We must never reduce democracy to mere elections

South Africa is in crisis. The disillusionment with the ANC is overwhelming. It has plundered the country, state-owned enterprises don’t work, essential services are lacking, poverty and inequality persist, and we have an unemployment bloodbath.

We’ve reached the 30-year mark of democracy. This is usually the point at which liberation movements implode and get pushed to the political periphery, largely because of infighting and looting of the public purse.

Of course, the ANC’s principled stance in supporting the Palestinian struggle will win it some votes. But foreign policy posturing rings hollow for those grappling with the bitter realities at home. Too many have lost faith, severing ties with the movement that has betrayed its liberationist core.

The DA is seen as a party of the white middle class with a pro-Western worldview often framing the white West as morally and intellectually superior. It has shown no serious attempt to win back large pockets of black voters who have turned away from it.

The less said about the EFF the better. Julius Malema does not inspire confidence and it’s impossible to predict what life would be like under a Malema government, but we do know it would be highly authoritarian. And the public purse would be looted more than we have ever seen before.

I’ve argued before that there is ample electoral space to the left of our political spectrum, but we don’t have a viable left in South Africa.

What, then, do we make of those who choose not to vote in an election that is seen to be the most significant since 1994? No one who has lived under a dictatorship or entrenched corruption would ever dismiss the right to vote as trivial.

But every time we get to an election we are subjected to all kinds of mystification. It’s frustrating when you hear: “Vote or else you can’t complain.” This is an insult to all who mobilise through grassroots organisations and movements, confronting injustice through activism rather than the ballot box. Our rich history of mass action proves democracy transcends elections alone.

A free press, an independent judiciary and the right to organise and protest freely are every bit as important for democracy as free and fair elections. But those political theorists who write off elections altogether are seriously mistaken.

In many countries, removing an authoritarian government from power via the ballot box is the only real option available. Community mobilisation of social movements is vital political work, but on its own it cannot resolve the fundamental contradictions of our society.

Read more in Daily Maverick: 2024 elections

Yet we must never reduce democracy to mere elections. It is a ceaseless struggle waged through community organising, worker mobilisations and sustained grassroots pressure. Transformative change cannot simply be elected; it must be wrested through the continual contestation of entrenched power structures.

There are no easy answers, especially when electoral options are limited. Our democracy remains tattered, diminished by the cruelties of poverty and unemployment amid the vulgarity of opulence. Whichever road we take, it must be lined with ceaseless struggle. For it is there that real democracies are continually born anew.

How we vote or not vote at all is a personal decision. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.