In Cape Town and the Western Cape (Western Cape is one of nine provinces -- Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, North-West, Gauteng, Kwa-Zulu-Natal, Limpopo, Free State and Mpumalanga are the others) the ANC faces challenges from, most prominently, the Democratic Alliance, the largest opposition party in the country, headed by Tony Leon, and the Independent Democrats, a smaller party that is toying with putting up a full slate of candidates in March's nationwide municipal elections. As with "off-year" elections everywhere (see America, United States of) turnout will probably be low, and thus turning out party regulars will be the key to victory.
There are several reasons why the ANC is not quite as dominant as it is elsewhere -- though it should also be noted that the party of Mbeki still has decent odds of winning either a majority or a plurality here when the counting of votes is completed. The first of these is that there is a large, affluent, powerful white upper and upper-middle class in Cape Town, and that is a trend that has only accelerated in the last decade. There is also an independent and large "coloured" population (South Africans have an ambivalent relationship with the former racial terms of the apartheid regime -- most hate them, but still use them on a regular basis, seeing as how they serve a certain utilitarian function, descriptively if nothing else) that has often steered its own course, not seeing themselves automatically beholden to the ANC, whetever respect thay have for that organization's historical role. There is also a simple political answer -- opposition parties have gotten a foothold here, and as a consequence have focused on shoring their base in this part of the country. Of course there are myriad other answers -- a large Afrikaner base that is wary of the majority, ANC failings at the local level, and so forth. All of these factors mean that this is going to be one of the parts of the country to watch most closely when the dust settles in March.
I plan to write a series of articles and the like when I return on the current South African political situation, so I will keep the political discussion short, but as ever it is a fascinating political landscape. Many have called 2005 an annus horribilus for the ANC as the result of the dual crises facing deposed Vice President Jacob Zuma, who faces independent but re-enforcing corruption and rape charges all while maintaining a solid political base among ANC constituent groups such as the South African Communist Party (SACP) and ANC Youth League. This has led to a potential succession crisis in the party for both party leadership and presumed presidential succession. If Zuma is cleared of all charges, the ANC might fracture. The ANC coalition, with the SACP and Congress of SAfrican Trade Unions (COSATU) has for more than a decade been a tendentious one, and many observers, myself included, have asserted that the most likely challenge to ANC dominance in the ANC will not come from an outside party, certainly not from a largely-white outside party, but rather of a splintering of the SACP and COSATU from the ANC. The Zuma crisis might add a new element; I suspect instead that it will merely amplify the fissures within the governing coalition in which by a long way the ANC is first among putative equals.
Last night I had dinner and a couple of bottles of wonderful Cape wine (the best was a Graham Beck Pinotage) at a beachfront restaurant. Tonight we are going to drive around Cape Point, stopping wherever the mood strikes. Tomorrow will be a full day at the University of Cape Town. It is another glorious sunny day here in Africa's southwestern corner. The beach beckons . . .
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