The local government elections of November 1 are a failure even before they have been held. They are a failure because nothing in the many party manifestos and the verbiage from politicians really addresses the urgent, burning issues facing SA.
We are a country in deep economic and political crisis. This election should be an opportunity to address the problems we face. The failure to do so by our political parties means that on November 2, when the results have been tallied, we will return to the same old depressingly tired way of doing things.
Here are three examples of the real issues we face and are not talking about:
1. Jobs — Many people will tell you these are local elections and employment is a national election issue. Don’t believe that nonsense. Dysfunctional ANC municipalities across the country are driving jobs away.
In June we read with horror that dairy giant Clover was moving its cheese factory from Lichtenburg in the North West to KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) because of the atrocious service delivery in the town. The Sunday Times reported that due to warring ANC factions in the local municipality, Ditsobotla, the town had two mayors.
You expect service delivery in a place like that? Job creation? No way. The newspaper further reported: "Lichtenburg’s Boikhutso township is streaming with raw sewage running down streets and tons of black plastic bags lie alongside roads where refuse has not been collected for months."
Meanwhile, the ANC has also destroyed the once-bustling city of Pietermaritzburg. So bad is the situation in the local municipality, Msunduzi, even the new party, ActionSA, has said it doesn’t want to take on the job of cleaning it up.
"Msunduzi is a failed municipality, it’s broken," ActionSA provincial chair Makhosi Khoza told the Weekend Witness.
Corruption, laziness, incompetence and sheer cluelessness on the part of local leaders are responsible for the destruction of jobs across SA. We have the worst jobless rate out of 82 countries tracked by Bloomberg. At 44.4%, nearly half the country’s employable people don’t have a job, if you use the expanded definition of unemployment (factoring in people who are available to work but have stopped looking for a job because they have given up hope of finding one).
This is a tinderbox. Hardly any party addresses this issue substantially.
2. Violence — This is always ready to erupt in SA. In July at least 342 people died in riots that started in KZN and spread to Gauteng and other parts of the country.
With the elections looming, violence and intimidation are flaring across the country as ANC factions go to war with each other. This past weekend there were no-go zones for ANC leaders in the Free State, KZN and elsewhere.
The entire state security apparatus failed to anticipate the July riots, then took more than a week to regain control. Why is no-one talking about the fact that similar riots are possible again?
3. Crime — Criminal activity is now so normal that it no longer makes it into the news unless it is truly extraordinary.
In August the minister of police, Bheki Cele, told us we should not worry that the number of murders in the April-June quarter this year — 5,760 — was 66.2% higher than the same period a year ago because the country was in lockdown then so the comparison was unrealistic. The comparison with two years ago did not look as bad: an increase of only 6.7%, he said. Who will tell him that our murder rate is one of the worst in the world?
On rape, another outrage at which we are champions of the world, he told us that 10,006 cases were registered between April and June 2021. This is an increase of 4,201 cases, or 72.4%, on last year — and a 2.8% increase on 2019. It’s a war on women. Nothing said or done about it.
An election is not just about politicians giving church congregants money, making empty promises about delivering electricity and water and kissing babies. It is about reflecting deeply on the previous five years and addressing the real issues facing our country.
Our politicians are largely not doing that. And tragically, the electorate is not forcing them to either.
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