SA’s democracy not being betrayed by politicians alone

Every so often, one must put aside SA’s many political and economic problems and address the key culprits of the country’s decline — the voters. 

Every adult South African has the right, obligation and responsibility to vote and thereby contribute to the wellbeing of the country by electing to power ethical and capable municipal, provincial and national leaders.

Every five years, every citizen gets the chance to applaud, reward or rebuke and recall poor leaders at all these levels. 

This is important. Not all of us can have our views published in newspapers, our comments run on television, or our musings retweeted or go viral on social media.

As of last year, there were 64.1-million citizens of the country.

How many of the about 46.3-million South Africans who are over the age of 18 get to meet, engage and debate with a member of parliament, a local councillor (many ANC councillors I know have abandoned their constituencies and live in the “white suburbs”) or a provincial politician in their lifetime? 

The only way to make a real difference as an adult of over 18 is to vote.

By voting you send a message not only about what you want individually, but about the country we all want to build and leave behind for our children and their children’s children.

By not voting, you are saying you want SA to become a failed state like Zimbabwe. 

Countries that thrive are made up of voters who put in place politicians who have a vision and plan for their countries beyond just lining their pockets at that point in history.

Voters who say “I want my community to have good schools for our children” are what builds a great country.

Voters who say “I will get a T-shirt and a meal pack” from my local politician are exactly why selfish leaders continue to rise and dominate. 

Where are the voters? I have in the past referred to the work of Bruce Bartlett, senior lecturer in mathematics at Stellenbosch University, who has analysed voter turnout in SA. 

Bartlett calculates that, based on several different sources including official Stats SA figures, the number of adults eligible to vote in last year’s May 29 national election was between 37.3-million and 40-million people.

Figures from the Independent Electoral Commission show that there were 27.8-million registered voters and that 16.3-million of those voted.

This gives SA a voter turnout of what seems to be a healthy 58.6%. 

However, if one takes the “true turnout” (those who voted as a percentage of those eligible to vote), SA’s voter turnout was 42%. 

“It’s a terrible turnout. It was bad enough in 2019, when it was around 49%,” Bartlett wrote last year.

Brazil managed a 73% turnout of eligible voters in the same year. India’s eligible voter turnout was 65%. France in 2022 was 68%.

South African democracy, as we can see, is not being betrayed by politicians alone.

Voters are also letting the country down hugely by sitting on their hands while politicians run amok. 

I am one of those people who have berated politicians that they are clearly not offering voters enough choice and incentive to get out and vote on polling day.

I have also berated the governing ANC for being such an engine of disillusion that many South Africans have turned their backs on democracy. 

That is not enough of an excuse for voters to stay at home. SA is collapsing under the weight of corruption, and more than half of adult citizens are not performing one of their most basic and fundamental duties.

Until 1994, SA was not a democracy. After that, for it to continue to function as a democracy, we must perform our most fundamental civic responsibility: voting. 

Such “voter apathy” (or irresponsibility?) is particularly galling because our democracy came after such a long, hard, bitter, struggle.

Thousands of South Africans, over centuries, died fighting for the right to vote and died not ever having tasted the joy and freedom of doing so.

Whenever I fly into OR Tambo Airport, or Bram Fischer Airport in the Free State, I am reminded that these two great men died without ever having tasted this basic but most important of rights in a democracy. 

The country is in a crisis. Take schooling: black children are packed into taxis every morning to go to schools in “the white suburbs”.

This is in 2025, 31 years after apartheid formally ended. This will continue until citizens do a simple thing: vote for someone who will build them schools of quality and value where they live. 

Failure to vote, when one can freely do so, is not treason. Yet, it is a real abrogation of one’s civic duty.

It is failure to be a citizen in full and an insult to those who fought to gift us this democratic country.