With the elections just a few weeks away, lampposts across the country are decorated with colourful posters with interesting campaign slogans: Rescue South Africa! (DA); Fix SA! (Action SA); Corruption destroys our freedom! (UDM); We can rebuild (FF Plus); Stop the suffering! (GOOD); We need new leaders (Rise Mzansi).
Together, these slogans from opposition parties form a harmonious chorus. They remind us that corruption has destroyed our freedom and that we need not suffer from ANC-inflicted harm any longer.
They challenge us, the voters, to play our part in changing the trajectory we are on. We can vote for change — to fix and rescue this country from the grubby hands of the political elite. We can vote for a younger and more dynamic leadership not weighed down by “small nyana skeletons”, or what the ANC calls the sins of incumbency.
It’s a melodic chorus that contrasts sharply with the ANC’s campaign slogan: Let’s do more, together.
But election slogans are more than just catchy phrases designed to stir the emotions of the voters. And while a party’s ideas are often more complex and detailed than a short slogan might suggest, they give us a glimpse into how a party names the moment. And this is where it gets interesting.
With eyes fixed on state coffers and internal battles, the ANC has neither the time, the know-how, nor the political will to resolve the challenges of inequality, unemployment and landlessness
The tune is that corruption and cronyism have destroyed public institutions and squandered citizens’ trust and goodwill.
With eyes fixed on state coffers and internal battles, the ANC has neither the time, the know-how, nor the political will to resolve the challenges of inequality, unemployment and landlessness. So goes the tune.
The Zondo commission, which uncovered chilling evidence of intricate networks of state capture, lends enormous weight to this analysis.
The Guptas interfering in state appointments. Ministers manipulating procurement and overstepping on board duties. Party machinations and majoritarianism used to give cover to wrongdoers and undermine parliament. Law enforcement gutted. Public servants bullied. Whistleblowers hounded out of their jobs. A long list of state enterprises — Prasa, Transnet, Eskom — brought to their knees. The conclusion is that the wrong people are in charge. Given that most of this took place under ANC rule, this analysis also serves as a record of the last 30 years of democracy.
But this chorus is missing important voices. The forces eviscerating democracy go beyond just corrupt political interests. What these forces are and how they operate is a topic preoccupying commentators worldwide.
A 2018 Civicus report with nearly 150 interviews and written submissions as well as 26 democracy dialogues across 80 countries found that disillusionment with democracy is closely linked to citizens feeling that the people they elect no longer have the power to correct what the report calls “skewed economics”.
Many believe that economic decisions are cordoned off from mass influence. Instead, decisions about the economy rest with powerful interests — transnational corporations, financial markets, ratings agencies and unaccountable supranational bodies such as the IMF and World Bank.
These interests are more invested in lower taxes on the rich and corporations, lower debt, budget cuts and limited state intervention in the economy. In contrast, ordinary people demand better wages, jobs and more spending on quality public services such as health and education. These colliding interests have led some analysts to argue that today’s democracies have competing constituencies: markets on the one hand and the people on the other.
So serious is the problem that some scholars have found a correlation between the prevalence of austerity and low voter turnout. The editors of the 2021 volume Destroying Democracy — Neoliberal capitalism and the rise of authoritarian politics argue that decades of market-driven economic policies in places like India, Brazil, South Africa and the US have eaten into the foundations of democracy and led to a rise in authoritarianism and exclusionary politics — such as right-wing nationalism and xenophobia.
Here at home, we often hear the colloquial retort, mara kuyafana or kusizani pho? when probing non-participation in elections. Many people simply see no point in democratic participation if the vote can’t deliver jobs, accessible education, reliable public transport and fully functional public hospitals or even give them a say in how public funds are allocated.
Political theorist Bonnie Honig, in her collection of lectures, Public Things: Democracy in Disrepair, also suggests that the increased privatisation of public functions is suffocating democracy. “Public things”, she argues — hospitals, schools, energy, water, and transport networks — are the lifeblood of democracy, the things that make collective action possible.
These concerns are echoed elsewhere. In Nigeria: Democracy without Development published in 2020, Omano Edigheji tells us that 20 years after the end of military rule, Nigeria’s democracy faces a credibility crisis. The persistence of poverty, unemployment, underdevelopment, environmental degradation, and insecurity makes Nigeria an exclusionary democracy.
The SACP’s credibility suffered a beating due to its complicity in selling Zuma as a pro-poor candidate and then shielding him when he faced allegations of corruption
While these debates rage on in other parts of the world, they rarely feature in our conversations today except for when the EFF talks about democracy’s failure to achieve “economic freedom”. Neoliberalism, once the buzzword used to describe these developments, has all but disappeared from our conversations. How come?
One answer is that a critique of neoliberalism is hardly the stuff that moves voters. It is much easier to appeal to their rage about corruption and incompetence.
Another possibility is that the fate of radical ideas is always tied to the health of the mass movements that promote them. The unions that cautioned that the first decade of democracy belonged to the capitalist class are facing their own troubles. They have, as S’thembiso Msomi suggested on these pages a while ago, virtually lost all influence in the public discourse.
The SACP’s credibility suffered a beating due to its complicity in selling Zuma as a pro-poor candidate and then shielding him when he faced allegations of corruption.
The movements that emerged in response to the ANC’s adoption of GEAR and its consequences, privatisation, job losses and commodification of basic services such as water and electricity, have long left the dance floor.
And then, of course, there is the sheer appeal of neoliberal ideas.
But blaming democracy’s failures on a corrupt and morally indefensible ANC leadership reinforces South Africa’s exceptionalism and denies us a meeting place with progressives across the world who are grappling with the implications of the marriage between democracy and neoliberalism.
Election posters will come down a few days after the polls. This may give room for a more honest assessment of 30 years of democracy. Importantly, it will allow us to compose a new tune about how the rule of the markets undermines the rule of the people.
• Kunene is an educator and programme manager for democracy and political culture at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.
