But if the excitement was palpable, so was the fear. Several bombs had gone off in the tense days before the poll. Would the militant, white far-right escalate its terror campaign against a black-led government? Would the turbulent provincial stronghold of Zulu leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi–already the scene of thousands of political killings over the last decade–descend still further into anarchy and violence?
As the Apr. 27 polling date for the 1994 election approached, I watched white friends stockpile staples like canned food and toilet paper because they feared the streets could become too dangerous to get to the stores. On the first day of polling, I joined other journalists to watch Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond break into a jig after casting his first vote in the black township of Guguletu. We were all nervous as we gathered in the early-morning darkness. Guguletu, outside Cape Town, had been the scene of persistent clashes between Mandela supporters and radical black militants whose slogans called for the death of all whites. It was the place where American student Amy Biehl was beaten by supporters of that group, the Pan Africanist Congress, simply for being a white woman in a black area. Would we get caught in battles between rival groups at the polling station?
We planned the logistics carefully, driving in a fast convoy behind Tutu and sticking close to his entourage as we walked past the already-waiting crowds in the hope that the goodwill for him would extend to us too.
Why remember this now? Because, like Americans today, South Africans also had to wait much longer than they expected for the results of their historic selection. Polling had to be extended for an unscheduled fourth day because ballot papers initially were not supplied to some rural areas.
Counting, too, was a shambles. Party workers scuffled amid claims of ballot tampering. Boxes filled with votes failed to arrive at some counting stations; in one region those assigned to count the votes went on strike for more pay. The delays lasted days, forcing monitors to abandon some anti-fraud safeguards to speed up the process.
Then–as now–there was near-hysterical talk of chaos and the need to announce an election result as soon as possible. But South Africa in 1994 literally teetered on the brink of civil war. And ongoing political uncertainty didn’t just cause fluctuations in the stock market; it shut out foreign investment that was desperately needed by the country’s sanctions-battered economy so it could start providing basic necessities like electricity and water to its millions of poor.
The United State today is hardly in that situation. Sure, the nation–and the rest of the world–wants closure. Modern America is used to finding out its electoral winners and losers within hours of the polls closing, and they didn’t expect the first race of the 21st century to leave them with problems not seen since the nineteenth.
But to call it a crisis? To describe it as a third-world debacle? Or to say, as one British tabloid did, that the United States has been “humiliated in its “presidential shambles”? Come on. Whatever mistakes there may have been in Florida–and the recount suggests there were many–errors are hardly the same thing as the wholesale rigging of votes. Election workers in Palm Beach county changed the ballot design because they wanted to make the type easier for seniors to read. They didn’t punch out the Buchanan holes themselves.
If anything, the furor over these problems is exactly the opposite: a healthy sign that the system works. The expected rash of court challenges by both ordinary citizens and political parties should ensure that if indeed there was fraud, it will be detected soon enough. But democracy hasn’t failed just because it takes time to work. Americans can continue their daily lives without fear of insurrection, revolution or coup while they wait to hear who next will occupy the White House.
Rushing the process because we want an answer would be a greater corruption of the system than allowing it to take advantages of the checks and balances built in over the years. Nor is there any danger of the federal government grinding to a halt while we wait. President Clinton may be a lame duck, but, as he said Tuesday, he’s still got another 10 weeks to quack. Presumably, he can keep the country stable and prosperous at the same time.
