Will the ANC win the votes of many Muslims?

By Imraan Buccus 

When the ANC was a movement aspiring to non-racialism, it had the support of many intellectuals from among the black minorities and many ordinary people, too. But as the progressives in the ANC ceded ground to racial chauvinists and then outright kleptocrats, it largely lost the support of the Black minorities. 

The situation in South Africa is dire. Inequality, poverty, unemployment and crime are all worse than under apartheid. Our cities are literally falling apart with potholed roads and electricity and water provision in crisis. With open gangsterism and collapsing rail and port systems, our economy is also in open crisis. 

There is no excuse for any of this. 

It is hardly surprising that a slew of recent opinion polls show that electoral support for the ANC is in collapse and that the party is on track to get below 50% of the vote in the coming election and could even dip below 40%. 

But despite the severity of the crises at home, the ANC’s geopolitical positioning could well see it winning back the support of many Muslim voters and progressives of all races and faiths who are deeply concerned about the ongoing genocide in Gaza. 

The ANC is not consistently principled in international affairs. Its unwillingness to criticise Putin’s regime in Moscow and its long history of appeasing the dictatorship in Harare is disappointing. But it has taken a principled position on the destruction of Gaza, for which it has won the admiration of progressives around the world.

International issues matter to many voters. Here, the ANC seems certain to win back the support of some progressives, as well as a significant chunk of the Muslim community.

Despite the long list of parties competing in this election, there are, at the end of the day, only three parties of real significance competing on the national ballot: the ANC, the DA and the EFF. 

Now that the EFF has openly embraced the kleptocratic politics that we came to associate with Zuma and the Guptas, they are not a viable option for any right-thinking person. That leaves the DA and the ANC, and many black people of all races and classes, seriously thinking of holding their noses and making a tactical vote for the DA to punish the ANC for its many failures. 

But the DA is locked into the implicitly racist pro-Western worldview that is typical of white liberalism in South Africa. It simply will not condemn the genocide in Gaza. Its nauseating sense of self-righteousness is echoed across the growing eco-system of right-wing white-dominated liberal media and civil society organisations that see the white West as morally superior and entitled to govern the world in perpetuity. 

For those of us who recognise the humanity of people in Palestine, as well as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere, this preening white arrogance, an arrogance that directly or indirectly supports the genocide of Palestinians, is intolerable. 

Not all Palestinians are Muslim. Many are Christian or secular. But most Palestinians are Muslim, and there is a very strong connection between Muslims all over the world and the Palestinian cause. For many South African Muslims, there is a sense that when the ANC stands up for Palestine, they are, in some way, standing up for us too. 

There is now a strong sense that for many Muslims, the ANC is, again, becoming a logical political home. Suddenly, it’s not uncommon to see Muslim activists standing side by side with ANC leaders, encouraging people to vote for ANC. The sight of the giant Palestinian flag at the ANC’s manifesto launch made many emotional. 

In many homes, dinner table conversation has shifted from despair at all the ANC’s failures and talk of emigration to a growing sense that, in some important way, the ANC retains a progressive current and that it has given global leadership in standing up to the Western-backed genocide underway in Gaza.

Progressive Muslims cannot give the ANC uncritical support. It is, after all, the party whose local thugs have been killing grassroots activists with impunity in Durban. It is the party of austerity and collapsing infrastructure and services, as well as terrifying rates of violent crime. It is the party that includes people as corrupt as Zandile Gumede and as buffoonish as Fikile Mbalula. 

But it is also the party of a person as principled as Naledi Pandor, the party that led the world in standing up to Israel and its Western backers. In the coming election, it will win the votes of many Muslims.

Dr Buccus is the Editor of Al-Qalam.