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Elections that ‘Shook the World’ – Mandela’s Election in South Africa 1994
17 Plays1 day ago
Our 'Elections that Shook the World' series leads Matt Davis to interview two leading academics who were part of the changes that brought democracy to South Africa in 1994. Professor Nancy Jacobs of Brown University in the United States. She is an historian of South Africa and of colonial Africa and her power in obscure corners including a mysterious and forgotten diplomatic initiative. She was a United Nations election monitor in 1994 for the first election.
Matt also interviews Professor Wilmot James was an Honorary Professor at the University of Pretoria, University of Cape Town and at the University of the Witwatersrand today.
James is currently also a professor at Brown University. He was also a Member of the South African parliament for the Western Cape for the opposition Democratic Alliance.
Dr. James advised the Office of President Nelson Mandela's Director-General Jakes Gerwel and on constitutional rights education for coloured (mixed descent) communities torn between accepting majority rule and worrying about minority interests.
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Transcript
Introduction to the 1994 South African Election
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Observations podcast and welcome back to our series on elections that shook the world. I'm Matt Davis, the special international elections correspondent. Today, we'll be talking about the election in South Africa in 1994.
00:00:24
Speaker
This election saw the end of apartheid and the creation of a new African liberal democracy. In the wake of the political violence in the lead up to the ah election, the world waited with bated breath with a fear that South Africa could descend into civil war.
00:00:38
Speaker
With multiple parties involved and competing interests from different groups within South African society and self-governing homelands, it took the negotiation efforts of many and the final settlement to be agreed to ensure that the election led to a fairly stable peace.
00:00:53
Speaker
This election led to Nelson Mandela becoming the first black president of South Africa, something that would not have been possible just a year before. To talk
Nancy Jacobs' Experience as an Election Observer
00:01:01
Speaker
through a few aspects of this election, such as her research on the mediator Washington Okumu,
00:01:06
Speaker
I'm delighted to be joined by Nancy Jacobs of Brown University, part of the US Ivy League on the podcast. Nancy Jacobs is a historian of South Africa and was an election monitor for this election.
00:01:17
Speaker
Thanks for joining me today. Thank you for this opportunity. I'm glad to be here, Matt. We'll start with some of your experiences as an election monitor. What was that like and what were you looking for?
00:01:29
Speaker
well the The UN group was ah called UNOMSA, the United Nations Observer Mission to South Africa. And we were only observers, not monitors. So we weren't empowered the way more formal monitors are. But I think this has to do with more of the kind of work that your organization is doing.
00:01:46
Speaker
So, um many there were There were many different types of observers. The only way Americans could go was to join the UN n team. And it was one moment when I was really proud of the United States because the American team looked like America.
00:01:59
Speaker
We had civil rights leaders, we had educators, we had ah people from state governments from all kinds of states.
Role of Observers and Pre-Election Tension
00:02:07
Speaker
um Other countries sent a lot of bureaucrats who turned out to be older and male, but the American team actually had room for a young graduate student who was me.
00:02:16
Speaker
So I managed to get myself on that team and I was scared. I mean, one of the things we're going to talk about is how violent South Africa was in the run up to the election. and And I was really nervous about it because I wasn't used to dangerous situations like that.
00:02:31
Speaker
But I also knew that this was going to be a really important historic event. And I was planning on having a career as a historian of South Africa. And I knew it would be really essential for me to be there. And I've been lecturing about it now for 30 years since it happened. And i'm I'm glad to remember it with you and now again. Excellent.
00:02:47
Speaker
Did you see any violence yourself? Oh, not at all. It was all over by then. And that's the story. um um so So yeah, we were really nervous.
00:02:59
Speaker
And um the plane my plane landed on the 20th of April, 1994. And on the 19th of April, when our plane was in the air, there had been an agreement that all parties, including the majority Zulu party, the Ankata Freedom Party that had been boycotting the election, would join.
Inclusive Election Amidst Logistical Challenges
00:03:19
Speaker
And the violence in the lead up, had been really acute violence in that lead up, was because the Zulu party was trying to stall the election and and to derail the election.
00:03:30
Speaker
And they agreed to to to to join. And when our plane landed, we saw the news and everything changed. And some of the observers did see some intimidation, but this was a this was ah ah really quite remarkably free and fair election.
00:03:47
Speaker
When, you know, just a week earlier, it seemed that it would be a bloodbath. So what was it that you were observing? What were you trying to look out for? Well, it was...
00:04:01
Speaker
We were supposed to, you know, we we we didn't have a lot of powers. All we could do was walk around with clipboards and note anything that looked irregular. And um we were looking for um were looking for irregularities, ballot box stuffing. We were looking for clear intimidation. were looking for what the comportment would be of the representatives of parties at the ballots. Were they intimidating anyone? So general intimidation.
00:04:25
Speaker
As it turned out, though, the election was... a real logic logical challenge for South Africa and the Independent Electoral Commission. They'd never had an election like this before.
