As General election nears:

SAfrica’s rural poor yearn for better life

SOUTH AFRICA: Campaign posters line streets across South Africa for general elections just one month away, but voters say enduring poverty and poor public services have left them disenchanted with politics.

Nowhere is that sentiment more pronounced that in the Eastern Cape, one of the country’s poorest provinces that was the birthplace of former president Nelson Mandela.

The populous coastal province has helped steer the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to landslide victories since the first all-race election in 1994 that brought Mandela to office after the end of apartheid.

Although the ANC is expected to win the April 22 polls, voters are questioning its track record in fighting poverty in a nation where 43 percent of the 48 million population live on less than two dollars a day.

Even with corruption charges handing over ANC leader and presidential hopeful Jacob Zuma, analysts doubt that the dissatisfaction will be strong enough to cost them the election.

The official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) suffers from an image as a party for whites. The new ANC splinter group the Congress of the People (COPE) is still cutting its teeth, and most smaller parties have little national presence.

In the town of Mthatha, gigantic billboards bearing Zuma’s face tower above rickety mudhuts and littered roads promising a better life for all. “I see all the hype, but the fact of the matter is that no one cares about us, development has only happened in urban areas. We have been forgotten,” said Maxhoba Lobe.

The majority of the Eastern Cape’s population lives in the countryside where they struggle against poverty, unemployment and non-existent sanitation. In the picturesque seafront village of Mqanduli, 25 kilometres (15 miles) from Mthatha, residents share drinking water wells with donkeys and cattle.

There is no electricity and no roads. The pathways are treacherous, only navigated on horseback. Their image of the rest of South Africa comes from television sets powered by car batteries.

“We had been promised a better life but we only see it on TV. Urban areas like Soweto and other areas in Johannesburg are being developed,” said Bongani Tofile, an unemployed youth.

Mqanduli, Sunday, AFP