when black townships nationwide erupted over a variety of issues. One of those issues was the 1983 local elections in which fewer than 20% of the country’s registered black voters went to the polls.

Across the country, dozens of black town councilors, accused of corruption and collaborating with the white government, resigned. Some were killed by angry mobs. Several town councils were dissolved and the day-to-day affairs were taken over by white administrators.

Now the government hopes to repair that damage, starting in places such as Ibhayi.

The Ibhayi City Council lost its quorum to a recent court decision that said councilors must live within the township boundaries. Most of the councilors live in well-guarded brick homes with tidy green lawns in Kwamagxaki, on a hill above the teeming township they govern. (The law was changed in time for this election to allow officeholders to live anywhere.)

Criticized for House Deal

The council there already had been criticized for using job-creation money to build nine houses in Kwamagxaki, which the councilors leased back to themselves for about $2 a month, less than half what the poorest shack-dweller in the township must pay in rent.

“These councilors are not representing us. They are representing their own stomachs,” said the Rev. David Vika, who lives in Ibhayi. “If they want us to vote, they must release the people who are our leaders, people who believe in a non-racial South Africa.”

Thousands of political activists have been detained without trial, banned from political activity or forced into hiding under the 28-month-old state of emergency. No prominent anti-apartheid leaders are running for office anywhere else in the country.

Virtually all of this year’s black candidates profess to be opposed to apartheid, and they argue that the best way to improve things for black South Africans is to work peacefully, within the system.

‘We Must Participate’

“If we want to be on a par with whites in this country, we must participate and try to improve our lot,” said Tamsanqa Linda, leader of a political party fielding half the candidates in the Ibhayi election.

“The choice is simple: change through progress or change through chaos,” a brochure distributed by Linda’s party says. “Violence and intimidation are policies of people who have no hope. Blacks must run their own affairs.”

Linda once was, in his words, “the most controversial mayor of Ibhayi.” As mayor from 1983 to 1985, he once evicted a woman from her house so he could move in. The Linda family narrowly escaped death when a gasoline bomb gutted the structure.

“In government everywhere, you find corruption. But people should not be discouraged,” Linda said. “The ordinary law-abiding citizen in this country is eager for this election because he wants to have an elected leader.”

Girding for Trouble

As the election approaches, the government is girding for trouble. All police leaves countrywide have been canceled, dozens of activists have been picked up and detained recently, and police and army patrols in the townships have increased.

More than 35 bombs have exploded in the last month, killing one person and injuring more than 50. Police say those blasts were aimed at disrupting the election and intimidating voters as well as candidates.

The minister of law and order has offered a $2,000 reward for anyone who helps the authorities trace terrorists infiltrating the country. The offer expires on election day. Police say they have arrested or killed 20 African National Congress (ANC) operatives in recent weeks. The ANC, the main guerrilla group fighting white rule, supports the election boycott.

A low turnout of black voters would probably be seen as a setback for the government’s plan to eventually bring blacks into higher levels of government as advisers. The government has proposed that town councilors elect representatives to a black National Council, which would advise the government and Parliament. But first it must legitimize its town councilors, who are widely viewed as being stooges of the government.

Blacks Lack National Vote

Botha’s government rejects full black participation in the federal government, and the country’s black majority currently has no vote in national affairs.

Although a few voices on the anti-apartheid left have supported limited participation in the elections, many more activists are working underground to discourage voting. Those activists urge blacks to refuse to vote until the government allows national elections based on the principle of one-person, one-vote.

Anglican Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu and other church leaders in the country, defying the government ban on calling for an election boycott, have publicly urged voters to stay away from the polls.

The government has countered with an advertising blitz that includes billboards, put up in townships across the country, saying: “You Can Make It Happen. Vote Oct. 26.” A wall near one of those signs in Soweto has the spray-painted counter-slogan: “Boycott the Elections.”