00:04:36
Speaker
They had no voter rolls. That's one of the things we can talk about. They had no idea how many people were going to be voting. And part of the problem was that this Zulu party, it was the majority party in in the province that's now KwaZulu-Natal,
00:04:51
Speaker
And um they were boycotting the election. So it wasn't safe for anyone who wanted to participate in the election to do any kind of preparation to get the requisite ID to participate until a week before the election.
00:05:06
Speaker
So they didn't know how many people were voting. And people in that region in particular and other regions, which were IFP strongholds, had not felt safe to take any steps. So in the last week, there was a rush of people who were trying to get the the right IDs to register.
00:05:22
Speaker
And um that was really slowed down. And there was also a problem with the ballots themselves. And I could talk about that with you too. There were all sorts of logistical challenges. There were huge, huge lines.
00:05:34
Speaker
um um Nelson Mandela's autobiography was called Long Walk to Freedom. There were headlines that said, long line to freedom, a long queue. um it And and it it took, it was really quite disastrous for for old and infirm people who were out in the sunshine for that long. But South Africans had been waiting a long time to vote and they were patient.
00:05:56
Speaker
Our job as observers then became support roles. um nobody was thinking there was going to be much intimidation. The problem was that the the polling stations did not have supplies. And in 1994, there weren't a lot of cell phones. So our job as observers would be to say, oh, look, these people have have the ink for the hand readers. These people have the stickers to the ballot. These people have such and such.
00:06:18
Speaker
So we were just trying to so support the people who were running the elections that they could get the the materials they needed to actually allow people to vote.
Zulu Party and Ballot Solutions
00:06:29
Speaker
All right, then. So let's talk a bit about some of those difficulties facing south Africa with this, you know, first election of its kind there. So you mentioned there like a lack of of an electoral role.
00:06:40
Speaker
And therefore, yeah, people have no idea. Yeah. So this was the thing. I mean, the the Those who negotiated the election, the parties that negotiated, and the Independent Electoral Commission, who were leaders from civil society, they decided that this had to be an election that was beyond reproach. This had to be completely free and fair.
00:07:02
Speaker
And South Africa had been a country where clearly there had been all sorts of exclusions from political processes, and they wanted to err on the other side of over-inclusion. And this is so...
00:07:15
Speaker
Strange to someone coming from our century and particularly my country where there's this all this concern about who's registered to vote and how are people registered to vote. There was no voter registration.
00:07:27
Speaker
there was they So that's why they had no idea. So how do they tell who can legitimately vote? all South Africans had ID cards. Now it had been a very segregated political system and and some black South Africans, you know, had actually lost their South African citizenship because they were members, they were citizens of, proclaimed to be citizens of these Bantu stands, but they all had IDs.
00:07:50
Speaker
So these IDs that had been the apparatus of the segregationist state became the ticket to vote. And that was kind of beautiful. That was wonderful. So all you had to have was an a South African ID and you could turn up to vote.
00:08:05
Speaker
The thing is, not everyone had an ID. Of course, in every society, some people are without an ID. There are also reasons in South Africa why some people did not want to come under state surveillance because perhaps they were living illegally in cities.
00:08:18
Speaker
There was a real control over black people even living in cities. So a lot of people didn't have IDs at all. So what are they going to do about that? So they came up with a system where they gave everyone who did not have the requisite ID a temporary voter card.
00:08:32
Speaker
And the way to get that was you could turn up with a document. And and this is actually pretty funny to me. the kinds of dot Coming from you know my century and my country, the kind of documents you could show.
00:08:43
Speaker
You could show a baptismal certificate. Wow. You could show clinic or hospital cards from your childhood. You could show a report card from your primary school.
00:08:55
Speaker
You could show a house permit in your name, or you could have a letter from your local or traditional authority, which means for Black South Africans from their chief, you could get a letter from your chief. Now, this is getting really quite informal, particularly the house permit, because there were there were Many migrant workers from other parts of South Africa who'd come and they were living and working in the country and they might have had a house permit in their name. They were not citizens.
00:09:20
Speaker
But this the the issue was that those who were planning the election decided that it had to err on the side of inclusion and um And all of these records would count. And better than that, at the very end, all you had to do was find someone who had an ID who was willing to vouch for you and you could go in and get a voter ID.
00:09:39
Speaker
So essentially anyone could have voted. I could have voted. um the the The point was that they were less concerned about keeping out random folks from other countries and more concerned about including every single South African.
00:09:51
Speaker
So there were no there was no voter registration. and And South Africa, for their next election, they did have one. They do have a voter registration now. There was no voter registration, but they had no idea how many people <unk> were coming.
00:10:04
Speaker
um when When this Zulu party, the IFP, entered the elections and there was a run on getting these IDs, they actually ran out of the materials that they were using to make the IDs. They ran out of the laminating cards.
00:10:16
Speaker
So they came up with just basically photocopied pieces of paper that would allow people
Peaceful Voting Atmosphere and Logistics
00:10:20
Speaker
to vote. they were And and i I find that really inspirational today, that there was a young democracy that just decided Everybody had to vote and they were going to count on the trustworthiness of their citizens to to bring their fellow citizens along and also not to get overly hung up on policing non-citizens.
