POLITICS IN COMMAND | Waning belief in democracy tracks jobs crisis, declining services

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We should not feign surprise at the latest voter participation survey that reveals that support for democracy in SA has fallen from 65% in the mid-2000s to just over 36% this year.

The survey, conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council on behalf of the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), also found that a record 26% of respondents now viewed non-democratic alternatives to governance as acceptable.

“There also seems to be a section of our people that thinks they are better off in a dictatorship type of government.

“The reason for this often is, in a dictatorship, the bureaucratic maze is minimised.

“If the dictators want to deliver something today, it will be done,” IEC deputy chief executive Victor Shale said on television the other day.

His remarks are borne out by what one often sees on social media, and hears on radio, where a growing number of people either express support for military rulers and political strongmen or denounce our democratic dispensation as a sham.

This is not a uniquely South African phenomenon, however.

Throughout the world, people seem to be growing weary of liberal democracy’s claim to be the best governance system available to humankind.

In western countries — which have fashioned themselves over the decades as bastions of democracy, good governance and economic prosperity — liberal values and the democratic system as a whole are being put under severe test by the growth of right-wing populists and anti-democratic fascist movements.

Most of these developments started happening after the 2008 global economic crisis that plunged many middle-income families in the northern hemisphere into hardship related to the high cost of living and astronomical debt.

In the UK, for instance, young professionals who are finding it harder to afford to rent or buy new homes for their families are less attracted to the centrist parties that usually dominate politics there.

In the US, the devastating return of Donald Trump to political power can be attributed in part to the population’s disappointment with how his predecessor, Joe Biden, failed to deliver on his promise of an affordable economy for the average American.

Here at home, the post-2008 era initially coincided with the Jacob Zuma presidency.

Hence the temptation to split the post-apartheid South African economic story into two contrasting periods: The 1996 to 2008 period of relative economic growth led by then president Thabo Mbeki and the 2009 to 2018 period of economic misery under Zuma.

But the reality is that the years of economic misery have outlived Zuma’s presidency by almost another decade, leaving many of those who had thought the country’s problems would be solved by his departure, despondent.

Thousands, if not millions, among those who turned out at the polls in 2018 buoyed by “Ramaphoria” have now spent years disappointed by the failure of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration to turn things around and are turning their hopes away from politics and politicians.

Whereas they may have initially congratulated the president for being brave enough to let the Zondo commission proceed without hindrance knowing well that what would come out of its processes would be damaging to his own party, they lost much hope when years went by without those exposed by the commission being arrested and prosecuted.

The subsequent scandals, ranging from PPE tender fraud during the Covid-19 crisis, the Digital Vibes exposé at the health department and Phala Phala all the way to the ongoing revelations about senior police generals acting as “ice boys” for suspected criminal syndicate bosses, have not given these millions reasons to believe things are getting better.

In fact, when they listen carefully to what is being revealed at the Madlanga commission and parliament’s ad hoc committee into corruption in the police, they hear that the rot has spread across political parties — implicating even those whose parties were first off the mark in embracing KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi’s decision to publicly expose his colleagues and the police minister.

When they can no longer distinguish between a good politician and a bad one, can we really blame voters for trusting no-one and turning their backs on the whole system?

For many of our generation who spent much of their formative years in battles, big and smaller, for a democratic future in which every citizen would have a right to choose their own public representatives, it is painful to see, with every election, more and more people checking out of the democracy project.

It is, however, important to always keep in mind the words of one of Africa’s greatest thinkers, Amilcar Cabral, that “the people are not fighting” for mere “ideas” but to “gain material advantages” and “to live better”.

“National liberation, the struggle against colonialism … and independence are hollow words devoid of any significance unless they can be translated into a real improvement of living conditions,” Cabral said.

In the mid-2000s, when 65% of those surveyed supported the democratic system, people were seeing real improvement in their lives with many gaining access to free housing, running water and quality health care for the first time from 1994.

It is no coincidence, therefore, that belief in the system has tracked the decline in the economy’s ability to deliver jobs, especially for the young, and the public sector’s deteriorating capacity to deliver essential services.