Slightly better leaders won’t save us — we need a fundamental shift in how South Africa functions

The people of South Africa continue to be burdened and punished by those who preside over our constitutional democracy. Much ink has already been spent on these failures of our democratic order. Those failures are not theoretical or academic but rather have real consequences for the people. 

The constitutional democratic order continues to be weighed down by the inefficiencies of our democratic system (that was intended to be transitional) and the harsh embrace by our elected representatives to prioritise party over people. The pathways for an alternative dispensation appear illusive, and fraught with impossibility given how power and agency has been chipped away with each election cycle. 

The rise of multiparty structures has not enabled grassroots commitment and civic participation. Instead, each successive election has reaffirmed dwindling participation, disappointment and despair. 

It might be easier to blame South Africans alone, but politics and activism are about power. South Africans battle against machinery and systems that are currently wielded without their participation. Power that has been eroded from the people. Power that has been wrapped up in process, and reshaped towards politics of ego and the stomach. 

In this vicious cycle and cesspool presenting itself as democracy, South Africans are both the victims and losers of a system that has been designed to prop up party political structures. 

In the vacuum of civic participation programmes, efforts to deepen/strengthen democracy and real commitment to supporting citizen-led processes and engagement, we will continue to be poorly served by our political system. After all, those systems are not about service to people, those systems are not about commitment to the Constitution but rather they are about power (and its absolute pursuit) and securing the futures of those in its structures. The role of party political structures will continue to dominate our economic, social and political realities as long as we tolerate this broken system.

One imagined after all the continued threats to our democratic foundations and brinkmanship, that more would have taken place. Instead, organisations (local and foreign), businesses and civic organisations have sought to support party political machinery. The machinery is not about empowering millions of South Africans to take possession of their innate power and agency, but rather that money is used to enable the existing players and the cycle of new entrants that enter on the promise of a new beginning. 

The allure of new organisations with compelling leaders attracts the support of the ecosystem that surrounds our political system. One can understand that attraction as it often relies on the trap of the personality, the persuasive personal story and personal sacrifice, and of course the possibility that the system can be redirected from the abyss. 

Far too little money and effort are spent on supporting and enabling communities. We only need to look at South Africa’s Covid-19 period where people and communities sought to convene in order to make sense, provide for those that had very little, and provide some humanity during a bleak period. The extent of corruption and the rush to the feeding trough continues to be uncovered. 

We only need to remember those who stood against those who wished to benefit while tens of thousands died and millions struggled even more. If we had any doubts around the commitment of elected representatives and civil servants, then Covid-19 shone a harsh light on how broken our democratic and governance structures are.

The lost decade under Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma was not simply about State Capture or the erosion of state institutions and capacity. It was a period of heightened disenfranchisement and the entrenchment of systems that seek to protect a few, systems that value party political power above the needs of people.