Year of elections: The world chooses its fate:
The world will vote this year. More than two billion people, representing more than half of the global population, will stand in election queues over the next 12 months. It’s an unprecedented moment in human history and a milestone in our love affair with democracy.
Not everybody is celebrating. Much of the liberal media worries out loud about democratic fairness, the onset of apathy and the rise of populists.
Predictions range from sceptical to the bona fide apocalyptic. Sweeping judgments on this scale are difficult to substantiate but what isn’t in question is the impact and importance the next year will have on the trajectory of our globalised society.
The world’s worries revolve around the US — the self-proclaimed bastion of democracy and the would-be leader of the free world. By most accounts, Americans will probably once more be forced into the dilemma of selecting between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
Trump might always have been an unpopular figure to anyone outside his camp but now his opponents talk of his defeat as a spiritual battle.
His refusal to accept defeat in 2020 brings the whole democratic apparatus into question and is a terrible look for a country which claims to want to spread it around the globe. From that perspective, his re-election would have liberals quoting Karl Marx: “History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce.”
The Western world is desperate to vanquish him politically thanks to his threat to cut off support to Ukraine immediately.
“America first” is a cornerstone of his pitch and he will probably redirect substantial focus inward. (Other Republican candidates have made similar promises.)
But the ostensibly isolationist rhetoric is unlikely to excite too many in the Global South either.
Trump was the first major global leader to acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017, sparking fervid Palestinian unrest. He then facilitated the Abraham Accords — part of the Arab world’s previously unthinkable agreement to normalise relations with Israel. Those actions, as much as any other in recent memory, lit the fire that erupted the ongoing Hamas-Israel conflict.
Biden — sold as the antithesis of Trump — has arguably substituted himself seamlessly into the same strategy. Having also condoned Israel’s territorial creep, the condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rings hypocritical to many.
With a predicted cataclysm unfolding in North America, the rest of the world might show little more than lukewarm interest in what’s happening across the pond in the UK. Locals, however, might well relish the chance of ending 14 years of Conservative government. In that time, the party has chewed through five Tory prime ministers — not a great self-endorsement of considered leadership.
By contrast, two other world leaders further east are widely expected to remain firmly in their posts.
Vladimir Putin set up the possibility of a fifth term after he pushed through a constitutional amendment in 2020 allowing him to run.
Russia’s upper house of parliament has also announced that residents of four Ukrainian oblasts annexed in 2022 — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — will be eligible to vote. (Ukraine itself, incidentally, is due to hold elections this year but its martial law forbids the process from going ahead.)
Russian presidential elections have long suffered under scrutiny. In Putin’s last near-80% landslide win in 2018, videos showing blatant ballot-stuffing were the highlights of a stream of irregularities reported.
Conversely, India’s democratic machinery is robust and caters for nearly one billion eligible voters.
The internal and international concern hovering above the subcontinent relate to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rhetoric, increasingly gaining a reputation for Hindu nationalist overtones.
Early polls will embolden Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party; India’s rise as an integral global player with a promising economy will probably be rewarded. Although, with hundreds of millions of votes to account for, it is impossible to entirely remove the jeopardy from the occasion.
Neighbour Bangladesh — whose 170 million people make it one of the most densely populated countries on Earth — is to hold elections this month. The recent announcement incited violence and street protests, with observers crying foul and opposition party’s facing crackdowns.
The American threat last year to deny visas to any Bangladeshi perceived to be hindering democracy appears to have been brushed past.
Also on the gargantuan scale is Indonesia, which is scheduled to send 204?807?222 registered voters to make their mark next month. Pakistan has just over 120 million people who could stand in line to vote.
Yet, amid the mass of humanity that will march to the Asian polling stations this year, the biggest impact on global affairs might well come from tiny Taiwan.
The island nation has spent its entire existence in perpetual cold conflict with China. Now, according to CIA intelligence, Chinese President Xi Jinping has set a deadline of 2027 for a cross-strait invasion to take place. This month’s elections thus play out under the spectre of all-out war.
The opposition Kuomintang has accused the incumbent government of antagonising the Chinese and has sworn itself to the “3Ds” strategy: deterrence, dialogue and de-escalation. The ruling Democratic Progressive Party says this is a wilful simplification of the voters’ choice to one between peace and war while, at the same time, it talks up its own efforts to foster global relationships.
On the other end of the consequential scale is a country that measures last on any metric of democratic integrity … North Korea. State turnout statistics for the national elections, held every four or five years, are invariably 99% and comfortably entrench the Workers’ Party of Korea.
