The government they deserve?

International politics was dominated this week by what President Barack Obama described as his "shellacking" in the mid-term elections, when US citizens used the power of their vote to express their frustration at the sluggish pace of economic recovery.

I reflected on this during my visit on Friday to Indermark, a small rural village of about 5,000 souls, 90 minutes drive north of Polokwane in Limpopo.  Indermark falls within the Blouberg municipality where the ANC routinely gets over 90% of the vote, election after election.

The main purpose of my visit was to "turn on the tap" that will provide the community with a reliable, accessible source of water.

There are other taps dotted around Indermark, but they are dry. A water system, installed by the municipality before the 2006 local elections, has never worked.  People told me they buy water at R10 per plastic drum from the few people who have their own borehole. There is no such thing as the "free basic services" (the norm in DA-run municipalities) for the poverty-stricken community of Indermark.

A group of local DA activists decided to do something about the water crisis. They approached potato farmers, Koos and Jimmy van der Amstel, who agreed to provide a borehole, a tank, a pump and a tap (as well as ongoing maintenance and electricity) so that the Indermark community can have a reliable source of free water.

I also visited a local feeding scheme and care centre for 50 orphaned children, run by Ms Mary Lamola. She and her helpers are notionally "employed" by the Limpopo provincial government, but they last received their monthly stipend of R1, 100 over a year ago. Mary told me she runs the centre mainly on the donations she receives from local farmers.

When a community turns out to celebrate the "turning on" of the single working communal tap in their village, and when local health workers continue, unpaid, to care for orphaned children, it puts things into perspective. Especially in a province that was listed in a special report by the Auditor General as the most corrupt in South Africa with respect to government tenders. The local municipality has received audit disclaimers (the most serious sanction for financial mismanagement) for five out of the past six years. In August this year, the municipality had not spent a cent of their R88-million operational budget. Nor had they spent any of the R38-million capital budget. 

My visit to Indermark brought home, in stark practical terms, how a corrupt and ineffective government makes poor people poorer. That is when my thoughts turned to Barack Obama.  In a mature democracy people understand and use the power of their vote, (even if they unfairly punish an incumbent for the sins of his predecessor).

In our infant democracy, we have a long way to go, before people realise and use the power of their vote to improve their circumstances. If the ANC can take it for granted that over 90% of people in places like Indermark will continue voting for it, despite overwhelming mismanagement, corruption and service delivery failure, why should the ruling party work to improve the situation? Why would they put an end to self-enrichment and corruption? 

Through their vote, people signal their acceptance of the ANC's misrule. The situation will not improve until local politicians are scared of their voters. And this cannot happen until voters use the only form of accountability that really matters in a democracy -- voting an incumbent out. 

After my visit I was particularly surprised by some of the questions put to me by journalists.

Questions like: Is the DA only doing this in Indermark?   Are you going to get farmers to supply water in other communities also? 

The assumption (and tone) behind these questions was that the DA is not doing enough to relieve the service delivery and corruption crisis in Limpopo. 

I replied that we would certainly seek to help wherever we could, but that these questions missed the point.  In Limpopo, the ANC is in government.  It is the government's duty to deliver basic services (and pay their staff).  I said the best way to fix the crisis would be for the people to exercise the power of their vote and change their government.  

The DA in Limpopo does what it can to fix things from the opposition benches.  For example, in response to the Auditor General's damning corruption report, the DA in the Limpopo Legislature twice tabled a private members bill to prohibit state employees doing business with the state -- the root of much of the province's corruption.  On both occasions, the ANC majority blocked the passage of the Bill.  So much for their repeated rhetorical commitment to rooting out corruption!

In the Western Cape, where the DA governs, the Bill is making good headway and should become law by the end of the year. 

Driving back from Indermark, I reflected on the many places across South Africa where DA councillors and activists, ratepayers and businesses are stepping in to deliver services where corrupt local authorities have failed to do so.   These are places where local residents, in significant numbers, continue to vote for the ANC, election after election. 

It is right that we should seek to alleviate suffering and improve service delivery everywhere we possibly can -- whether we are in government or in opposition.  But I also sometimes ask myself whether our interventions sometimes merely serve to disguise the consequences of the ANC's corruption and misrule. 

Because one thing is certain:  until voters are prepared to use the power of their vote to hold their leaders accountable, our democracy cannot succeed.  In fact, in places where the ANC gets over 90% of the vote no matter how badly they govern, all the morbid symptoms of the "failed state" are already apparent. When all else is said and done, people living in a democracy get the government they deserve.

This article by Helen Zille first appeared in SA Today, the weekly online newsletter of the leader of the Democratic Alliance.

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