By Farayi Mungoshi

IT seems South Africa’s reputation as a ‘Rainbow Nation’ still continues after the latest disappointing display by the ANC to haul in maximum counts at the just ended municipal elections.
For those who have been following my writings, you will recall that just over two months ago I expressed my concern over ANC’s campaign approach to the elections.
This was after witnessing how the ANC seemed to take a very lackadaisical approach to their campaign as compared to the Democratic Alliance (DA) which had posters at nearly every turn.
Not that I had ever really followed the political issues in South Africa, but the missing ANC campaign posters were just too evident for one to ignore and that atmosphere of change was unmistakably in the air.
Research group Ipsos and eNCA also ran some pre-election polls and predicted the DA was not going to make it easy for the ANC.
Despite the ANC’s consistency in trying to crash racism, turning out in their numbers at the mention of any racist behaviour by an organisation like Andre Slade’s Guest House or Penny Sparrow’s likening of black people to monkeys, they still lost.
The racial card failed to work.
Despite the work the ANC has done since its inception; building millions of houses for the people of South Africa and bringing tarred roads and electricity to the rural areas, corruption and the loss of jobs rang out louder, resulting in the ANC falling short when it came to the ballot box, with most ANC supporters preferring to stay at home than going to vote.
The ANC lost out to the DA in Nelson Mandela Bay and Tshwane.
Mmusi Maimane, the DA leader, thanked the people who came out and supported the DA and said: “In years to come, and as our politics realigns, this election will be seen as a tipping point.
“It will be remembered as the moment that the ANC lost its foothold as the dominant party and the DA emerged as a serious contender to win a national election.”
Maimane also declared that the myth of the DA as a ‘white’ party has been finally shattered.
I am still trying to understand what actually transpired; how it is that such a revolutionary party like the ANC, which is well-known for fighting apartheid, should find itself in such a position and out of favour with its people so soon and when racism is still so evidently rife in South Africa.
One Mr Chiduku from the Eastern Cape said the people were not happy with Zuma as the ANC leader.
The ANC has ignored his faults as a leader. For example the Nkandla issue where he used public funds to revamp his place in Durban is a bone of contention.
He also expressed the people’s disappointment at service delivery and how councillors are only seen during election time.
The ANC imposes candidates who communities are not happy with as they prefer having their own community members as councillors, wherein the ANC sometimes just places who they want.
For example, the party imposed Thoko Didiza from Durban for mayoral candidate in Tshwane when the people wanted their own, Kgosientso Ramokgopa.
This move led to demonstrations and destruction of property.
Eventually, the ANC got 41,5 percent in Tshwane, losing to the DA who had 43 percent.
“In a nutshell, people feel betrayed,” said Chiduku.
Is this then the end of racial politics in South Africa?
BBC South Africa analyst Farouk Chothia says the ANC’s urban vote had collapsed with both black middle and working classes switching to the DA.
Maimane, expressing satisfaction at getting the change message across to the people, said South Africans still believe in a dream of a non-racial South Africa.
However, not everybody shares the same sentiments as some are convinced race will always be a factor in South Africa until whites there agree to share fairly the country’s wealth by paying better wages to the black populace and empowering more blacks.
If and unless they do this, only then can they eradicate a possible backlash in years to come as the black populace rises into a fierce army and whites become fewer and fewer.
A lady, who chose to remain anonymous, expressed her frustrations, saying she does not understand a group of people who find it alright to be likened to monkeys so long as they are getting paid.
She said people are brainwashed and since unemployment is rising by the day, they feel that it is better to jump into bed with the DA because that is where their bread is buttered, given the DA’s white history and the fact that whites still run the majority of the country’s economy.
And as if to confirm the sudden turn of events and endorse the rise of the DA, the South African rand responded by doing much better against the American dollar than it has done in recent months.
Nothing but a time bomb, one would say. Perhaps the ANC has awoken to the realisation that people are now more money-conscious than they are skin-colour-conscious and for as long as a man is getting paid, he won’t really care who calls him names or who is running the country.