The Hillbrow Election, 1987
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the 1987 elections, the PFP candidate was to be opposed, a week after the announcement of the date for the polls, the press ran a number of stories that an election will take place in Hillbrow after all. A young man from Bloemfontein, the conservative capital of the Orange Free State province, had announced that he will be contesting the elections in Hillbrow on a National Party ticket. Leon had suddenly become a resident of the Greater Hillbrow!
A few days later a lady, wife to the man that was convicted years later for assassinating the leader of the Communist Party of S.A., announced her candidature on behalf of the Conservative party.
The next Friday the election was the topic of discussion in Trevor’s little back room. There were about five of us, none of whom were politically inclined, and none of us belonged or supported any political party. There were far too many interesting things to get involved in outside politics. We quickly realized though that this sudden multi-party contest opened doors for us, to have some fun at the politicians’ expense.
So we drew up a press statement which we released to all the newspapers, TV channels and radio stations; the inhabitants of Hillbrow were putting up a fourth candidate, the well-known businessman Mr. Trevor will stand as an Independent! We had no intentions of following through with this candidature; between the lot of us we didn’t have enough money to place one newspaper advert, never mind finance and election.
The whole idea was to give the political parties something to be concerned about, and to watch the reaction. And reaction we got, it exceeded our wildest expectations! The first to pitch up at Trevor’s café was Mr. A, the candidate and sitting Member of Parliament for the PFP. He mumbled about splitting the vote and giving the 2 parties to the right of the PFP a chance to get in. We countered with the fact that he was not a resident of the area, and as he had been unopposed for so long he couldn’t really care for the people of Hillbrow, nobody had ever met him or seen him! We showed him the door!
The next to show was Mrs. L, from the Conservative party. She went on about the fact that all races dared to live in Hillbrow, which was against the wishes of God and the Bible, oh, and the hookers and homo-sexual elements in our suburb must be dealt with in a very firm manner; their actions and lifestyle were criminal. Her exit from the café was hurried!
Then came Mr. Leon, the young man representing the National Party. Somewhere he had learned that we met in the backroom every Friday evening for drinks, so he pitched up at the right time with a bottle of good Whiskey and one of even better Brandy. His approach was totally different to that of the others, he asked for the reasons as to why we were putting up an independent candidate. This caught us with our pants down; we were having a bit of fun and didn’t ever consider any other reasons for our actions. Some fast thinking took place, and we did come up with some ‘reasons’; crime in general, the police harassing the prostitutes but leaving the drug peddlers, car thieves and burglars, the persecution of homosexuals, etc.
Leon was a fast thinker, he agreed with us, and suggested that instead of putting up our own candidate, we should put our weight behind him and in return he will take up our cause in parliament. As we knew that there is no chance of us going through with our candidature, we agreed. It was decided that we would continue with our scam until the day of official nominations, the day the candidates had to pay a deposit that would be lost if they did not get a certain percentage of the vote. This was done to keep the other parties in the dark for as long as possible. We even showed up at the nominations court, where we made the huge announcement that we would after all not be partaking in the elections, but would instead give our support to Mr. Leon of the National Party.
What the historians missed in their theses’ years later about this election is the irony of it all. From what I remember the Conservatives ran their election from a small flat in the suburb. The PFP ran from Mr. A’s office at his home. This is actually all irrelevant; my story is about my involvement and Leon’s campaign. When Leon originally announced his candidature he obtained offices within the Jewish Synagogue, where the congregation were hugely PFP supporters. Trevor, who was a non-practicing Jew, knew this and when we had announced our support for Leon, Trevor faced many very unhappy Jewish believers who felt that the Synagogue was not the right venue for a political party’s offices, especially the National Party's.
As part of our conditions for supporting him Leon had to move his offices to another location, to what was supposed to be our offices, if we did partake in the elections, which obviously didn’t exist as we had no intention of actually running. A plan had to be made quickly, so the Escort Agency was closed on very short notice, the girls being told that it would be reopened as soon the elections were over. Fortunately most of the girls took it in their stride, some even appeared happy not having to get laid a few times a day, and went on vacation.
So the boards and posters went up covering the Escort Agencies name. Second hand furniture was bought to supplement that what Leon already had. As Mobile phones did not exist those days, Telkom was contacted to install 10 new telephone lines, and to suspend the Agency’s number. We were about ready to fight an election, we only needed staff, volunteers to man the phones, the desks, to write letters, post pamphlets, answer questions and to go out to do door-to-door canvassing. This door-to-door canvassing was tough; many citizens confused political canvassers with certain Christian sects’ so-called missionaries, and slammed their doors in the poor volunteers’ faces.
During the first week or two volunteers were plenty, bored housewives from suburbs situated far away from Hillbrow. These ladies had no idea as to the character of Hillbrow, and very soon we were in a spot of bother. The construction workers that had come into the city to relax over weekends didn’t read the new signs outside the old house, too inebriated to read, I suppose, and marched in, demanding to rent a girl for a few hours. Not only did our ‘office staff’ feel insulted by these demands, the customers of the previous occupants went so far as to complain about the ‘new girls’ ages and looks, some even suggesting that they, the supposed customers, should get paid instead for laying these “old Hags”! So we had a mass walk out, except for two tough dames from the south of Johannesburg.
Working the office was important. Hillbrow had a substantial foreign population, who did not have voting rights, so it was pointless knocking on their doors trying to gain votes. Also due to the nature of the suburb the population were very transient, with voters moving in and out. Phone calls were made to ensure that the names appearing on the Voters roll were still living in the area and thus a visit could be beneficial. This information was then passed on to the canvassers who went door knocking. Attempts were also made to trace voters who had moved, and if found, to convince them to make some effort to cast their votes our way, possibly by applying for a special vote at the party offices in the constituency the then lived. The office staff also, where possible, assisted voters registered in other constituencies, but now living in Hillbrow, to cast a special vote in that constituency.
We went on a recruitment drive to find locals, people who could accept and handle these not political pressures. After a few days our office was manned again, some were illegal immigrants that fled Rhodesia when it became Zimbabwe, some were our girlfriends and a few were girls that ‘worked’ there previously as escorts, arguing that they could fill their little black books with names of potential customers, met through canvassing, for when the elections were over.
These Escort girls knew how to handle the randy but drunk guys that popped in to hire company. One guy who complained about the age of one of our southern ladies was quickly put in his place with a “Hay man, we also need somebody here who knows how to handle guys like you with tiny soft willies!” He never came back.
Our campaign was on track again, the phones worked, posters hung from trees and lampposts, and doors were knocked upon, selling the name Leon.
I was appointed as “Campaign Manager”, another one of our ‘conditions’ for suppor
t. As a result I and some of my senior campaign organizers, Trevor and Vic amongst others, were sworn in as Commissioners of Oaths. This was so we could take affidavits from people who, for whatever reason, be it age, sickness or travel, could not vote on the election day and thus needed their vote recorded in advance, as a postal or special vote. Being Commissioners of Oaths got us into a lot of trouble as I will explain later.
Due the conditions in Hillbrow the National party itself didn’t believe we could win, and I don’t think they were too keen on winning in Hillbrow anyway. It is so much easier to blame the opposition representing a constituency for everything that’s wrong there. Voters are very naïve and would accept the lie that the opposition was actually to blame for crime, drugs and prostitution in a suburb. Then there was the 'mixing races' situation, a law that was totally ignored in Hillbrow, a law that was core to the National Party policy, and was by then irreversible in that area.
Due to this our financial support from the party was very limited, and we worked according to tight budgets. Leon’s family and some well-wishers contributed as much as they