The year is 2021. South Africans are heading to the polls to cast their ballots in the fifth democratic local government elections. They are faced with an acute problem: who to vote for in a political landscape dominated by mediocrity and ineptitude, mismanagement of the economy and the collapse of services.
Back in 2019, it had become clear that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s clean-up project was set to be a lengthy, fraught process, weakened further by a divided ANC and a surprisingly ineffectual president.
The "fightback" faction under ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule had put in place plans to humiliate Ramaphosa and his supporters at the party’s national general council in 2020, rendering him effectively powerless until the 2022 elective conference. At that point, the grouping would "take back the party", as Magashule had predicted back in 2018.
It was disappointing, but not exactly surprising — the rot in the governing party had proved unassailable and its lip service to reform remained just that, despite the best intentions of those who had propelled Ramaphosa to power.
As the ANC continued its march towards destruction, the capacity and ability of the state to serve South Africans declined further.
State finances worsened, with the National Treasury in 2019 predicting that by 2022/2023 government debt would climb to 71.3% of GDP. Unemployment in 2019 stood at 30%. At the same time, the department of public service & administration revealed that national and provincial departments had paid out 70% more on performance bonuses to employees. Belt-tightening pleas from the Treasury and bonuses for ordinary workers in the private sector were a distant memory.
Essential reform at Eskom had stalled. Unbundling under a new CEO and plans for independent power producers were rejected. In fact, back in 2019, any attempt at reform at Eskom was resisted by labour.
The political games unions played back then began to reveal themselves as the 2021 election approached — with the National Union of Metalworkers of SA acting as both a union and political party, and the National Union of Mineworkers playing along to compete with its rival and stem its own rapid slide into irrelevance.
The government’s lofty promises of National Health Insurance and free higher education could not be implemented because there was no money. Yet cabinet remained sizeable, and ministers suffered little by way of cuts to their fringe benefits during the economic meltdown.
Everywhere government services were collapsing — municipal finances were dire, due largely to mismanagement, making it difficult to deliver services.
We have to begin thinking about the future of our politics
Back to the future
Back to 2021: it seems to be a foregone conclusion that the ANC will lose power in many municipalities — except, voters feel there are few alternatives; boycotting the polls becomes a de facto vote against the ANC.
The DA has retreated into a conservative enclave, sending confusing messages on race and alienating black and coloured voters. Race does matter; race doesn’t matter; race shouldn’t matter — the DA slips between these with uncomfortable ease. It has also leapt from James Selfe’s "making peace" with losing power in Joburg and Tshwane, to John Steenhuisen’s "it would be a shame" to lose Joburg and Tshwane.
Since the departure of Jacob Zuma, the DA has shown itself to be without actual depth, offering no real alternative government to the ANC.
As former DA speechwriter Jon Cayzer wrote on Politicsweb back in 2019: "For over a decade the official opposition has lacked a strategic vision of how SA could look under an alternative government; a theory of change with evidence-based policymaking and issue trees like those used, for example, in the British cabinet office.
"It is this policy malaise and intellectual provincialism that led to the DA’s recent implosion, and not the modernisation project itself."
The EFF is a continuation of the predatory project perfected by Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu, under the mentorship of hyenas inside the ANC during their youth league days, to quote Zwelinzima Vavi back in 2010. It was exposed through the VBS Bank heist, and prosecutions linked to On Point, harking back to those youth league days when Limpopo was looted.
New political parties have entered the fray, one led by former DA leader Mmusi Maimane. But his political acumen did not receive a mighty jolt when he left the DA. He was a poor and indecisive politician with the formidable machinery of the DA behind him — that hasn’t changed.
The cost of this dire situation is the possible rapid erosion of democracy, as voter apathy grows and citizens opt for methods such as protests to make their voices heard. It may culminate in messy coalitions and hung councils, further deepening the delivery crisis in the country.
Perhaps it is time to revisit the long-standing debate on electoral reform?
We have to begin thinking about the future of our politics in a new and innovative way, failing which the unknowns on the road ahead may just be too much to bear.
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