STEVEN FRIEDMAN: The poor go unnoticed by the decision-making elites
More than 55% of South Africans live below the poverty line, but parties are too busy fighting over the political spoils to notice
Have poor people fallen so far off the political agenda that politicans no longer need to pretend to care about them? Statistics SA’s report on poverty trends was published last week: it seemed an ideal opening for politicians to do what they do best — use the poor to score political points. The report found that 55.5% of South Africans live below the poverty line. This is a two percentage point increase on 2011, although well below the 66.6% recorded in 2006. Given the current state of factional politics, within the ANC and outside it, it seemed only a matter of time before both sides used the finding that most citizens live in poverty, and that the percentage of those who do is rising, to try to get one over on their opponents. Patronage politicians would surely claim that "white monopoly capital", emboldened by its continued hold on government, is depriving the black poor of the little they have. Their opponents would latch onto the finding that poverty reduced markedly until 201...
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