00:10:37
Speaker
I think it's it's not practical for the 21st century or for the United States or the UK, but it's it's inspirational. That is, yeah, quite a surprise that you had effectively any proof that you were that you've been alive in South Africa for a certain amount of time. And there you go, you could rock up and vote.
00:10:58
Speaker
And they and they so then so then everybody turned. and There was another logistical problem of the election, though, because, you know, the Zulu Party had not agreed to join. And um they so the the final stretch of negotiations to figure out the interim constitution began in March 1993.
00:11:17
Speaker
And the Zulu Party and some other conservative right wing parties walked out in June of 1993 and never came back. and never came And you know we think about apartheid and the National Party, the South African government and the ANC and how opposed they were for all those decades.
00:11:33
Speaker
But by the time you got to mid-year 1993, the ANC and the South African government, meeting the National Party, were agreed that they had to solve this and they were working together to negotiate a solution.
00:11:47
Speaker
And they came up with a they came up with a ah system of um They came up with a system of of weak provinces, and they came up with a system of proportional representation for parties.
00:11:58
Speaker
And they developed this system, and and the two bigger parties decided that this was a system that they both could compete in. And and and they were working hard in tandem to come up with a system.
00:12:09
Speaker
And that's kind of surprising to us. We remember the decades of opposition, but that's what it was in 1993. The issue was these conservative parties were realizing that they were not going to have a lot of representation in a system with very weak provinces and they were really favoring more of a federal system where where they'd have regional strength.
00:12:31
Speaker
so But they boycotted the process and that really took away a lot of the impetus for thinking in favor of those of of of ah provinces because the people were going to advocateating advocate for it left so um So they agreed on this interim constitution in um in in just in November of 1993, and then they spent about six months trying to get the Zulu party, the IFP, back on board.
00:12:55
Speaker
And it just wasn't working, wasn't working at all. And so this, so this but once again, this is just the largest of of many conservative parties and and regional-based groups, a lot of which were...
00:13:07
Speaker
um um products of this segregationist homeland government. So so these these homelands who wanted to keep some regional power, you know regional ethnic power in South Africa.
00:13:18
Speaker
So they they boycotted the the the election. So, and and and that's why there was so much violence because they were trying to stall it and trying to derail the election.
00:13:29
Speaker
But, um you know, as I told you, the agreement was on the 19th of April. The election was going to be on the 26th of April. The problem was the ballots did not have the Encata Freedom Party because they've been boycotting the whole process.
00:13:43
Speaker
So one of the major parties, turned out it was the number three party, was not on the ballot. And the papers are all printed. So what do they do? day um They printed stickers.
00:13:55
Speaker
They printed stickers that had the IFP on it, and they hired people. ah um South Africa had and still has a pretty high employment unemployment rate, so the elections really created a lot of jobs for a while.
00:14:07
Speaker
They hired people to take the ballots and to put stickers on the bottom of every ballot. So every single legitimate ballot had to have a paid employee putting a sticker on it.
00:14:19
Speaker
And no matter who you wanted to vote for, that ballot would not count unless all the parties, including the IFP that had been boycotted in the process, were present on the ballot.
00:14:30
Speaker
So unless there were that sticker on the bottom of the ballot, you couldn't vote, even if you didn't wanna vote for them. So this created another logistical hangup because they had to print and distribute and position all of these stickers before people could vote.
00:14:46
Speaker
So between the unexpected number of voters, the logistical problems of getting the ballot papers and the stickers, and and they're because they had no, um because they had no voter registration. The way they controlled to keep people from voting more than once was they put invisible ink on their hands. Then they had a reader and sometimes they ran out of the ink.
Historic Turnout and Election's Peaceful Nature
00:15:06
Speaker
so um So the problem was getting, they had to have all of these supplies in place in order for people to vote. and It was it was difficult for a few days. They wound up um the election began on the 26th of April and they had a day for um old, infirm, sick, pregnant people.
00:15:26
Speaker
um And that. That was the trial. it's It's a little bit, you you know, if if you've never done an election like this before, and if on the first day you invite all of the infirm people who need extra help, it's not the best planning because because they really invited a lot of people died in line and were born in line. That was the thing.
00:15:46
Speaker
um life was happening in these very long queues on the first day of South Africa's first democratic election ever. And the next day, when the general population could vote, the lines were even longer and and it it seemed quite disastrous.
00:16:02
Speaker
But what there were supposed to be two days of normal voting after that that first day and they extended it. So they had four full days to vote because once again, their principle was that everyone had to be able to vote.
00:16:15
Speaker
And by the fourth day, things had settled down and they'd been able to deliver the supplies they needed everywhere. and And our job as monitors was to go around. By the fourth day, um it was quite wonderful. South Africa has the tradition of a braai. What they have are outdoor cookouts. It's a national tradition and it unites South Africans of all races, creeds, genders, that they like to eat meat on the grill that's cooked outside.
00:16:40
Speaker
so we so we So we went around to these polling stations, they were braying outside on the last day. it was sort of like the new South Africa's beginning with these braies, these cookouts. there was So in in the the areas that we were monitoring, um the last day was pretty quiet, but they had that last day to make sure that everyone could possibly vote.
