There was a low level of nominations of candidates for the October elections to local councils in African townships. This, coupled with concerted repressive actions by the police, pointed in September to widespread opposition to the local elections. Although the regime mounted an intensive propaganda campaign urging people to vote and prohibited any calls for boycotts, a broad range of forces had become identified with a rejection of the elections and the constitutional plans with which they were connected.
When nominations for the elections closed early in September, no candidates had been nominated in some African areas and in others there were too few nominations even to form a quorum for council meetings. In some other areas, although there were more nominations, the candidates were unopposed and were due to become councillors without elections being held.
In the Eastern Cape, for example, there were to be elections in only half the 50 African townships in the area. Motherwell, Port Elizabeth and Lingelihle, Cradock were amongst those with no candidates and KwaNobuhle, Uitenhage had too few for a quorum. In all three areas, organised resistance had been sustained throughout the period of emergency rule - the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation (PEBCO) and the Cradock Residents Association (CRADORA) were amongst 17 organisations restricted on 24 February this year. There were to be elections in only ten of Natal's townships. Sobantu, Pietermaritzburg and Klaarwater, Pinetown had no candidates.
Government propaganda during September cited average registration levels of 75 per cent of potential voters in African townships as evidence of interest in the elections. However, in contrast to the voluntary registration of previous years when voters had to place their own names on voters lists, current lists in most African townships were compiled or updated from housing lists and other official sources.
The mass resistance, reflected in the low level of nominations, has not been freely and openly expressed or adequately reported because emergency regulations prohibit calls for a boycott and the reporting of such calls. However, various incidents and developments made it evident that opposition to the elections was widespread.
The readiness in June of 27 church leaders to defy the emergency regulations by calling on all Christians to boycott the election, and of the South African Council of Churches to endorse their defiance, was indicative of broad support for a boycott.
Other evidence of support for a boycott came from a number of areas, including a statement by the independent Member of Parliament Jan van Eck - he used parliamentary privilege to put on public record that 'extra-parliamentary groups' were calling for a boycott, and associated himself with their call.
Although there was no systematic media coverage, fragmentary press reports from July to September indicated that popular rejection of the election was widespread and often forceful.
In July, when the Transvaal Provincial Administrator asked employers to distribute government information leaflets about the elections, some refused, fearing adverse reaction from their employees. In one case leaflets were collected by workers and burnt by their union, the Food and Allied Workers Union.
Candidates seeking support drew few people to their meetings in some townships, or met with a hostile response. A meeting in Alexandra township, for example, at which candidates sought approval for their participation, was attended by less than 60 people who told them to resign. In KwaGuga, Witbank, a group of 10 candidates canvassing votes in a contract workers' hostel were chased out by residents - four of the group, which consisted mainly of former councillors who had been forced to resign in the face of popular protests, were taken to hospital.
In Soweto, the Sofasonke Party was only able to hold meetings under the protection of the South African Defence Force, and there were reports of the bombing or burning of houses of candidates or councillors in Soweto and Bhongolethu, Oudtshoorn.
A further indication of the scale of resistance was given by the sustained and country-wide nature of repressive police action.
In August there were reports of detentions of activists involved in campaigning against the elections in Alexandria, Fort Beaufort and Bhongolethu in the Eastern Cape. There were detentions in early September in Soweto, where 11 activists of the South African Youth Congress (SAYCO) were detained, and in the Pretoria townships of Atteridgeville, Mamelodi and Soshanguve.
At least 10 leading activists were detained in Cape Town three days before a planned anti-apartheid conference in Cape Town at which police expected an election boycott to be discussed. The organisers of the conference, called by COSATU, were said to be expecting 700 delegates from over 70 organisations to discuss the formation of a broad anti-apartheid alliance. A day after the detentions, four senior trade union officials, three from COSATU and one from the Post Office and Telecommunications Workers Association, were prevented from going to Cape Town by an order restricting them to Johannesburg.
October 1988 was set as the date for local elections at least as far back as 1985. With the segregated tri-camera parliament in place, the elections for new local structures were presented as the next major step in the implementation of the regime's constitutional scheme.
The segregated local government structures were seen by opponents as entrenching apartheid at the local level and, through Regional Service Councils, ensuring white domination. The fact that the African councillors elected in October would select participants in the proposed National Council linked the elections directly to the regime's attempts to impose this constitutional device as an alternative to meeting demands for full democratic rights.
The elections planned for October came to have a dual function - as the planned next step in the constitutional scheme, and as a means of attempting to re-establish the administrative structures rendered ineffective in many areas by the mass resistance of the previous four years.
Since February this year opposition to the local elections in October has been a principal target of repressive action.
- On 24 February, new emergency powers effectively prevented 17 organisations, including the main organised forces of popular resistance, from taking political action. COSATU was specifically prohibited from encouraging a boycott of the October elections.
- In May the Minister of Information said that none of the restricted organisations would be allowed to participate in the election.
- The renewal of the State of Emergency on 10 June saw a general prohibition on the making or reporting of any statements which promoted an election boycott or prevented the holding of elections.
- In July police seized 30,000 copies of the Western Province Council of Churches' Crisis News because it carried the statement by church leaders calling for a boycott. In August police in Durban seized 5,400 copies of the Muslim Al-Qalam newspaper because it carried an advertisement encouraging a boycott.
- On 2 September the Administrator of the Transvaal, noting that street committees in townships were organising an election boycott, called on councillors and candidates to report the names of any boycott organisers to the police or army.
- On 9 September members of the Security Branch, accompanied by a video crew, broke into a closed meeting of the South African Council of Churches when Archbishop Tutu made a call for a boycott of the elections and filmed those present.
- During August and September anti-election activists were detained.
- An anti-apartheid conference expected to discuss the municipal elections, called by COSATU for 24-25 September, was banned.