The government’s unexpected decision last year to acknowledge small margins of dissent in its regional polls — probably to make them seem less of a sham — might be signs of a new strategy to watch out for.
At a continental scale, 400 million eligible EU voters will select 720 European Parliament members. The election has attracted more outside interest than usual after recent populist victories in the Netherlands, Italy and Finland.
Spare a thought for the Belgians, who will be asked to vote in the EU poll plus their federal, regional and local elections.
While some elections are notable for the foreign eyes watching eagerly, others will be characterised by the apathy of those taking part — or choosing not to.
Pan-African research house Afrobarometer has notably measured attitudes to democracy over the past decade, producing findings that have caused plenty of grumbling. Its latest report finds that, while appetite for democracy remains strong, satisfaction with the way it is working has fallen from 50% to 43%.
Nowhere is the feeling of disillusionment better epitomised than back home in South Africa.
The mid-year polls will mark 30 years since the ANC took the helm of a new democracy. It entered leadership carrying the promise and dreams of a nation with an unconstrained, reconciled future.
Now it risks losing majority power for the first time after fumbling those hopes. A coalition government is a distinct possibility as a conflicted country has its say.
Academic data has long suggested the problem is fed-up ANC supporters who stay at home rather than mutiny. Complex notions of loyalty to a party inseparable from the liberation movement play their part but just as impactful has been the failure of any opposition party to distinguish itself as a meaningful alternative.
The result has been a consistently declining turnout figure. That number, as much as any result, could speak to the state of South African democracy in 2024.
Disinterest and dissatisfaction need not be permanent. Mexico, a country also known for its apathetic voters, is hoping for a turnaround in interest. The country will elect a new president in June — almost certainly its first woman leader.
Claudia Sheinbaum and Xóchitl Gálvez lead the ruling and opposition coalitions, respectively. Polls suggest a combative few months lie ahead as they scrap to win the crosses of nearly 100 million possible voters.
Will the magnitude of humanity’s collective democratic moment be enough to sway the apathetic? Their decisions may well leave the world a different place.
Massive developments phased in at Port of Cape Town:
As the spotlight on South Africa’s ailing ports intensifies, the management at the Port of Cape Town say it is taking action to tackle technical issues, slowed truck operations affecting delivery and problems caused by the Cape’s weather.
In the pipeline for Cape Town are the procurement of technical equipment to stabilise vessels during adverse weather and a helicopter piloting service to improve efficiency and in-depth research towards a more accurate predictive model for wind – a serious impediment to port operations in the Mother City.
Rajesh Dana, Cape Town Port manager, said he is determined for the port to “take up its rightful place as one of the leading ports in the world”, adding that his office is spearheading efforts to collaborate with all players to improve productivity and eradicate the backlogs.
This is in the wake of reports that a toxic cocktail of congested roads, long trucking queues and ships waiting for weeks to unload cargo at South African ports are holding up exports.
The country’s economy is dependent on exports to generate foreign exchange and could, potentially, employ millions more people. But the transport crisis is competing with load-shedding as the biggest setback.
Exporters Western Cape, which promotes the export industry in the province, has long lamented the port’s failure to modernise and its poor performance in upgrading and servicing key equipment such as that of the rubber tyre gantries that move containers within the terminal.
On top of this, the port loses up to 1 200 hours a year of operational time through wind disruption, which reduces the efficiency of cargo operations. Operations shut down when equipment automatically stops during winds of 60-70km/h.
In a damning indictment of the management of the Port of Cape Town, the leading global shipping company, Maersk, said it would, from the first week of December, bypass Cape Town and offload cargo destined for South Africa in Mauritius to “improve reliability and transit time”.
In mid-November, Maersk announced the introduction of Cape Town Express, a feeder service aimed at improving connections between the Far East and West Africa.
Under-expenditure on infrastructure has also compromised port operations. In an interview, Dana cited a number of key interventions taken by port management to alleviate the adverse weather and other issues.
“The Port of Cape Town has adopted an approach of proactively collaborating with the entire transport logistics chain. We have put in place a platform for collaboration with all members of the maritime transport logistics chain — including not only the terminal operators and those entities who offer services in the port but, importantly, the trucking associations, the shipping lines and the cargo owners. We have formulated eight focus areas that are challenging the port and have co-created solutions to address those. We started this collaborative approach early in 2022 and it has grown in leaps and bounds since then.”
