No word on party policy

After Jacob Zuma's victory when he took over the reigns of the ANC after the December 2007 ANC conference in Polokwane, I remember how a few weeks after that conference, many of us who were sceptical of the charming Zulu traditionalist and uncomfortable with his ways kept on asking the question: "What are his policies?" The rhetorical question still prevails today in the minds of those who are still in denial that JZ is headed for the presidency.

Last week, on national television when Zuma was afforded an hour on the state-owned broadcaster, I listened to a better media-trained Zuma (barring the through-clearing) mumble to a question that I initially thought was simple, i.e. How the ANC planned to eradicate poverty. At that point I asked myself, what I knew of the current official ANC's policy on poverty eradication, crime, social security etc. I discovered to myself that I actually did not know.

Hellen Zille was given her hour or less on Radio 702 last week as well, and when she was asked to respond to archbishop Desmond Tutu's position on why he had said that he was so disillusioned with the current ANC that he would not cast his ballot in the forthcoming elections, Ms Zille pointed to the fact that if the archbishop had read the policies of the Democratic Alliance, the archbishop would most likely vote for the DA. Ms Zille also took the honors to insinuate that the archbishop probably would not vote for the DA since it is a white party, hence the archbishop could have taken the decision not to vote at all instead of going for the alternative to the ANC.

I have been asking a few of my friends if we should be on the forefront of the youth wing for the new Terror Lekota/Mbhazima Shilowa party since we all believe we are more capable than Julius Malema. The standard response: "It depends on what their policies are". At that point I would ask my friends, "What do you know of the ANC/DA/UDM policies on crime, poverty, unemployment etc..?". I would then give my subjects five minutes to formulate their responses. Six out of seven of the subjects of my survey could not answer the question to my satisfaction, or even their own satisfaction.

The moral of my story and the conclusion of my survey: I do not think South Africans vote for a particular party based on its policies, so perhaps there is some credibility to Ms Zille's response to the apathetic archbishop. I also think the current criticisms that we have of our government are more based on issues of service delivery than affect us personally, rather than what the written policies of the ANC could be. So I think we are more concerned about the implementation rather than the brain-text behind it.

I think for the next while, for historical reasons, South African's will still continue to vote based on sentiment than principle, unlike in the US for an example where a significant section of the electorate would swing their vote for their presidential candidate based on the specific details of how he plans to improve the health care system, cut taxes etc...

What I have been asking myself and my friends is why the sudden obsession on party policy if we do not know that much about the policies of our political parties, let alone that of the ruling party.

Solidarity.