As political parties wrap up their final pushes towards the 1 November 2021 local government elections day, a new reality is dawning to historically bigger parties. The reality that these elections are more about containing gained ground than hoping for outright majority win in strategic urban centres defining South Africa as a regional economic powerhouse. In fact, the ideal of democracy being a 'of', 'by', and 'for' the people affair will be put to real test in these elections to condition the 2024 national and provincial elections.
For a while, the arrangements that we have agreed to govern ourselves and manage the affairs of the state, otherwise referred to as a democracy, have been under stress. It is the resiliences of the rule of law, the supremacy of the constitution, and independence of the judiciary which we worked into the constitution that have come to its defence. The human element in us, had it not been the toughness of principle characteristic of constitutional democracies, would have compromised us to the prerogative whims of a political executive whose access to power came with its learning curve phase. Power drunkenness often associated with post- liberation governments, especially its demand to demonstrate that we are transforming, was not only kept in check by the power of an otherwise 'excited about liberation' voter, but by a cognitive legal process which referenced the use of public power against the principles undergirding our Constitution.
Consequently, and more specifically in 2016, South Africans had a taste of what it means to define its political destiny through voting or abstaining. The rise of the voter signalled a concomitant rise of our constitutional promise of a government based on the will of the people. The consequence of coalitions was an emphatic voice of the electorate, either by voting or abstaining, that what they were experiencing up to 2016 is not in variance with their expectation of good government and values they have written into chapter 10 of the constitution for a Public Administration system.
To those that support bigger parties and assumed they would win, they experienced what it means to know you have majority support and yet cannot govern as you scored below a required threshold to govern. To those that voted in numbers they experienced the power of smalls coming together to become a majority over a single majority, thus earning the right to circumscribe the tyranny of a majority. This taste also let the penny drop on the decline in appeal to voters of the 'struggle rhetoric' and the growth of the pragmatic voter population driven solely by what does my vote get for my livelihood. In fact, voters demonstrated, and in most metropolitan municipalities, that whilst the voted the ANC to get the majority of votes in wards, they voted other parties for the proportional representation, which determined power configuration preferences without losing direct representation benefits.
Almost from its inception, democrats saw in South Africa the radical potential of voter power growing commensurate with the maturity of all aspects of its democracy. The idea of an open and free society which spread rapidly during the 'anti-corruption and state capture' mass demonstration years , and as a consequence majoritarianism, surged, and civil society power, to the advantage of democracy and many, seemed triumphant. Building coalitions and fronts against the potential tyranny of the majority could thus take root as an ideal amongst 'post-liberation struggle' and 'career' politicians who believed in a government based on the will of the people and social justice as virtues with which to spread political and economic freedoms.
The directness of representation in local government as a result of the coal face of delivery issues such politics have to deal with, has pulled into the voter awareness space the interrelatedness and interdependence of spheres of government. The pool of data on service delivery successes and failures of government sitting at the disposal of the voter from a local government experience perspective, is Informatiom no spin doctoring can airbrush from mind of the voter, a challenge President Ramaphosa had to confront when local communities wanted him to answer questions of why their switches don't bring light, taps dont have water when opened, and their streets are rivers of sewer.
The speed of and access to voter attention, by election contesting parties and conscience of society pursuing bodies, through 'less censored' social media platforms, has increased voter awareness of what is at stake in voting than what manifestos communicate as promises. Whilst the ability of local government to advance immediate household livelihoods might be over exaggerated as a condition of democracy, its capacity to recalibrate coalitions of political interests and keeping bigger parties in check is profoundest. As a fount of the authenticity of local democratic will, local government is rewriting the playbook of voter approaches by political parties in ways the architects of South Africa's democracy imagined its freedom, 'a dream deliberately delivered through the country's constitution', writes Mandla Letlape.
Like it or not, politics are about interests, the prize of good politics is government, and political coalitions are a marriage of interests. As interests mature with a democracy, nostalgic loyalty cracks, society grows into a 'what is in it for us' psyche which redefine voter investment in politics and leadership associated thereto. The liberal character of the RSA constitution has liquidated the view of society as a 'collective' into the individual-based view that projects leaders more than what they represent. Leaders are emerging as nodes of interests negotiations once society has pronounced on its preferences of how public power should be coalesced in their interest, with their smaller mandates they constitute new majorities with which the power of minorities is in ascendance, a truism 'majorities below the threshold of 50% of the vote will have to painfully live with'.
The most contribution to human history that constitutional democracies based on the will of the people have made, is the reach of society to levers of power through the vote. The heritage that this respect for human will leaves for posterity defines the legitimacy of the iconic status the 'dubbed father of our democracy' Nelson Mandela occupies on behalf of the entire cohort of leadership that could leap that far in chiselling into the constitution this promise of voter-anchored checks and balances.
Until recently, the voice of the voters was protected by the courts of the land, when the Gauteng provincial government attempted, through a section 139 intervention process, tried to usurp via administration, the executive authority over the Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality. 'Popular sovereignty' as a pillar and principle underpinning South Africa's democracy in now entrenched even through jurisprudence. Coalitions are thus a reality whose practice will make the promise of a democracy to rise. Parties that wish for outright majority support can only access that through performance and projection of the type of civility South Africa has in the past 9 years been quarrying.
The vulnerability of our democracy to the prerogative whims of 'political executives' at the altar of the 'normative demands' of our constitutional democracy has thus been curtailed by the ability of an informed voter to configure power constellations to reflect societal will. The route of coalition governments in spaces where the 'reconciliation of competing interests as the currency of politics' is highly concentrated might be the best one to foster social cohesion and national unity. A resurgence of nationalism and patriotism that transcends the concretised tribal enclaves we call political parties seems to be having a chance. In South Africa the tribes that must die for the nation to thrive might be organised in political parties more than the in traditional tribes as commonly expected.
🤷🏽♂️A ndzo ti vulavulela
🤷🏽♂️Se ngi bhala nje
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