EDITORIAL | Covid and lives be damned, all politicians want is votes

We should have known it would come to this. Given a choice to play by the book or throw caution to the wind, risk lives and possibly send the country back into a stricter lockdown, politicians will always serve themselves first.

As parties contest for a share of voice in the public sphere, victory in the upcoming local government elections is elevated over doing the right thing.

And so it was that when the EFF staged its manifesto launch at Gandhi Square in Johannesburg, its members ignored sensible Covid-19 protocols. When ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa took his party’s campaign to Ekurhuleni at the weekend, his focus was more on the ANC’s connection with the people than their health, something he has impressed upon us with monotonous regularity at his so-called family meetings. 

On Monday, DA chief whip Natasha Mazzone accused police minister Bheki Cele of inaction against the EFF. “It cannot be that one political party can flagrantly break election rules and have no consequences for their actions,” she fumed. She added that the EFF gave parliament a miss for two years because of its supposed fear of the pandemic, but is now brazen in the streets in pursuit of votes. The real question is why is she is feigning surprise? The DA too is partly the reason we are in this imbroglio. It is the one party that approached the Constitutional Court, arguing that conditions exist for free and fair elections. Today that fairness is imperilled by some parties, on account of predictable desperation, violating conditions under which all of them should contest. 

Let us also not forget that Ramaphosa’s decision to move the country to adjusted lockdown level 2 just more than two weeks ago was, while partly based on science, also self-serving. When he previously put the country on level 2, the limit for indoor gatherings was 100, as opposed to the current 250, and 250 as opposed to the current 500 outdoors. 

Let us also not forget that Ramaphosa’s decision to move the country to adjusted lockdown level 2 just more than two weeks ago was, while partly based on science, also self-serving.

On September 20 last year, the restrictions of 250 indoors and 500 outdoors were applied when the country moved to adjusted level 1. On the facts, there seems to be nothing special about the current level 2 that warranted this generous relaxation of rules, except, of course, that political parties need access to as many people as possible. So where there seems to be some benefit for them, the default position is self-service.

Fortunately, or unfortunately for us, India has traversed this path. We say fortunately because that country presents an opportunity for us to learn correlations and, perhaps, causation between certain political behaviour and outcomes. We say unfortunately because while the information is publicly available, we seem bent on not learning from others.

Delhi, West Bengal and a number of other areas in India that conducted elections when the country went through its second wave saw their public health system completely overwhelmed. India’s struggle to contain an unprecedented surge of the pandemic, with hospitals using parking bays to treat patients and others given oxygen tanks and sent home, unfolded on websites and television screens across the world. In West Bengal, site of the most excruciating contest between March 27 and April 29, daily infections shot up from 800 to more than 17,000. Analysis by Prof Deepankar Basu showed a positive correlation between the elections and an increase in infections.

The study “assists in decision-making that impacts large movements (such as elections, rallies ... ) for the betterment of public health”. 

In SA though, our heads go straight into the sand as we preoccupy ourselves with who wins which metropolitan council. Social distancing was minimal at the ANC’s manifesto launch on Monday night, even though attendance was muted. If we truly cared about poor people, who politicians use to create a veneer of confidence and support for their parties, we would know victories built on their carcasses are pyrrhic. Maybe, just maybe, we are naive to expect selflessness from today’s brand of politicians.