MOELETSI MBEKI: Why politics is necessary in society

What is politics all about? This is a question many citizens worldwide often ask. Their lives are affected by what politicians, in government and in opposition, say or do. But people feel helpless to influence politicians.

Every four or five years elections are held. Politicians show up, usually on television interrupting normal programmes citizens enjoy watching. They make many promises about what they will do for the people. Then after a few weeks of promises, the politicians disappear.

Most of them disappear for another four or five years, only to reappear during the next election campaign. A few who become ministers, presidents or prime ministers reappear sporadically between elections on the news. But little actually changes for citizens, hence the question: what is politics all about, and why should I as a citizen care? 

Politics is about changing society. It is also about ensuring society stays as it is and does not change. Politics is thus about contest and drama: contest between those who want things to stay as they are, and those who want things to change.

In this drama there is much make-believe. Those who want things to stay unchanged present themselves as drivers of change and vice versa — many of those who want things to change present themselves as wanting things to stay as they are. Why the confusion? 

In all societies there are those who benefit from the status quo. Similarly, in all societies there are people who do not necessarily benefit from things staying as they are, and therefore want things to change. But what things do they want to change, and what things do they want to remain as they are? 

Where the confusion comes in is that those in power, who by definition want things to stay more or less as they are, promise that they will change things. As nothing actually changes, citizens conclude that governments lie to them. That is one reason they lose interest in politics.

Opposition politicians usually come as a cacophony of many voices with contradictory messages all wanting citizen’s attention. But the average citizen knows that because opposition politicians are not in power, they cannot do anything in the here and now about their promises of what they will do in the future. This is another reason citizens lose interest in politics.

This explains where SA politics is now. More than 20 years ago, in 2004, 77% of registered voters turned out to vote; 20 years later, in 2024, only 59% of registered voters voted. The numbers are even more dramatic considering in 2004 10,880,915 people voted for the ANC, compared with only 6,459,683 in 2024, a swing of more than 40%.

Politics is about changing current society. It is not about changing the society of the past. Voters have been abandoning the ANC because its main message is about changing the society of the past, and because it promises to change the current society so that most people benefit, when in reality the changes it has made have only benefited a small minority. This minority comprises the African middle class who run the public sector — civil servants at national, provincial municipalities and metros — as well as the managerial class in state-owned enterprises. For many voters the ANC has lost credibility. They believe the ANC is lying to them. 

However, most voters are not convinced that opposition politicians are capable of bringing about the changes they claim they can make either. The opposition has become hugely fragmented, into smaller and smaller parties. The claims of these minuscule parties — that they can bring about meaningful change to SA’s complex society — is not credible to most South Africans. This is illustrated by the fact that out of an adult population qualified to vote of 42.3-million, only 16.2-million voted in 2024.

A political party is an institution that brings together citizens in a given country who have similar or common socioeconomic interests. The party seeks to influence the state to advance or favour the interests of its members by attempting to occupy elected positions of power in government. The party seeks to persuade broader society that the advancement of the party’s agenda or interests benefits all society, and so society at large should vote for the party’s representatives. 

In SA there is much confusion between political parties and civil society lobby groups working to help disadvantaged members of society. This is a major factor that contributes to the fragmentation of the opposition and therefore to a loss of interest in politics by much of the population. 

So what should be done to rekindle interest in politics by the people of SA?

We have to go back to basics. Everything that happens in our society is driven by current social actors, not those of the past such as the apartheid regime. If one wants change, which most South Africans do, one has to persuade the current social actors who hold power to change behaviour that stands in the way of change. If the social actor(s) in question do not respond to persuasion, varying degrees of pressure need to be applied to compel that change. 

The first rule in politics is to identify the wrongdoers who are an obstacle to positive change. In SA’s democratic system the constitution prescribes how pressure should be applied on holders of power who are an obstacle to positive change. This is done through political parties, which are authorised to mobilise voters to vote against power holders who obstruct change.

One of the most important disincentives to citizen participation in politics is the absence of constituencies in national and provincial elections. The multiparty negotiations at the Convention for a Democratic SA (Codesa) in the early 1990s stipulated that after the first democratic election an amendment to the pure proportional representation system should be made to include forms of constituency-based elections. 

According to the electoral task team report of January 2003: “Cabinet resolved on March 20 2002 that the electoral task team should be established to draft the new electoral legislation requested by the constitution”.

It should “formulate the parameters of the new electoral legislation and draft it to prepare for the scheduled national and provincial elections of 2004 or any earlier election, should the need arise” and include political parties in its consultations with stakeholders. This task team was to be chaired by Frederik van Zyl Slabbert.

The ANC opposed the majority report that called for the introduction of constituencies, and instead adopted the minority report, which favoured a pure proportional representation system. The ANC has been using its majority in parliament to block the introduction of constituencies ever since.   

• Mbeki chairs independent think-tank The SA Institute of International Affairs.