00:16:59
Speaker
Wow, I mean, I think that really builds an image there of of just what it was like and just the ah the sheer numbers of people who were there to vote. There are aerial photographs that show the queues just snaking, snaking, snaking, thousands of people in line.
00:17:12
Speaker
Long line to freedom. So we're going to
Washington Okumu's Mediation Efforts
00:17:16
Speaker
take a quick break here before having ah chat more about Washington Okumu and his role to play. Good.
00:17:28
Speaker
By-elections are an important part of the election landscape. They can be important moments between general elections and They can be big shocks, surprise results and some even have the potential to bring down governments.
00:17:44
Speaker
They are often seen as mid-term referendums on the sitting government. Above all, they are fascinating to the election junkie. Tune in to our series of famous by-elections in the coming weeks.
00:18:03
Speaker
And welcome back. So... Just to get started, you've met Washington Okuba, haven't you? I have. What was he like? Oh, well, well, let me tell you.
00:18:14
Speaker
um So the my plane landed on the 20th of April. And the news was that this Kenyan man mediated the entry of the Inkata Freedom Party into the election.
00:18:26
Speaker
And I had been following South African politics pretty closely. And I had never heard of this Kenyan um and And I never got a really good explanation for who he was, but there was a lot going on in South Africa in April 1993. And that was the story of the moment he had his 15 minutes of fame and he was forgotten.
00:18:43
Speaker
So years later, I was teaching and it came back to me and I thought, there was this Kenyan guy. Who was he? And somehow through friends of friends and connections in Kenya, I got in touch with him in 2016 and he was eager to have someone to talk to. So I went out to Kenya with a student of mine, Aida Downey was her name.
00:19:03
Speaker
And we went and we interviewed him for about a week. We spent about a week with him and he was really old. He was not at all well. He died in November of that year. We were there in in June and he died in November.
00:19:17
Speaker
um But he he was really eager to to talk and to tell us what he had done and to try to make up for the fact that he'd been so forgotten. So going into some of what has been forgotten, what role did he play in all of this mediation process?
00:19:37
Speaker
Yeah, this is a difficult question. um The role he played with South Africa really needed someone to bring these parties together. They weren't able to accomplish that on their own.
00:19:49
Speaker
Perhaps they could have, but they hadn't done it yet. ah He was not an important figure. He had been promoted to... So here's the story.
00:20:02
Speaker
When the Inkata Freedom Party was not joining and there was so much violence, there were um over 400 people dying every month in political violence.
00:20:16
Speaker
Provisions were made for international mediation. So Henry Kissinger and Peter Carrington went to yes went to South Africa leading an international mediation team. This was in, this was think,
00:20:30
Speaker
12th of April, so just like two weeks before the election. And on the team were all sorts of constitutional specialists. There was you know someone from Italy, someone from Canada, someone from India. There was one African-American.
00:20:45
Speaker
They were all men and there were no Africans. So it was a bit of an issue that this group was coming and no one quite knew what their powers were going to be and how they were going to lead mediation. sort of the magic of Henry Kissinger and Peter Carrington getting people to agree that sort of what they expected would happen.
00:21:01
Speaker
But since there were no Africans on this committee, um friends of Washington Okumu, who were conservative Christians, conservative Christians had been concerned about the Constitution, the interim Constitution that had been designed and concerned about the elections going forward.
00:21:19
Speaker
And they promoted Okumu and suggested that he be he be added to this international mediation team. And he was put on as a special advisor, not a real member of the team. The problem was, so all of these international authorities on federalism come to South Africa.
00:21:37
Speaker
And deulu The Zulu party, the IFP has a lot of hope that somehow there's going to be an intervention, that maybe the constitution's gonna be laid aside, or maybe the the election will be delayed so they could negotiate a bit more.
00:21:51
Speaker
But you have to understand the ANC and the national party, the South African government, had been working really hard to create this constitution and they had agreed on what the rules would be. And this is something that South Africans had come up with according to processes they'd agreed on.
00:22:07
Speaker
And to lay all that aside for the sake of the party that had boycotted the whole process, That just wasn't on. So this international mediation team left without even getting out of the starting gate. They weren't even able to get anyone to agree on the terms of the negotiation. So Henry Kissinger and Peter Carrington said, this is hopeless, and they left.
00:22:27
Speaker
and And this is when I'm getting on the airplane to go to South Africa and thinking, you know wow, this is really hopeless. But what happened was Washington Okumu stayed longer, and he managed to connect with...
00:22:39
Speaker
um Mangasuto Butelezi, who is the head of the Zulu party, and he managed to talk to him. Now, what's happening? Is Washington Okumu so convincing? Does he have just the right arguments?
00:22:51
Speaker
He did say to, he did really sort of read the riot act to Butelezi and say, what's your position going to be? look at Look at the history of post-colonial Africa.
00:23:03
Speaker
People are on the outside. What sort of power do they have? He gave him bit of a reality check. So maybe Butelezi would have been looking for a way in, even if he hadn't met Okumu, but Okumu was the one there.
