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Doing Politics in Bushbuckridge: Work, Welfare and the South African Elections of 2004

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Isak A. Niehaus
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Abstract

In the South African national elections of 2004 the ruling ANC (African National Congress) increased its majority, particularly within the poorer, black, rural voting districts. Drawing on ethnographic research that I conducted in Impalahoek – a village in the Bushbuckridge municipality of the Limpopo Province – this paper investigates reasons for this pattern of voting. With reference to a survey of 87 households I show that unemployment, crime and disease had increased dramatically between 1990/1 and 2003/4. Yet, at the same time, there have been considerable improvements in access to state pensions, housing, school feeding schemes and child support grants. In this context, I argue that the ANC's election campaign highlighted the capacity of government in service provision, and that voting for the ruling party constituted a strategic attempt to obtain access to state-controlled services. Hence the election was characterized by neo-patrimonial politics and by a transactional logic of voting. Voting for the ruling party does not amount to an ideological endorsement of its policies, and discontent is more likely to be expressed through boycotting the elections rather than voting for opposition parties.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 76 , Issue 4 , November 2006 , pp. 526 - 548
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2006

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