CAPE TOWN - For a country whose majority population fought for generations to exercise their democratic right to vote in free and fair elections hardly 27 years ago, the 2021 municipal elections – the sixth since the end of apartheid – are as important as that historic poll in 1994, albeit for different reasons.
When most of South Africa’s 26 228 975 registered voters make their way to the polling stations on Monday across its nine provinces, I wonder what will be going through their minds.
Will they stick to supporting the ruling ANC long bereft of its imperious icons of yesteryear, on the basis that “it is better the devil you know than the devil you don't?”
Or have they had enough of the broken promises, delivery failures and entrenched corruption that have defined ANC rule over the past decade, and are finally prepared to excise their emotional umbilical cord from the party?
Loyalty to political parties is as complex as it can be fickle or even irrational. Misplaced loyalties could even feign a borderline political personality disorder, especially as many party supporters have been left behind for over a decade.
South African voters have hardly any choice of substance as an alternative to the ANC. This is a quirk of modern liberal democracies almost everywhere – the phenomenon of the “legitimate One Party State by Proxy”.
The DA has proved to be ineffectual as much as the EFF is unelectable because of its gratuitous bigotry and extremism.
The lack of a credible alternative to the ANC has allowed it to ride the electoral wave by default. Despite the despair, the ANC seems to retain its absolute majority, albeit much lower at 52% in several polls.
One can excuse the rising voter apathy, cynicism about politics and lack of trust in politicians, especially among young first-time voters.
They never experienced the reality and brutality of the apartheid state. One report suggests that hardly 30% of first-time voters have bothered to register, exacerbated by last minute glitches in online registration.
Voter apathy is a universal phenomenon thanks largely to what Greta Thunberg and Co call “blah blah politics”.
Promises ad nauseum, the rhetoric of endless aspirations, an internecine lack of unity and purpose, a single-minded pursuit of self-enrichment and scant meaningful action and delivery. The ANC 2021 local election manifesto boasts eight pledges and a cornucopia of other promises and handouts.
There are manifold reasons why the elections to elect councillors for all district, metropolitan and local municipalities assume even greater importance in a year when South African democracy was already tested to its core.
The economic, health and social impact of the Covid-19 pandemic; a sluggish roll-out of vaccines; the unprecedented riots in KwaZulu-Natal and pockets of Gauteng in July instigated by supporters of disgraced ex-president Jacob Zuma following his jailing for contempt of court; an economy albeit on a rebound stubbornly struggling to effect real recovery and defined by a motley of metrics of shame, are a mere shortlist of the failed Report Card of ANC rule since the Zuma kleptocracy.
South Africa, says the IMF, is the most economically unequal society in the world and has the highest level of income inequality, youth unemployment, gender-based violence and crime rate.
The turnout for the local elections is projected to be a nosedive, with some predicting a turnout as low as 45% which is not unusual for UK local elections.
For the nascent South African democracy that would be worrying.
Declining turnout has been a trend in the last two general elections dropping from 73% in 2014 to 65% in 2019. That downward trajectory coincided with a dramatic decline in the ANC’s share of the vote to 58% in 2019 – the first time that it fell below the 60% mark.
Another first is the 5-day deployment of 10 000 soldiers “to help the police ensure a safe and secure environment" during the polls.
In the wake of the failed “coup” in July in all but name through inciting insurrection, President Cyril Ramaphosa is taking the right precautions.
Departed ANC stalwarts though must be turning in their graves at the mere thought, let alone sight, of boots on the ground to midwife a democratic election.
That there is something rotten about the body politic of municipalities is not in question. Ask the millions of ordinary constituents on the receiving end of corrupt and incompetent administration in service deliveries, housing and education.
The IMF/FATF report on anti-money laundering in South Africa in October emphasised that “incidents of corruption and bribery are widespread, across state-owned, provincial, and municipal entities, particularly irregularities in procurement involving the private sector”.
How bizarre that ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa in his message in the party’s election manifesto concurs that “many municipalities are not functioning well, and many councillors are not focused on serving the communities that elected them. Oversight is weak, accountability is poor and there are no consequences for people who fail to perform”.
“Our local government system has not taken responsibility to ensure working conditions for workers in the informal economy, such as informal traders, waste pickers, taxi drivers. Many municipalities are not financially viable, and their revenue base is declining. Corruption, tender-rigging, nepotism and malfeasance continue to haunt many municipalities.”
Above all, the 2021 Municipal Elections are as much a test of the maturity of South African political and civic culture as it is of the character of its local politics. They are also a test of the popularity of the ruling ANC party following the jailing of Zuma, and the first acid test for the government less than three years shy of the next general election in 2024.
The ANC has thrived on exploiting its liberation history. Given it is a party in crisis, in near bankruptcy, entrenched in corruption and entitlement, it is not a question of whether the ANC will get a bloody nose in the local elections. It is to what extent that nosebleed persists.
That South Africans vote not with their emotions and blind loyalties but with their feet in the interest of their families, communities and country, will reveal whether it is “business as usual” for the ANC or if the political winds of change are blowing across this majestic southernmost enclave of continental Africa.
Cape Times