00:23:18
Speaker
So he became a go-between between the Zulu party and the... um and those who were who were um leading the negotiations to try to bring them back on board.
00:23:28
Speaker
So there was there was a bit of shuttle diplomacy between the ANC, the South African government, and the Zulu party, and Okuma was going back and forth, and they made an agreement, and there was a surprise press conference on the 19th, as I've told you,
00:23:42
Speaker
And it was at the Union buildings in Pretoria. And Mandela was there. And de Klerk, who was the president of South africak Africa, was there. And Butelezi, who'd been boycotting the process for the whole time, was there.
00:23:53
Speaker
And this man from Kenya, no one ever heard of. Washington Okumu was there. And um there's there's the the photographs of of Mandela and de Klerk and Butelezi signing.
00:24:05
Speaker
What you don't see on the photographs is off to the side, there's this Kenyan man who's pretty much been cut off from the photographs and had been forgotten. he He rose to the occasion. He worked to bring these parties together.
00:24:17
Speaker
um They were all very much looking for a way in, and he was also very much supported by South Africans who had been figuring out what sorts of provisions would be necessary to bring the Zulu party.
00:24:29
Speaker
So he was a bit of a figurehead.
Recognition of Okumu's Role in History
00:24:32
Speaker
was a bit of a convenience, but in fact, he was quite a convenience and a really useful figurehead.
00:24:41
Speaker
The IFP might have made it into the election without him, but he is the way it happened.
00:24:48
Speaker
Why do you think he has been forgotten in the intervening years? Yeah, yeah, that's the question. Well, he was a bit of a problematic character and he had a reputation for being opportunistic and not always reliable.
00:25:07
Speaker
And the ANC knew that and other people knew that. but But here's the deal. How did the IFP actually decide to come on board? The provisions they got in this memorandum of understanding were that the king of the Zulu would be recognized as ah constitutional monarch.
00:25:26
Speaker
and that And that was an addendum to the Constitution. And no one ever said what that meant, sort of like he was just proclaimed a constitutional monarch. And it was also promised that there would be more international mediation down the line.
00:25:39
Speaker
And that's not very much to bring them on board for a process that they've been boycotting for almost a year, right? um but but they But they came on board then.
00:25:51
Speaker
So what else is going on? At the same time that all this is happening, there was a ah secret deal that happened in South Africa. There was a land deal. And behind the scenes, 2. million acres, which was all of the communal land of Zulu people in South Africa, was transferred into a t trust that was privately held by the king of the Zulu.
00:26:13
Speaker
So the king of the Zulu got 2. million acres million acres of land as his private holdings that had been previously all of the communal land. For every other ethnic group in South Africa, the communal land became invested in the national government, but among the Zulu, it was invested in the king.
00:26:28
Speaker
Now that happened at this time, but there was a lot going on in South Africa, and this was so there there There had been a, the Zulu homeland had had a legislature. It was the last thing they passed.
00:26:41
Speaker
There was lot going on that week and a lot of people, nobody really quite noticed this was happening. And um it only came out about a month later that the South African government figured out that there were 2.8 million hectares that they did not have control of, that the king of the Zulu did.
00:26:59
Speaker
who was very closely associated with this political party that had been boycotting the election. So the question came, had there been a deal, was this part of what brought them on board? um the The party still denies it. They say that this this agreement came through um the processes that the Zulu homeland and its legislature were perfectly empowered to follow, that they were following their own processes and they were doing what was best for the Zulu kingdom.
00:27:27
Speaker
But you know it also happened with the ascent of the central government, which was run by the National Party at the time. And um The ANC did not know this was happening.
00:27:38
Speaker
so So there was a side deal, and it turns out Okumu was aware of that side deal. And in fact, Okumu's memoir, which he gave me, ah gave names of some South African, some bureaucrats, white South African bureaucrats in the KwaZulu government and in the national government who'd been working out this deal.
00:28:01
Speaker
And a former student of mine did the research to work out and interviewed them and found that, yes, he was very aware of this deal and and he was fronting the entry of the IFP into the elections and into political processes.
00:28:16
Speaker
At the same time, he knew this underhanded gift was being given to that party. And maybe this is why he's forgotten. He expected to be fully recognized by as a hero in South Africa.
00:28:29
Speaker
And ah he he told the story that a few months after the election, he ran into Mandela and Mandela would not give him the time of day. and And South Africa never recognized him.
Post-Election Struggles and Political Dynamics
00:28:41
Speaker
And also he had the hope that this agreement, the public agreement, said there would be more international mediation. But once the ANC had won the election, um they were not interested in international mediation.
00:28:54
Speaker
and And they had Thabo Mbeki, who was he was Mandela's vice president. He's the one who addressed the issue. And he had some ah rather arcane legal reasons, which were a bit spurious about why that agreement didn't actually hold. But the point was the ANC had the power not to pursue international mediation, and they didn't.
00:29:14
Speaker
And they were a little bit sour about, i i think this is speculation, but they were a bit sour about what had happened with the international mediation and that 2.8 million hectares of land. So Okuma was never recognized by the by the South African government.
