Published in the Sunday Times 12th April 2026 Thirty years after South Africa’s democratic transition, the paradox of being a voter has sharpened. Citizens continue to love their country deeply, yet their trust in those who govern has eroded. Voting, once an uncomplicated expression of loyalty to the liberation movement, has become a difficult balancing act between patriotism, identity, and political dissatisfaction. With turnout now below half of eligible voters, many South Africans no longer believe elections will improve their lived realities. Patriotism in South Africa has always been a layered construct. Without national conscription or other compulsory civic duties, it has drawn from cultural identity, political affiliation, and personal experience of the state. For the African majority, and for the last 30 years, supporting the party of liberation has been widely treated as synonymous with loving the country. But the political shifts that began accelerating in 2016 create...
South Africa might officially be a country without an ideological left. Our left left the left leftless. We are now left with a left that is left as a left of the left we knew as the left. This means the left is unoccupied. Notwithstanding, the right is still not the center... . The center believes it is the left because the left left. Asked what is the left by Nyami Booi, the prudent answer could only be It left...and thus might not meet the criteria of answering the what question. It is now the essence of its absence in our movement that might characterise its presence.