Spoiling for a Victory

By Bruce W. Nelan

Happiness and hatred walk side by side on South Africa's road to democracy. Nelson Mandela wants to focus attention on the better life to come, "the historic moment when all South Africans, blacks and whites, will work together to build a new country." But while joyous crowds of African National Congress supporters chant and cheer at his every appearance, Afrikaner Resistance Movement leader Eugene Terreblanche warns of trouble to come if whites are not given their own state. Last week a visibly angry Mandela repeatedly interrupted his upbeat campaign speeches to warn that he would match violence with violence if right-wing sabotage did not stop. In the past month, more than 40 bomb blasts have brought down electrical pylons and damaged A.N.C. offices and homes, as white holdouts like Terreblanche call for "total war."

The national election campaign of 1994, the first in which black South Africans will be allowed to vote, is under way -- four years after Mandela's release from prison. Although his message of hope has been blurred by threats of violence, the election does not seem to be in serious jeopardy. As the 75- year-old leader of the A.N.C. sped from stadium to stadium in his cream- colored Mercedes, he gave clenched-fist salutes and spoke solemnly to the faithful. His tones were alternately regal and schoolmasterish, his jokes slow to develop, and much of his dry but earnest text came straight out of a yellow-and-white binder labeled BRIEFING NOTES -- CONFIDENTIAL.

His stiffness does not matter: the crowds shout and ululate no matter what he utters. He is making an effortless transition from freedom hero to South Africa's President-almost-elect. His organization, however, must work much harder to transform itself from a liberation movement with a history of violence into a modern, functioning, grass-roots political party. Some of Mandela's top lieutenants are learning to perfect their new roles as politicians under the tutelage of Swedish Social Democrats and such Clinton campaign stalwarts as pollster Stanley Greenberg and media adviser Frank Greer. The foreign experts are coaching the A.N.C. on everything from organizational structure and strategy to the finer points of television appearances and how to handle reporters.

That may add polish, but the A.N.C. bandwagon is already a juggernaut. There is hardly any doubt that the Congress will win a majority in the country's first free, multiracial parliamentary and provincial elections on April 26, 27 and 28. But the A.N.C. wants to win really big and capture at least 67% of the 22.4 million eligible voters in the nation of 38 million people. That way the ^ A.N.C. would take 328 seats, or two-thirds of the 490-seat bicameral Parliament -- enough to write and ratify the permanent constitution all by itself.

Since almost three-quarters of the potential voters are black and a majority of them back the A.N.C., this might look easy. It is not. Last week a boycott of the election by an odd-fellows alliance of blacks and conservative whites looked certain when talks with the A.N.C. and the government over ethnic autonomy sputtered to a near halt as the deadline to get on the ballot passed. Some die-hard whites have voted against participation. Additional pressure came from Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini, who told President F.W. de Klerk that if the interim constitution did not give more powers to regional governments, he would not abide by the results of the coming election and would initiate the secession of the 8 million-strong Zulu nation. Whether he is serious or just bargaining on behalf of the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party, the A.N.C.'s main black rival, such demands could further fuel the A.N.C.-Inkatha strife that has left thousands dead in the past decade. With tempers flaring, a less-than-magnificent win for the A.N.C. leader would make it more difficult to extinguish the simmering postelection prospect of civil war.

Amid the competition for black votes, says campaign coordinator Ketso Gordhan, "for the A.N.C. this election is not about how sophisticated your message is but about mobilization." Mandela is the first to warn his voters against complacency. The "greatest danger," he tells the crowds, comes from "members of the A.N.C. themselves." Surveying the bewildered faces before him, he continues, "If we believe we have already won the election, a large number of people who support us may prefer to remain in their homes." Deputy campaign chief Patrick Lekota puts the warning in everyday terms. "People support us," he says, "but if we don't urge them, they will wake up and think, 'Well, I must go look after my goats.' When they come home, the polls will be closed."

Part of the A.N.C. challenge is even more basic than getting people to the ballot box. They must know what to do when they get there -- and many have no idea. Not only are South Africa's 16.2 million eligible black voters casting ballots for the first time, but more than half are illiterate, and about 7 million of them live in rural areas far from the reach of campaign rallies and party workers. The tactics of the A.N.C. over the past 10 years led its & followers to scorn the local pseudoelections of the apartheid era rather than take part in them. "We come from a tradition of boycott politics," says national campaign chief Popo Molefe, who was convicted of treason in 1988 as a leader of the antigovernment United Democratic Front. "The vast majority of our people are not oriented toward participation. Now we have to teach them."

Classes are in session from the northern Transvaal to Cape Province. Khayelitsha, a sandy, windswept tract along the South Atlantic coast, is the largest black township in the Cape Town area. Its small A.N.C. campaign office -- one of 94 around the country -- is a whitewashed single-story building in a neighborhood where thieves and vandals have driven out most residents and shopkeepers. Behind barred windows, regional secretary Richard Dyantyi, 24, a slim former marketing student, directs the A.N.C.'s organizational work. Though he has only one telephone, one fax and two reluctant copying machines, he has lots of helpers. Their job, he says, is "to make sure the people know how to register their support when the time comes."

Each morning he and half a dozen volunteers set out in a minibus loaded with A.N.C. pamphlets, calendars and stacks of sample ballots. Learning about the vote comes with vaccinations, dental care and family counseling in Khayelitsha, as the minibus visits community centers and clinics around the township. At one clinic, Dyantyi's aides display a sample ballot, explaining the list of the 10 political parties up for election with their colors or symbol and a photograph of their leader. One of the workers, Boiswa Fusile, shows the folk how to mark the ballot and warns that doing it wrong could be "a vote for the opposition," that is, for incumbent President F.W. de Klerk. The new voters hiss.

Relatively few blacks will be voting for De Klerk's white-dominated National Party, and few of the 3.6 million eligible whites will cast their ballots for the A.N.C. But there is a bloc of about 2 million colored, or mixed-race, voters and 650,000 Indians the A.N.C. wants to win over. That will be where the party does need to convey a sophisticated message, since the colored and Indian communities are not convinced that they will fare better under a black- majority government. "The coloreds have always been marginalized by the A.N.C.," says Lawrence Solomon, 26. As an antiapartheid activist in the townships around Cape Town, he dodged police bullets and tear gas. Now he is an organizer for the National Party. "We're not the 'so-called coloreds,' you know," says Solomon. "We want to keep our identity, just like everyone else."

With only the margin of his victory in doubt, Mandela is cautioning his voters not to expect too much too soon. The A.N.C.'s election platform promises to provide jobs, education and housing. But impoverished black citizens will not become employed homeowners "driving a Mercedes" the day after the election, Mandela tells them. What they can expect after April 29, he vows, is a government that will address their needs, ignored for so long.

With reporting by Peter Hawthorne/Cape Town and Scott MacLeod/Johannesburg