00:29:28
Speaker
And I got there in 2016. So this is what, 28 years after the election. And he was really impoverished and unhealthy. He tried to become involved in Kenyan politics. He'd run for office. There'd been an assassination attempt on his life.
00:29:43
Speaker
And um when I met him, he was he was lonely and embittered and frightened, frightened of assassination. And he wanted to tell his story.
00:29:55
Speaker
So it seems, yes, ah like there was a, in part, history being written by by the victors there in the a c um Just not having him around there.
00:30:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And um so now, you know, and and the the question is, how important was that sweetheart land deal in bringing the IFP into the election?
00:30:17
Speaker
They deny that. They deny that was the case. And they, you know, that this political party that was based on Zulu ethnicity, they were boycotting the entire political process.
00:30:28
Speaker
They had no future. If they weren't going to be involved in the South African government, they had no future. So the handwriting up was on the wall, even without that sweetheart land deal. um they might have joined even without that.
00:30:42
Speaker
We can't say that that's really what brought the Zulu Party on board, but it happened at the same time, and Okumu was aware of it. And the ANC, I think, we don't have evidence for this, associated him with it.
00:30:56
Speaker
And and he was he was never recognized. Thank you very much for joining me.
Wilmot James on Negotiations and Education
00:31:01
Speaker
It's been my pleasure talking to you, Matt.
00:31:10
Speaker
It begins, as it always does, with a vision. In the quiet streets of Brody Ferry, one man rose above the hundrum of politics of the day.
00:31:24
Speaker
His name was Bob Servant. Businessman, dreamer, cheeseburger magnet, the only candidate bold enough to pay local dog owners not to walk their dogs in Dawson Park so the grass could reach its full majesty.
00:31:47
Speaker
He promised free wellies for every man, woman, and child. The color, council issue, the size, you'll grow into them. He vowed to put the ferry back on the map, preferably larger than Dundee, and N1 Unforgettable Hustings to tell the best bus story ever told.
00:32:10
Speaker
ah story involving why Lulu wasn't given the blind date job and how Scotland will always choose Sean Connery over Roger Moore. like Richard Haney rousing a packed hall, speaking of honor and destiny.
00:32:26
Speaker
But Bob's destiny was different. His speeches could leap from that bust story retold in ever greater detail to the sovereignty of the South at Atlantic.
00:32:39
Speaker
And in his BBC debate, with the wind whipping in from the Tay, he delivered the words that would echo through the ages. Give us back the Falklands.
00:32:52
Speaker
From Dunny on the Wald's single vote to Brody Ferry's greatest son, we revisit the fictional elections that shaped our screens and the truths they whisper to us all.
00:33:06
Speaker
Brody Ferry. Independent spirit. Eternal legend.
00:33:19
Speaker
So we've heard there from Nancy Jacobs a bit about what was at stake in the lead up to this election and the importance of negotiations, particularly they regarding the IFP. I'm now joined by Professor Wilmot James, also at Brown University, who is a part of some of the negotiations through his work with the Institute of Democracy in South Africa.
00:33:38
Speaker
Thank you for joining me today. No, thank you. I'm very pleased to be able to talk to you. So we're going to start by going a bit into your role as part of this election.
00:33:49
Speaker
You were the head of the electoral information for the Western Cape in South Africa, as well as doing some work behind the scenes. Could you just tell us a bit more about what your roles entailed?
00:34:00
Speaker
So I was responsible for essentially gathering intelligence, this is before the election, on events and activities taking place in the Western Cape, which is one of turned out to be one of the nine provinces of South Africa, um and monitoring whether there was any um transgressions taking place that would threaten the election being free and fair.
00:34:28
Speaker
So i um I monitored those events ahead of time. um So that was my role with the Independent Electoral Commission that was set up. um And that was from essentially from January to April of 1994. And then at the same time, as ah I was appointed as a successor to Alex Bahrain who became the deputy chair of the truth Commission to head up his Institute for Democracy in South Africa and What we our job was to facilitate having an election. It was like a technical support agency that didn't take any sides at all and what we had to do
00:35:09
Speaker
was essentially enabled in April 1994 elections to take place. so um And the two issues we had to confront with, we wanted everybody inside the tent.
00:35:21
Speaker
Didn't matter what their views were, from Communist Party too you know towards to right-wing organizations. We didn't excise, we didn't judge it, but everybody had to be inside the tent because this had to be an act of unity, an act of cohesion.
00:35:38
Speaker
And there were two, let's call it challenges. The one was the Inkarta Freedom Party, led by, at the time, Mangasutu Butelezi, which was a Zulu-based party. And the other, which, and we were a much involved in this side, was the white right wing.
00:35:57
Speaker
And so at the Institute for Democracy, we set up a conservative dialogue process. where we engaged with the whitering white right wing and essentially brought the leaders there together with and with Nelson Mandela. That's
Secret Negotiations with Right-Wing Groups
00:36:13
Speaker
what we did in a series of conversations over, a i would say, four months to make sure that they participated in the election.
00:36:21
Speaker
Now, in an article you wrote for the Daily Maverick, you mentioned that you were around the dinner table with Nelson Mandela, among so amongs some other people. Could you set the scene for us and let us know a bit about what would that was like?
