Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 25, 1994 TAG: 9404250058
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: GREGORY KATZ DALLAS MORNING NEWS
DATELINE: SOWETO, SOUTH AFRICA LENGTH: Long
Black shoppers crowd around the machine to listen to politicians give their prerecorded, 60-second videotaped spiels. They laugh derisively when a well-known white supremacist comes on the screen. They listen carefully as more popular candidates make their pitches.
The days and decades when black South Africans could not vote are coming to a close. Beneath the headline-grabbing thunder of the mortars and rifles still used to settle some political scores, the cacophony of democracy can be heard.
Many townships are still torn by daily violence, and extremists on both sides still want to sabotage the election results. But there are ample signs of excitement and good will as millions of South Africans prepare to vote in the three-day elections that start Tuesday. In a Soweto shop, saleswoman Rene Bagley, a white, and Norman Mashaba, a black, argue every day about who to vote for. She backs President F.W. de Klerk, who seeks re-election on the basis of his scuttling of apartheid. He backs Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress candidate.
"I'm very proud of what de Klerk has done," Bagley said. "I haven't agreed with what his party did in the past, but I hope he wins. But I respect Nelson Mandela. With both of them working together, we'll have a great country."
She said she was not afraid of her fate if Mandela becomes the country's first black president, in part because de Klerk will probably have a key role in the transitional "government of national unity" that will emerge.
She said she expected de Klerk to serve in a vice presidential role and advise Mandela.
Mashaba said he agreed de Klerk deserves respect for his historic decision to free Mandela from prison, legalize black political parties and negotiate an end to apartheid. But he said de Klerk was not committed to helping blacks escape from poverty.
"If he had a real program to help, he would have a chance to get more black votes," Mashaba said. "Black and white, we need each other now. But I want the ANC to win because they have a program to upgrade the underprivileged."
Black citizens about to cast the first votes of their lives say that above all else this election is about dignity and liberation. Some also say it will allow them for the first time since they were children to look at whites without anger.
"I'm very proud to have this election," said Owen Mabaso, 27. "We have been fighting for equality for all these years, and now I have what I deserve as a black South African - a vote. I used to hate a white man when I saw him, but now I've recognized that many whites in South Africa don't support apartheid. We need to forgive and build."
Mabaso, who works as a sales merchandiser, said the fall of apartheid means South Africa can be united. "The government will represent all of the people, and we can take each other as brothers, black, white, colored and Indian."
Other blacks are not so willing to forget the oppression they have suffered at the hands of the English, Dutch, French and German colonizers who landed at the southern tip of Africa more than three centuries ago.
Poppy Khumalo, 23, said she had been told again and again she must stop scorning whites now that majority rule is around the corner. But Khumalo, who blames apartheid for her inability to find a job and start her life as an adult outside her parents' home, said it was easier said than done.
"I've been hit by apartheid so hard," she said as she studied a sample ballot at a voter education booth. "They say you must let bygones be bygones, but it's hard to forget. But for the sake of peace, we have to."
Khumalo, trained in computer science, said that when apartheid ends and a majority government takes over, she will be able to find employment right away.
This expectation has become gospel among young urban blacks hit by unemployment that is 50 percent or even higher. The high hopes for immediate rewards pose a potentially serious problem for the next government.
At the same time, many whites are openly afraid of what may happen if Mandela and the ANC triumph and take power, as expected.
"I'm not looking forward to that," said Twanet deKock, a white university student. "The ANC are communists, and they're going to take people's farms and houses. There's no communist system that has worked anywhere in the world, and now they're going to try it here."
South Africa has been gripped by voting fever for weeks. The airwaves and newspapers are filled with information about when and how to vote. The political parties, the Independent Electoral Commission and private companies have sponsored hundreds of seminars on the mechanics of democracy.
Americans Whoopi Goldberg and Sidney Poitier have released voter education ads. Outreach programs have focused on explaining to millions of illiterate blacks that they have the right and responsibility to vote even if they cannot read. Ballots will have pictures of the candidates to ease the process.
David Maepa, a black banker who has given dozens of voting seminars, said the voter education process has awakened in many South African blacks a desire for more education.
Belinda Mendelowitz, a white teacher who has been giving voter education seminars to predominantly white groups, said she finds that many whites have not changed their attitude toward blacks. In addition, she said, a number of whites sense they are losing their country.
"There is a lot of paranoia in the white community," she said. "People say they will vote and then lock themselves in their homes for safety. They are stockpiling food and making evacuation plans. They know things must change, but I don't see their deep-rooted, stereotyped attitudes changing."
She said many whites are also afraid the election will doom their careers: "Many know that they've had the best of it, and now with affirmative action it will be almost the opposite, with companies driving to recruit blacks. The whites have had everything, and they know that's ending."
by CNB