You heard us, now it is our turn to listen

THE EDITED VERSION OF THIS WAS PUBLISHED IN THE BUSINESS DAY OF 27 MAY 2024

Over the weekend, South Africans were turned into a jury listening to the closing arguments to influence their decisions on May 29, 2024, when actual voting would happen. An enormous citizen challenge awaits in preserving South Africa's economic, political, constitutional, and democratic order. Almost all leaders that addressed their supporters humbled themselves to the voters and declared, 'We know you have all heard us as we made the case for you to vote for us or our parties; we are now waiting to listen to your verdict'. This is a season politicians understand that voters hear, they should listen, an opportunity, as pundits predict, voters will use this time around.

Despite the show of numerical force and through the ritual of stadium-filling, it was clear that voter sentiment was fast becoming an unknown to those campaigning. Voters have realised how close our democratic order is to either a precipice or a historic turning point, and for a brief time, the choice is theirs to make. As Panyaza Lesufi alluded to politicians, this was also a campaign to give account to the media, analysts, and political party funders who took an overt interest in who ultimately led South Africa. How they funded parties and narratives defined their expectations of the country's leadership. The geopolitical and African political economy significance of who governs South Africa was foregrounded through how rating agencies took a posture towards pronouncements by political parties. What they factored as favourable scenarios sent a message to politics as an industry about what the proverbial investor and market forces expect of whoever emerges as a leader.

 

The dominant themes from the addresses of political parties were still what would the past, present, and future 'Gevaar’ be. The ANC's 'gevaar' theme was that the voters should decide if the country should move forward with the ANC or backwards to a terrible past. The DA's 'Gevaar' was that the voters should decide on a functioning RSA, using the Western Cape as a benchmark or a dysfunctional one, with the service delivery challenges elsewhere as evidence. The EFF’s ‘gevaar' theme was the management of the elections and counting process; it raised the need for vigilance at counting as it has 'done everything humanly possible'. The MK Gevaar theme is that the current ANC leadership has veered off its mandate, and by extension, the government won't deliver the liberation promise.

 

About the issues in this round of elections, the five focus areas the ANC raised as the pillars of its manifesto were common with the three largest political parties. How each thematic focus was nuanced in ideological terms made the difference. These were a jobs plan through investment and industrialisation, tackling the high cost of living, investing in South Africans and providing the services they need, defending democracy and advancing the freedom(s) gained, building a better Africa and World, and getting more South Africans working. In addition, there are themes of land restitution, radical economic transformation, and the immigration and urbanisation issues associated with the growth of foreign nationals. These themes permeated speeches made over the weekend and are the basis upon which voters were asked to vote. The sub-context is that they are even prepared to coalesce around these in the event of a less than 50% performance.  

 

The commonalities in the rhetoric and realism of manifestos attest to the Thabo Mbeki call, incidentally supported by President Ramaphosa and influential civil society leaders, for a national dialogue. The economic crisis, intertwined with threats to the democratic order as manifested by public infrastructure decay and a myriad of service delivery dysfunctions, demands the renewal of political and societal systems to align with governance realities. This requires a renewed commitment to the constitutional and democratic order, leveraging collective intelligence and civic engagement to confront and adapt to the challenges of building social cohesion. This was the sub-context of several speeches over the weekend. The land issue, acutely represented by the remonstrations around the Ingonyama Trust Land and the King of the Zulus discontents, as the abstraction of the general, indicates that land as a national grievance issue is generating echoes of conversations that must burst into the open. If there will be any unity or rebellion on the land question against the economic and political establishment, it will be triggered by the Ingonyama Trus Land.

 

The potential disintegration of the centre, in the national and certain provinces, will rapidly erode the stability of the democratic order. Polls indicate a dramatic change in voting patterns in the KZN, Western Cape, Gauteng, and Limpopo, which account for ... of the registered voters. With a stretched margin of error downwards of the polls, KZN and Gauteng will not have a party polling above the 50% required threshold to govern. The MK Party dynamic has made this a reality in KZN and Gauteng, while the Patriotic Alliance and the Gaza crisis response will be a dynamic in the Western Cape.

 

A complex coalition government-induced intergovernmental relations system will be an outcome the centrist bureaucracy will be challenged to handle in the national government. Beyond the vote, South Africa might have several reset buttons to press, the most critical being the Government of National Unity button. Among South Africa's political parties, acutely many in their national executive committees or c-suite levels, not a single one of them is ready enough to meet the coalition government, government of national unity, and sheer bureaucratic demands of the post-elections context to be triggered by the accompanying political mandate asymmetries. 

 

As voters will be talking to the politicians they have heard during campaigns, the great question is to what depth are the listening competencies of the politicians. Our emerging politics tells us that the new form of the voter is nothing common or mediocre. It tells us that no voter is predictable. Evolving democracies are like a map where the boundaries expand into untold possibilities. The true test of the templates our constitutional order is about will be stretched and tested to their limits.