00:36:35
Speaker
Okay, so this was actually after, the dinner was after the election. So it was post-election. And the dinner was set up in order to asked me to do essentially two things.
00:36:50
Speaker
um The so one was for me to play a role at the University of the Western Cape, which was one issue, but the more pertinent question and the request that came to me was to help work with minority populations. This is the colored population, largely resident in the Cape and descendants of Malaysian slaves and European settlers, and I'm part of that population.
00:37:16
Speaker
It's a minority population, um sort of between white and black, and also the Indian population, descendants of ah Indians brought to South Africa to work on the sugar cane plantations of Natal.
00:37:28
Speaker
And he asked me whether I would, they were nervous, those minority um populations were nervous about majority rule. So he asked me to um and run a workshop, a constitutional rights education workshop for those two populations, and I agreed to do that.
00:37:45
Speaker
And so I work quite closely with his office in running i essentially a long program of constitutional rights education. The key thing is. South Africa was used to group protection legally.
00:37:58
Speaker
you know, whites was a legal category. In the new South Africa, there was no such thing. All were individual citizens. And the only protection you have against, um let's call it majority domination, is the constitution, which, ah as you know, together with the Bill of Rights, would protect individual so citizens from abuse by the state.
00:38:19
Speaker
So that's essentially the ah workshops that we're doing. We had a great launch and I ran a series of workshops and and and the results were quite good coming out of that.
00:38:32
Speaker
suppose we'll we'll now go on to a bit about some of your work with the Institute for Democracy. How did some of those negotiations with, them well, you were mostly working with the white right wing, was it?
00:38:45
Speaker
Yes, so it was with the white right wing, which is not one ah group, which was a spectrum. And the key actor on the right that we took very seriously was somebody called Constant Falyoun.
00:39:01
Speaker
And he was also the head of the African National Defense Force. So he was head of the army. um And he represented that a sort of a credible conservative voice.
00:39:15
Speaker
It turned out we we hired, we being the Institute for Democracy, hired his twin brother, to run our um constitutional conservative dialogue. He was a former professor of religion from the University of South Africa.
00:39:29
Speaker
He had a different political persuasion. He was estranged from his brother at that time, and ah but understood the absolutely, the great national importance of talking to his brother to persuade him to actually join the election.
00:39:47
Speaker
And then post-election, um become part of a government that had a single purpose. so so So his brothers spoke, they spoke to one another. we then set up a contact with an African National Congress.
00:40:06
Speaker
And what we wanted to do is enable the series of meetings between the African National Congress and the white right right wing represented by Constant Fliun. So there were about four meetings that were held behind the scenes.
00:40:22
Speaker
ah Even the South Africa's underparted National Intelligence Services had no idea that we were having these meetings.
Mandela's Leadership and Unification Efforts
00:40:29
Speaker
They were led by Taubo Mbeki and by also Jacob Zuma, both of whom became presidents later.
00:40:37
Speaker
um and a team representing the ANC and then the white right wing and there was negotiations underway. And essentially what came out of that, because what Constant Friulhun and his colleagues wanted was a separate white homeland.
00:40:54
Speaker
um and And so they wanted to succeed essentially and establish a white homeland. um And that, of course, would have undermined everything. So if that happened.
00:41:06
Speaker
um And so the negotiations was about whether that was possible or not. They ended up a lot of wrangling and discussion, agreeing that they could establish a white homeland if they had enough people formally um agree to it.
00:41:24
Speaker
um And so you'll see there's a section in the South African interim constitution that allowed that to happen. consultation, they could establish a council and set up a structure to do that.
00:41:36
Speaker
It turned out and so once that was agreed, um things are fine. But the final agreement had to come between Mandela and constant for you. So we set up we enabled that meeting we set that meeting up from behind the scenes.
00:41:51
Speaker
And they had a meeting in Houghton, which is where Mandela then had his private residence and a meeting was held. And we were not, we had one person inside the meeting as an observer.
00:42:03
Speaker
I wasn't in that meeting, but what happened was some serious political bargaining um and discussions. And ah two things had happened that evening. It was really special.
00:42:18
Speaker
The one was, and you have to imagine the scene, is that a trolley with tea and cookies were brought in into the room. um and And it was left there.
00:42:34
Speaker
And Mandela got up and served constant vanilla tea. He just got up. but Partly because he Victorian gentleman. Partly because he wanted to recognize the I would say the quality in terms of people's humanity sitting around that table.
00:42:52
Speaker
He deeply respected Consul Few, disagreed mightily with him, but respected him. And it for somebody who spent 27 years in prison for his principles and was black, to having tea with somebody who led the army of apartheid, where he serves him tea was a symbolism of such extraordinary magnitude that it completely softened the man's heart.
00:43:18
Speaker
Not that he had a hard heart, but I mean he just um just ah jesus just felt like he was being mightily respected. But what really did was a conversation they had in conclusion after the long negotiations. He said to, this is second hand from a credible source, he said to the head of the South African army, I want you to remember three things.
