Africa, Development & Aid, Headlines, Health, Human Rights

POLITICS-SOUTH AFRICA: AIDS Casts Shadow on Upcoming Election

Moyiga Nduru

PRETORIA, Apr 9 2004 (IPS) - As the countdown to South Africa’s Apr. 14 general elections entered its final week, researchers warned that the AIDS pandemic could undermine efforts to entrench democracy in the country.

This came during a one-day workshop, ‘Elections 2004: Understanding the implications of HIV/AIDS on the Electoral Process in South Africa’. The conference was held Wednesday (Apr. 7) in the capital, Pretoria, under the auspices of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa) – a non-governmental organisation (NGO).

Presenting a 44-page report entitled ‘HIV/AIDS and Electoral Processes in South Africa: Exploring the Impacts’, researcher Anne Strode said the problem partly stemmed from the fact that AIDS was stripping public service of the skilled personnel needed to run elections – and government.

“Some of these institutions that are adversely affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which in turn threatens democracy, include political parties, electoral management bodies, the legislature, civil society organisations and local government authorities,” observed Strode, who works at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.

The report was co-authored by Per Strand and Khabele Matlosa, whose research was funded by Idasa. South Africa is scheduled to hold its elections on Apr. 14.

According to Strode and her colleagues, around 800,000 voters (or people who might have been eligible to vote) may not make it to the polls next week because they have died from AIDS-related illnesses – or were too sick to register. South Africa’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) puts the number of registered voters at 20.7 million.

At present, about five million South Africans have contracted the AIDS virus – this out of a population of 44.8 million. According to the Treatment Action Campaign – a vocal NGO which has been pressing for the distribution of anti-retroviral drugs – about 600 people die as a result of AIDS every day.

AIDS also accounted for about 40 percent of the deaths of South Africans between the ages of 15 and 49 years in 2000, according to a 2003 report by the South African Medical Research Council.

“This negative impact should be regarded as a potential major problem in the provinces of the Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, where the direct impact of AIDS on the numbers of registered voters may become an issue that undermines the legitimacy of the election result,” said Per Strand, from the University of Cape Town.

According to Strand, 266,000 people out of 10.52 million eligible voters in KwaZulu-Natal will not take part in the election because of illness or death from AIDS. “So far only the IFP (the opposition Inkatha Freedom Party) has reported how the epidemic is putting strain on the party in terms of members, staff and leaders falling ill and dying. The regular processes of replacing such people are still working, but are under increasing stress,” she said.

“The IFP fears that the election will not be as fair as it should have been because of AIDS, (and) because the IEC has not had anywhere near the necessary resources to ensure that people who are ill can register and vote.”

KwaZulu-Natal, the power-base of the IFP, is one of the regions most affected by HIV/AIDS, which is likely to cause party support to shrink, Strand added.

The IEC has rejected these claims.

“Not everybody who doesn’t want to vote has HIV or AIDS. South Africa’s constitution does not compel people to register and vote like in Australia where it’s compulsory. In Australia, voters who do not register and vote are prosecuted. This is not the case in South Africa,” an IEC official told IPS this week.

Ayanda Nabe, a project manager for gender and HIV at the South African Local Government Association (SALGA), says those who are ill can also vote from home: “One can apply to vote at home when ill. This applies to both voters in the urban and rural areas.” (SALGA is an umbrella organisation for 284 municipalities in South Africa that seeks to improve local government’s capacity to meet the needs of communities.)

But despite these claims, Idasa’s researchers insist that illness, especially that related to HIV/AIDS, is becoming an electoral issue not only in South Africa – but elsewhere in the region as well.

A pilot study by Idasa undertaken in 2003 in Zambia indicates that between 1985 and 2003, 102 by-elections were held – 59 of them due to death by disease. Almost 40 of the by-elections took place between 1992 and Feb. 2003, the years in which the AIDS pandemic peaked in Zambia.

Since its parliamentary election in 2000 Zimbabwe has held 14 by-elections for the replacement of legislators. Eight of these were prompted by death due to illness, some of it AIDS-related.

“It’s a common practice in Southern Africa that the electoral commissions draw most of their staff from the public service. This also impacts heavily on electoral process in case of HIV/AIDS deaths,” said Kondwani Chirambo, who is in charge of the Governance and AIDS Programme at Idasa.

As a result of incapacity arising from AIDS-related illness and other ailments, coupled with time spent tending the sick, a fairly large number of people find they don’t have a moment to spare for going to vote.

In its 2002 survey, Afro-Barometer, the continent’s leading public opinion think thank, surveyed 2,400 households in South Africa and found that South Africans spend 25.3 percent of their time tending to the sick, 11.5 percent dealing with orphaned children and 33.7 percent taking care of their own illness.

The Idasa researchers say obtaining identity documents for voting may also be an obstacle for persons with HIV/AIDS who are bed-ridden or ill. And looking ahead, AIDS orphans whose parents have not left behind documentation such as birth certificates may struggle to have their names put on the voters’ roll at a later stage.

Another problem that affects people living with HIV/AIDS and the disabled in South Africa, is the distance many have to travel to get to one of the 17,000 polling stations. The average distance between the outer-boundary of a voting district and voting stations is 7.5 to eight kilometres in urban areas – and 12.5 to 13 kilometres in rural areas, according to Idasa.

“Those who cannot vote because of HIV/AIDS are being disenfranchised,” Strode said.

Added Idasa Executive Director Paul Graham, “It’s an ethical catastrophe that will haunt us for years.”

Nearly 30 million of the 42 million people infected with HIV worldwide are in Africa, according to the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).