Shortly before sunrise, 19,726 polling locations opened at seven a.m. South Africa time this morning for the country’s fourth multiracial vote since Apartheid ended in 1994. By the time it sets, South Africa’s 23 million-plus voters will have selected their members of parliament from 26 parties. Besides the sun rising and setting, at least two other things are certain.
First, despite splintering dissenters and an impossibly scandal-plagued leader, the African National Congress (ANC) party is assured continued electoral dominance. Second, despite being Sub-Saharan Africa’s largest and most developed economy, South Africa will continue to have one of the world’s chronically highest unemployment rates.
Rather than addressing why unemployment is high, the campaign’s biggest issue so far has been unemployment’s offshoot, pervasive crime. It’s no wonder politicians avoided the root cause of high unemployment and crime, because in many cases, it’s them:
The eThekwini Municipality plans to transform the Warwick Junction market into a mall geared towards a middle class clientele. The market is well-known as a place where poor South Africans can purchase fresh fruit and vegetable cheaply. It is located in the heart of the city and can be easily accessed using public transport.
The 674 traders who currently sell their wares at the market will be temporarily relocated to a building in nearby Alice Street, until city officials have identified a new location for them.
The problem is, according to the story from the IPS News Agency, the temporary Alice Street location can only hold 150 traders. Warwick Junction’s current traders and their 1,200-plus employees largely come from eThekwini’s low income groups, have little education, and a majority are illiterate, according to IPS. A life of crime is always an option; being forced out of business takes away a peaceful alternative. The traders work hard to avoid the criminal life; they’ve even organized into an association of street vendors, called StreetNet, headed by a woman named Pat Horn:
“We have been trying to engage the municipality since November 2007, but they have completely and stubbornly refused to meet with us,” [Horn] added. “They have also sabotaged our efforts to make the concerns of the vendors public every single step along the way….”
Horn explained the traders are “more than willing” to agree on feasible alternatives. “We are not against progress of infrastructural development but against doing it by destroying people’s livelihoods,” she said.
eThekwini is more commonly known to outsiders as Durban, the nation’s third most populous city and the largest in its densest populated province, KwaZulu-Natal. In the midst of remodeling itself for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Durban is planning to disenfranchise 524 entrepreneurs and their employees, most of whom with families to support. Now that’s a crime.
Published Date: April 22, 2009