Why do South Africans go on voting for the African National Congress?

Why would anyone vote ANC, given the party's record of corruption followed now, under President Cyril Ramaphosa, by division, bitter in-fighting and deadlock? It is more a mystery than a question, considering the negative coverage the ANC gets in the media.

Most regular journalists seem to avoid exploring it. They may feel it somehow undemocratic, even running a risk, to argue there is no real option. Or they know perhaps they can rely on the social media these days to come up with an answer.

On Twitter and in the comment columns of news and political websites, explanations are never lacking: people who vote ANC either have their noses in the trough or are looking to have their noses in the trough. Alternatively, they have been bought or are unintelligent. There are many learned exchanges on the proof furnished by IQ tests.

There’s no doubt some truth in it all, as in politics everywhere. But like all generalities, it also makes one wonder. Is there really no hope, not an honest ANC man or woman anywhere? Not in the Revenue, for instance? Not speaking out at the Zondo Commission? And can’t the people - the voters - vote ANC simply because they want to or choose to? Is that really the same as being stupid?

Another popular explanation is people vote ANC because of identity politics, sometimes termed identitarian politics to make the matter weigh more significantly. Liberals tend to bridle at this, seeing it as a threat if not racist, and they may have a point. All politics is identity politics because there has to be a sense of mutual identity to identify with anything. There is the consideration too, since the population of SA is 80% black, that the majority can hardly avoid colouring the party they vote for.  

That leaves the President Cyril Ramaphosa factor, the New Dawn that he promised South Africans, but which, the ubiquitous doomsayers insist, is a False Dawn.

This piece, however, is not to get into that debate yet again, to claim that Mr Ramaphosa may or may not be trusted, or that he is weak and not moving fast enough. It is to put another view entirely.

There appear to be three reasons people vote - or don’t vote - as they do: habit, loyalty and reason.

Habit, a very powerful human instinct/motivator, is clearly at work in people who vote for the same party all their lives - because their parents did, or the local community does, or because they just can't ever be bothered.  These include those who 'don't trust politicians' and it also explains those who don't vote at all, and why they often are the ones that grumble most at the terrible state of affairs.

It's like putting the cap back on the toothpaste: you either do or you don't.

Loyalty is hard to tell apart from habit and no doubt often overlaps with it, but it may be a more elevated form of behaviour, or more stupid, depending, ironically, on your loyalties.

Loyalty seems straightforward enough: we naturally take sides and, having taken them, we stick with them come what may; it may be related to not wanting to be proved wrong. It generally has little to do with logic and nothing whatever to do with right and wrong and it is therefore puzzling why people sneer at others who stick with a particular political party or politician, when they themselves never desert their favourite soccer or rugby team however often it disappoints.

Then there's reason. Now that's the hard one. We all have Reason; that stands to reason. We think that anyone capable of reason would never vote ANC. In the same way, we reason no one would ever vote DA and anyone who votes for Donald Trump has taken leave of their senses. Yet there are people who do it, who would vote Hitler or Stalin still, or Barak Obama, or Emmanuel Macron and give you reasons for it. After all, people even vote for Nigel Farage.

Reason, the organising principle of democracy, is as deceptive a guide as any other. It does not lead us all to do the right thing or the best thing. And it definitely doesn't make us all do the same thing.

 

Yellowhammer - the British Government's Brexit assessment, not the bird

The leaked Tory government report Yellowhammer, setting out the risks of fuel, food and medicine shortages following Britain leaving the EU without a deal on October 31, is causing yet more outrage and denial in a gravely divided country. However, it is conclusive on at least four issues:

 

It shows Brexit is little or nothing to do with 'trade', but is ideological. No rational government aware of these risks would otherwise persist in running them.

 

It shows talk of fulfilling 'the will of the people' is a sham. A government that respected 'the people' would give the people a chance to review the situation in the light of Yellowhammer, its own and latest assessment. That would mean, at the very least, holding another referendum on Brexit.

 

It shows the claim voters would lose faith in democracy if cheated of Brexit by politicians is also a sham. If the people are 'not stupid', as politicians always like to say, the people will be intelligent enough to understand the need for them to re-consider and reaffirm their earlier opinion of June 23 2016. Indeed an intelligent 'people' would now insist on the opportunity to do so.

 

It proves Brexit is and always has been about the Tory government and party's interest, not the national interest. The fact that Labour and other opposition MPs and voters support Brexit does not alter this. It shows that opposing the Conservatives does not necessarily rule out being politically and socially conservative.

 

On Covid, global warming and other heated arguments

Every scientific hypothesis and theory attracts debate and dissent and people often think that is 'proof' the science is 'wrong', or even some kind of conspiracy or swindle.

 

That is a misunderstanding of science, which is not in the business of 'proving' or 'disproving' things, but rather of pointing to tendencies and causalities that may be taken to exist until they are shown by further testing and evidence not to exist.

 

In other words, all scientific knowledge is provisional and the opposite of dogma and belief.

 

People who doubt science on Covid and global warming often cannot see that to anyone thinking scientifically, the dissenting view may also turn out to be unreliable. The heated disagreements that follow settle nothing because they are the result of a difference in people's thinking and understanding.

So what is the answer then? How do you know which side is right?

The question is wrong. Outcomes in a scientific debate rest strictly on testing and evaluation that may take many years and, in the case of Covid, global warming and our own natures and origins, may never arrive at a complete answer.

On many subjects we have no alternative but to apply to people who specialise in them. The scientific question to ask scientists is: What is the weight of scientific opinion on this, not Who is right or wrong. There will always be dissidents.