Will the poor COPE? South Africa and the Congress of the People

There is a great likelihood that the newly formed Congress of the People (COPE) in South Africa will be in control of the local government in my hometown of Zamdela in Sasolburg in the Vaal Triangle area after the national general elections of 2009. On my recent visit to Zamdela I found out that almost every prominent leader of the tripartite alliance that I have known in the area – from the turbulent 1980s to the euphoric post-1990 era of the prominence of the exiles – is either an overt or covert leader, member or sympathiser of COPE. Even some dyed-in-the wool South African Communist Party (SACP) members and die-hard socialists – including my former comrades in the black consciousness movement – are actively campaigning for COPE in the area. In taxis and in the streets, at shops and at funerals and wedding ceremonies in Zamdela and the surrounding areas there is hardly a conversation that ends without the name of COPE being mentioned. A friend of mine who attended the launch of COPE and is in the middle of the mobilisation project insists that the whole Free State will be governed by COPE come next year. It seems his optimism about the performance of COPE in next year’s elections is shared by people in other parts of South Africa. In a bus, on my way back to eThekwini, I overheard a young man talking to a friend on the mobile phone. Speaking in Sepedi, he invited his friend to join COPE: ‘We will be the government there next year. Come on board, we want to give you a position in the municipality.’

Speaking to people on the streets of Zamdela, I discovered that frustration and disappointment with the current lethargic, almost non-existent delivery of services is the main reason for the popularity of COPE in the area. None of the people I spoke with cited ideological or policy issues as their reason for jumping out of the tripartite alliance into COPE. The majority of people I talked to said they have simply given up on the ability and willingness of ANC councillors to improve the pace and quality of the delivery of services. Amongst those disgruntled with the ANC-run local government are members of the 800 households in Chris Hani Park – including my own family – who still live in shacks after almost two decades of ANC rule. Chris Hani Park emerged as an informal settlement and squatter camp in 1990 after the ANC-aligned Zamdela Progressive Civic Organization encouraged residents to illegally occupy the area in a bid to upstage the Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO)-dominated Zamdela Civic Association, which was involved in negotiations with the municipality for the area to become a legal residential zone. Both civic formations are now defunct and the rest of the residents of Chris Hani now live in ‘RDP [Reconstuction and Development Programme] houses’.

Squatter settlements that emerged after Chris Hani have all been done away with, as the local government has successfully resettled residents and has built RDP houses for them in new settlements. At the moment there are plans to build RDP houses as of early next year at Amelia, the new settlement in which people still leave in shacks. But there seems to be no hope for the 800 families of Chris Hani who are still in shacks. Residents say concerted efforts to get a clear explanation about why these families are still in shacks and when they can expect their houses to be built have only yielded vague utterances and empty promises from the local government and their ward counsellor. People in my ward told me that the main reason why they are neglected is that they have a useless, erratic counsellor. Now, these residents and others in Zamdela pin their hope on a COPE government.

But here lies the problem: the same councillor in whom residents have lost hope has jumped on the ship of the same COPE that they believe is their only hope for a real better life for all. There is almost certainty within the circles of COPE that this man will be retained as a councillor in our ward, or may even get a mayoral post or some big position. The situation is the same in most wards and other townships. The very people under whose leadership and administration the residents were faced with lack of service delivery have joined COPE and are likely to be in the hot seats next year. This includes disgruntled former councillors who were laid off by the African National Congress and those who are still in council or are in administrative positions. Simply put, we have a tragic situation where the masses of our people who have joined COPE hoping to escape the poverty trap in which they are confined due to incompetent, unscrupulous, self-enriching leadership and inefficient civil servants, will wake in 2009 to find the same people being in control of their fate. For instance, the provincial organiser of COPE is our former mayor. Under this gentleman’s tenure in office many families had to spend years relying on the generosity of their neighbours for water because of the religious way he executed the ANC’s cost-recovery policy, turning off the taps in many households. I have first-hand experience of this because my family has been on the receiving end of this approach several times.

The practical reality is that many families would like to pay for water and other services but simply cannot afford to. The majority of us are unemployed or part of the large army of the under-employed, struggling to eke a living as hawkers and artisans, temporary or casual labourers, and informal workers. As is the case in many African countries and the global South, in our country the majority of workers operate within the informal economy and the NGO sector, with those employed in the formal economy underpaid and under-employed. Yet the same COPE is waging a vociferous war against social grants, grants which several pieces of research have indicated have provided relief for many families and have resulted in some households beginning to move away from the bottom-end of the poverty line. Were it truly for the poor, COPE would be saying it would address the inadequacies and shortcomings of present policies and programmes by improving on the reach, depth and accessibility of these social grants. It would be talking of making the social grants part of a holistic and integrated social policy and economic strategy that would include improving the livelihoods and income of communities, through, among others initiatives, land transfer, subsidies and capacity-building for small-scale farmers, farming cooperatives and small businesses, as well as an intensive public works programme, investment in industrial development and socio-economic reconstruction projects, skill development programmes and improving the access and quality of social services. Instead of this, COPE promises to tighten its screw on social spending and even to be much harsher than the ANC in handing people over to the invisible hand of the market.

While COPE presents itself as the hope for South Africa’s poor – and millions of our people seem to see hope in COPE – the million dollar question is in reality whether the poor will COPE. Unless its policy trajectory changes from its current neoliberal paradigm, it seems that COPE will remain just another capitalist dope that will dupe people for a while, until false promises ultimately become known for what they are. My fear is that given the high expectations and the tremendous hope the emergence of COPE has given the masses, when their expectations are unsettled and ‘the new beginning euphoria’ – or what my comrade and brother in Conscious Hip Hop, rapper and emcee, Icebound calls the ‘BMW fever’ – disappears, this country is likely to go on fire. If those in power continue to subject our people to the short-end of the capitalist stick, the previous massive and widespread civil protest against lack of service delivery, as well as the recent outbreak of violence with xenophobic and regionalistic undertones, will prove but a taste of things to come.

* Mphutlane Wa Bofelo is a writer, activist, life-skills facilitator and performance poet who has been published in several journals, websites and anthologies and has performed at various events.
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