00:43:44
Speaker
My army This is the ANC's guerrilla army. Cannot defeat your army on the battlefield. We can't defeat the South African army. We know that. We're just no match for you.
00:43:56
Speaker
So that's a fact. Secondly, you are alone. There are few countries in the world that side with you. You are a pariah nation.
00:44:09
Speaker
We have um the support of the majority of countries in the world, and we are on the right side of history. um and And that we hold, you don't quite put it this way, but we hold a moral high ground in that we are right, asking for universal franchise in a single country, and you are wrong.
00:44:31
Speaker
And the third thing you have to remember is you can't kill us all.
00:44:35
Speaker
And this is the hard side of Mandela coming out as a politician. And by us, I don't just mean black South Africans. I mean everybody in Africa. You simply can't.
00:44:48
Speaker
And the final thing you have to remember is that we need one another. You have
Post-Election Agreements and Outcomes
00:44:52
Speaker
skills and expertise you've accumulated. I won't say anything judgmental about how you did that, but that's the fact.
00:45:00
Speaker
And we need you. And you need us because we provide an industrial army of workers for your economy. And the two men there sat and stared at one another, understanding that they live in a world of utter interdependence, and we need to make good in creating a single country with a single political set of institutions, not divided.
00:45:30
Speaker
And we have to learn to live together. And South Africans have struggled to do that ever since. So, um so that's, that's that story. And um we were lucky in South africa Africa to have leaders of such stature.
00:45:46
Speaker
Mandela and his and his colleagues, Constantine for Union every other cleric himself. to be able to make this come together in a way that actually worked. Was that agreement seen by a betrayal by the general population at all?
00:46:03
Speaker
Well, the general population wasn't entirely aware of what was going on. um it was certainly seen as a betrayal it in a certain segment of the white population. um And I can't give it a number, but it was it was not a majority of the population by any means, because the majority of the population supported the referendum that Evita clerk ran, asking whether he should proceed with the negotiations.
00:46:29
Speaker
So the extreme right wing was led by... um um by somebody called Eugene Tablanche.
00:46:40
Speaker
He was known for riding on his horse and wearing his big brim hat. And he he was like completely on the right and a fringe secessionist. And his reputation and credibility was shot when they tried to invade one of the homelands called Bopotat Svan at the time.
00:46:58
Speaker
and many of their members were killed, and so he he but he became he became completely fringe. But yes, there was disagreement. In the end, they could not exercise, going back to the ah formal agreement that was made to establish a white homeland, they couldn't drum up enough support, Constant Fliun and his colleagues, ah for a vote to enable that to happen. So it didn't happen.
00:47:25
Speaker
But they were given the opportunity to do so. And when it didn't happen, they then established something called the Freedom Front, which is a party of the white right. And that but and they participated in 1994 in elections. And they've stayed in ah Parliament ever since.
00:47:42
Speaker
It's still in Parliament called the Freedom Front Plus. So I suppose we'll now take this over to your role for electoral information for the Western Cape. Did you end up noticing problems?
00:47:56
Speaker
potential threats to the this election in that role? What we heard was sort of threats to the freedom um um of in terms of political events.
00:48:09
Speaker
There were many areas that were held where people with ah voices other than the ANC's voice, for example, but actually shut down. i know one colleague of mine, Tony Leon, who became leader of the Democratic party and then democratic alliance who was shouted down at the University of the Western Cape. So we had that kind of thing.
00:48:32
Speaker
So intimidation events that were shut down, people's voices that were silenced and so on. So you must remember the context And South Africa was, was ah you know, in terms of the politics generally it was very authoritarian. So sort of the intolerance of opposing views.
00:48:52
Speaker
And so so that happened. And there were threats of the use of violence as well that we had to investigate from a couple of right-wing colored political parties.
00:49:05
Speaker
We established there was more noise than anything else and they were full of bluster and what have you. But there was an alliance between those two colored right wing conservative parties and the white right wing as well.
00:49:17
Speaker
So we had to investigate that. um So I would say the general pattern was that people were simply not used to having fair and open and democratic discussions across the political spectrum in terms of views.
00:49:34
Speaker
They tended to shut down the rights. They tended to be intolerant of conservative views, which of course has long term consequences. but but so um so and So that's what I did for the Western and Cape. And I had colleagues in other parts of the province, other provinces also reporting to Johannesburg.
00:49:52
Speaker
The province where most of the actual violence took place was Natal and KwaZulu at the time. It formed KwaZulu-Natal later. But essentially it was intense violence inspired by a war between the ANC and Inkatha Freedom Party. Because you must remember close to 20,000 South Africans died the period between 1990 and 1994.
00:50:20
Speaker
ah Thank
Conclusion and Acknowledgements
00:50:21
Speaker
you very much for joining me. I'm a great pleasure. Lovely to talk to you. Thank you.
00:50:35
Speaker
The Observations podcast is being brought to you by Democracy Volunteers, the UK's leading election observation group. Democracy Volunteers is non-partisan and does not necessarily share the opinions of participants in the podcast.
00:50:48
Speaker
It brings the podcast to you to improve knowledge of elections, both national and international.