By Christi van der Westhuizen

All is not well in South Africa’s heartland, the Free State.  The golden plains of the province have become the site of intense hostility between political parties, particularly the ANC and Cope. Party-political contestation has moved beyond legitimate campaigning to outright intimidation as houses are petrol-bombed and state employees become the victims of witch hunts after changing their political affiliations.

In the small town of Trompsburg, 100 km south of Bloemfontein, a handful of municipal employees are sitting idly in front of a face-brick building in the main road. The building houses the local municipality, called Kopanong, which is in the Xhariep district. They have just found out that they are the latest victims of a campaign against Cope members in the municipality.

A secretary, a cashier and the supervisors of the cleaners have been informed that they should immediately report for new duties as cleaners and street sweepers. No reasons have been given for the demotions. No suggestion has been made that the demotions are because of poor performance and the prescribed disciplinary procedures have not been followed. “It’s because we are Cope people and they are ANC,” states MacDonald Motsabi simply. He used to be assistant technical supervisor.

They are not the only ones affected. In all, about 20 people have been demoted. The incumbent in the key post of municipal manager has changed three times in the recent past. Apart from the acting municipal manager, the incumbents in the posts of director and manager of community services are also acting.

They have allegedly been threatened by one of the people who were promoted to fill the new vacancies. “He said he will chase us away. He will deal with us. It’s scary,” Motsabi laments. Former secretary Annie Morolong was told by the same individual that “we will destroy you. This is the government of the ANC.”

They are all members of the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu). Normally this would be their first port of call for redress. But at the time when they were demoted – beginning April – a Samwu meeting was called without them.

People wearing ANC t-shirts addressed the meeting, which makes it seem like the ANC had called the meeting, according to former cashier Hilda Naude’. Former technical supervisor Exonaven Motsabi is sure that “Samwu can’t help us because they’re ANC.”

The trouble started with former executive mayor of the Xhariep district, ANC member Magazine Pietersen, who alleges that she was kicked out after she resisted provincial ANC structures’ decision that three people be appointed in the Kopanong municipality. “The budget had already been finalised. Besides, the municipality couldn’t afford another three appointments.” She is still in a dispute with the ANC’s Free State leadership about her expulsion from the council.

She believes municipal employees should be able to belong to the party of their choice. “The ANC is using this to threaten people -- ‘you see how we’ve worked out so-and-so’.”

But Thamsanqa Mfazwe disagrees. He is a provincial and national campaigner for the ANC and Free State organiser for the South African National Civics’ Organisation (Sanco). “The employees who were demoted are the ones supporting those councillors. An employee is an official, not a politician. How can they involve themselves in politics? They have been involved in sabotaging the municipality. They are not concentrating on their work. They are busy with politics.”

It is unclear how they “sabotaged” the municipality. When asked, Mfazwe argues, “if someone does not listen to you and if you pay them as an employee, you have a right to take action against that person because they are being an obstacle.”

In what way were they being “obstacles”? Mfazwe’s response is rather telling: “Because they are supporting the political problem of the councillors. They are working with the councillors who have defied the ANC.”

Thus we have a situation where factionalism and political intolerance have paralysed a council which was not working optimally to start with. Consequently, very little service delivery has happened in the recent past, according to Deon Leeuw, Cope executive member in the Xhariep district. 

Factionalism and leadership struggles seem to also be destructive factors in Tumahole, Parys, near the Gauteng border. MK veteran Tshitlo Thabane was an administrator in the office of Ngwathe mayor Tom Letsoenyo for more than ten years. Ngwathe includes Parys, Heilbron, Koppies, Vredefort and Edenville.

Thabane alleges that, after Letsoenyo died, interference by the ANC’s provincial leadership cost him his job in 2006. He was moved to the technical department based on bogus charges, according to him.

Feeling “rejected”, he eloped to Cope. Seemingly as punishment, his house was petrol-bombed twice in January and February this year in the early hours of morning. The perpetrators were not caught.

Cope media spokesperson in Parys Thite Titi’s house was also petrol-bombed earlier this year. While the suspects are still at large, the police indicated that the attacks on Titi and Thabane’s houses could be politically motivated. Titi also tells how ANC members descended on a Cope recruitment drive in January. Someone was hit with a hammer while signing up to be a Cope member. In another incident, a woman’s Cope t-shirt was forcibly removed from her.

Graffiti with the words “Kill Cope” has been spray-painted on walls. More graffiti calls on residents to keep a certain local Cope leader “on the run”. Titi believes the enmity partly springs from the fact that Parys is the home town of prominent leaders in the Free State, such as ANC chairperson Ace Magashule, which places pressure on the local leadership to keep it “safe” for the ANC.

But Mateis Jappie, the ANC elections coordinator in Ngwathe, insists that the attacks on the houses were not politically motivated. While he acknowledges that they were “Cope houses”, he alleges that both attacks were in fact the results of “family tiffs”.

More allegations emerge from Maokeng, Kroonstad. The Election Monitoring Network (EMN), a civil society alliance that includes the South African Council of Churches and Idasa, reports that there is “a lot of animosity” on the ground. When Cope held a meeting three weeks ago, ANC members tried to block the roads to the hall and also alleged that the ANC had booked the hall. This was found to be untrue, according to Rev. Joseph Diale, the EMN’s monitor in Maokeng.

In another incident, a prominent ANC member in the local council tapped his finger against the head of a mentally disabled woman and told her that “we’ll withdraw your disability grant”. She was wearing a Cope t-shirt and participating in a Cope door-to-door campaign. At the funeral of former minister Ivy Matsepe-Cassaburri, the same individual clapped a young man in the face who was dressed in a Cope t-shirt. In all these cases, charges of intimidation were laid with the police.

Finally, in another incident, an ANC supporter ripped Cope posters from the walls of a Cope supporter’s house. Says Diale, “when I confronted him, he said ‘why would they do this to the movement that gave them freedom?’”

But Jappie’s response to such allegations is that “the small parties don’t have enough people to go door-to-door. They can’t match our numbers. Now they say we are intolerant. Our people are all well trained and know how to respond, even when provoked.”

END

This article by independent journalist and political analyst Christi van der Westhuizen is made available by the non-governmental Election Monitoring Network in the interest of a free and fair election. The views expressed are those of the author of the article.