The new South African opposition party, the Congress of the People or COPE, is projected to get no more than 15% of the vote in South Africa’s fourth democratic elections (yes, its been that long), but the party’s supporters do not lack for enthusiasm, as this account about the party’s manifesto launch in the Eastern Cape this past weekend — by a researcher-friend in an email to me — indicates:
“… They launched at a sports stadium in a very poor township, KwaZakhele where the bucket system is still in operation, obviously aware of criticism around their class orientation. I was, quite frankly, surprised by the number of people that showed up. Around 35 000– and they weren’t bussed in– in the heartland of ANC supporters is quite an indication. And three quarters where there at 8am, already [for an event that was scheduled to start around midday]. It had all the elements and idioms of an ANC meeting, with many of its (the ANC’s) former leaders. The stadium was a sea of colourful t-shirts, in the midst of a township that was appallingly poor, bleaker than the one’s you might have seen in Cape Town. They haven’t had any improvements it seems since ’94, which might account for some of the support for COPE. On the other hand, when I asked people why they were leaving the ANC for COPE most of them mentioned their worry about Zuma and Malema. You would have been amused to hear one of the COPE songs, which loosely translates into ‘we don’t have a shower, and we don’t have a machine gun’, and when its sung, people make the gesture of the shower of their head (ZAPIRO style). Thankfully the whole thing went off quite safely and their was little tension outside of the stadium between ANC supporters and COPE members after the meeting.”