Collaboration includes weekly discussions with a cross-section of the transport logistics chain to “reflect on the week’s performance and integrate our operational plans for the week ahead”, and was starting to produce meaningful results, he said.
“We’ve also activated an SMS notification system and a dashboard per shift, which gives the entire industry a view of the operations that took place on that shift and the exact marine services that were in place, including the number of completed shipping moves and delays and challenges in the terminals, such as equipment outages. We also share all the vessels out at anchorage at 7am and 7pm daily; the envisaged movements in the coming shift; details regarding the dry docking plans; and details of all vessels in the port.”
Dana said the planned development of the Culemborg precinct of land adjacent to the port is set to be a “game-changer” to enhance capacity. The precinct will integrate port, road and rail connectivity for back-of-port facilities and enable moving cargo between Culemborg and the port.
The Culemborg Intermodal Logistics Precinct Development project will be rolled out in a phased approach, with the first phase anticipated to start mid-2024.
The Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) recently published a request for information (RFI) for the design, financing, construction, operation and maintenance of the proposed precinct which has been earmarked for providing mixed-use logistics support to the port. Dana said the TNPA is evaluating the RFI.
“It will provide warehousing for storage of cargo close to the port and serve as a hub for the accumulation of import and export for redistribution through the system. We also envisage cold storage facilities for agricultural products. Most importantly, this precinct will shorten the time frame of getting cargo in and out of the port.
“It will enhance our capacity, improve our efficiency, and create opportunities for cargo importers and exporters to have a facility close to the port … it will also serve as an administrative maritime transport logistics hub. We expect to see a lot of momentum early in 2024.
“In 2024, TNPA will commence with phase 1 of the Culemborg development project which includes the completion of the precinct plans, preparation of detailed designs, and demolition of the various uninhabited dilapidated buildings.”
Dana added that the TNPA and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have signed a memorandum of understanding to study and combat extreme wind disruptions at the port. He said Cape Town suffers from four natural weather phenomena that affect port operations, including “long wave” — powerful waves that destabilise vessels docked in the port, causing safety and efficiency issues when loading and discharging cargo.
“We have piloted the procurement and operationalisation of hydraulic shore-tension units which automatically adjust the mooring ropes and stabilise the vessel alongside. We initially procured four units and initial tests and pilots yielded positive results. We received great reviews, not only from terminal operators but also the captains of the vessels, so have procured 16 additional units.”
Dana expected that all container berths would be fully equipped with these units by month-end.
The second weather phenomenon is high swells in the port and, to counteract this, a helicopter piloting service would be introduced and is expected to be fully implemented towards the end of 2024.
“The third element of adverse weather is wind, which restricts the ability to bring vessels into port and hampers cargo operations,” he said.
The port has partnered with the CSIR, which is working with three academic institutions to develop a predictive model for wind “so we can better understand and anticipate wind outages to plan around them”.
“We also asked them to investigate infrastructure engineering solutions that would be more resilient to the wind and terminal equipment that is more resistant to the wind, and for them to formulate an optimal recovery plan in the inevitability of a wind stoppage of operations.”
Dana said the Port of Cape Town has embarked on a series of interventions to alleviate problems in truck operations, including establishing a truck staging facility that allows trucks to idle while waiting to enter the terminal. “This sequences and better arranges the flow of trucks in and around the port.”
The port management has been advocating for “night runs”. “While the port is operational 24/7 our terminal operations as well as the port authority do not operate 24/7, resulting in extreme peaks during the day, and a very low take-up at night. We are working to smooth the inflow and outflow of trucks by using available capacity and slots at night.”
Asked about the decision by Maersk to bypass Cape Town and go to Mauritius, Dana said port authorities are investigating. “Borne out of that deep dive into the reasons, we will implement corrective action. I have initiated discussions with Maersk and hope to meet them soon to understand how we can better service them.”
Before taking up the helm in Cape Town in early 2022, Dana held the same position in Gqeberha and is optimistic these measures will enhance operations at the Cape Town port. He described his position as “stressful, demanding and challenging, but rewarding”.
“I have full appreciation that we can make meaningful differences in the lives of all South Africans by ensuring an efficient port, as this will directly contribute to the economic growth, job creation and poverty alleviation and, more practically, reduce the cost of living radically.
“The port touches every person, from the most affluent importing high value commodities to those exporting the blood, sweat and tears of their labour. We form an integral part of that value chain and it’s a responsibility we don’t take lightly. It drives my passion for getting the port to maximum efficiency.”
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