I SPENT election day in Bohlokong, the township attached to Bethlehem in the eastern Free State. The economic forces that have shaped this place seem custom-made to create support for the ANC. The shack settlements and the RDP houses are filled with people who once worked and lived on surrounding farms.They were evicted in their thousands during the first few years of democracy, their white landlords fearful of their tenants’ new rights.Many of their neighbours in the shack settlements once worked in the manufacturing industries of QwaQwa; the factories that employed them are no more.This is an economy that has hollowed out in the past quarter of a century, at least for black people with little education. The primary sources of income now are social grants and public-sector jobs and both are distributed by the governing party. All roads to work or money lead through the ANC; if ever there is a place where the party is able to show is munificence, it is here.In its election campaign,...
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