They miss Lucas Mangope in North West. The man’s name pops up frequently in conversation, online, on radio and other media. The more the governing ANC fails to deliver on electricity, roads, safety and security, infrastructure, and other areas of governance, the more the name of the late former Bophuthatswana Bantustan leader is invoked with reverence.
This is a huge opportunity for the political opposition, if any of their leaders are listening. Right now, no-one seems to be filling the leadership void created by the ANC’s misgovernance. I would posit that if a charismatic, traditional Christian values, right-leaning, capitalist, figure such as Herman Mashaba and his ActionSA concentrated on the province, they could wrestle it from the ANC in 2024.
Over the past three weeks of engagements with figures in the province I have witnessed how, whenever politics is discussed, Mangope’s name crops up very quickly. It says something that a man whose name was as reviled as Mangope’s in the 1990s, is now spoken of with such nostalgia and even longing. It tells you just how much the ANC has failed in 28 years in power.
ANC support in the North West has been falling for four elections. It fell from 80.7% in 2004 to 72.9% in 2009. It then went from 67.4% in 2014 to 61.8% in 2019.
At the weekend I raised topic of the 2024 election among friends and relatives while in Hammanskraal, formerly the northernmost end of the apartheid-created Bophuthatswana homeland (which existed from 1977 to 1994), and in Mahikeng, near its southern end. Because most recent polls have concentrated on urban areas, particularly Gauteng, I’ve made it a point to ask rural folks how they would vote in 2024. The answers, though anecdotal, are eye-opening.
The ANC has failed us. Mandela said ‘a better life for all’. Now, it’s a better life for the ANC’s leaders. We are nothing ... Look at the ANC’s roads. Yet look at the quality of Mangope’s roads. They were built in the 1980s and they are still here, still smooth, very few potholes.
— Former activist
“Look, just look,” replied one auntie outside Mahikeng. “Under Mangope there were technical colleges and schools for the youth. Now, kids roam the streets smoking nyaope . There is no electricity. Every policeman you see takes a bribe.”
The complaints are numerous: infrastructure is failing, the economy has collapsed, there are no jobs, and again and again there are no opportunities for young people.
“Crime? There was no crime here under Mangope,” said another lady. “Now there are more crooks walking the streets than there are inside Rooigrond (the local prison, notorious for its harshness during Mangope’s time).”
This is a common theme, even though the Bantustan system itself was a colossal crime scene. Yet, it would be a mistake to think that these disgruntled people are all reactionary, Bantustan-supporting, layabouts. One of the most fervent proponents of this Mangope nostalgia is a friend. He was among more than 1,000 youth activists arrested by Mangope’s police while attending a meeting in Winterveldt on March 26 1986. The cops opened fire on the crowd, killed eleven people and injured more than 200. My friend and others were arrested, charged with attending an illegal gathering and public violence, and were threatened with high treason charges. They were held in detention in Ga-Rankuwa and tortured for weeks.
Last Friday, he told me: “The ANC has failed us. Mandela said ‘a better life for all’. Now, it’s a better life for the ANC’s leaders. We are nothing.”
He wasn’t saying it for my benefit. We were with a high-ranking ANC local leader with whom he had at some point shared a detention cell in the 1980s. He told his comrade: “I am not voting ANC in 2024. If there was a Mangope party, I would give my vote to them.” He pointed at the road. At some point in the past 10 years it had been tarred, but now it is just gravel. “Look at the ANC’s roads. Yet look at the quality of Mangope’s roads. They were built in the 1980s and they are still here, still smooth, very few potholes.”
We had picked up my friend at a tavern. A group of men were gambling in front of the place. Youths high on nyaope were lazing about, begging for money. The drug was sold openly, as it has for 13 years now. It is no wonder that last week the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime announced that we were well on our way to being a mafia state. It said SA’s murder rate has risen 38% since 2010, the number of kidnappings for ransom has quadrupled, and there is a R187bn annual impact from infrastructure theft such as the looting of copper-power cables.
In the view of many of the people I have spoken to in the province over the past three weeks, including one of the ANC’s newly-elected provincial leaders, the government is absent in their struggles with all these challenges.
Where is the opposition when so many are crying out for leadership?
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