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The IEC this week officially kickstarted the 2026 Local Government Elections programme with the launch of the logo and slogan for the poll.
The logo reveal comes on the back of speculation that President Cyril Ramaphosa may announce a November date for the elections. Both developments, should, in an ideal, cause excitement, not only amongst political parties but among citizens as well.
Sadly this is not the case in South Africa.
Yes there were long queues during the first ever democratic elections in 1994 when the ANC, led then by freedom fighter Nelson Mandela was voted into power.
There was similar excitement in 1999 and 2004 but for many reasons the voter turnout started going down from the 2009 general election and the trend continues to this day.
Most worrying though is the demographic that has stayed away the most.
Youth, African youth in particular have been the most affected by apathy. Experts, political analysts and other commentators have attributed this apathy to frustration with the ANC, the liberation movement that at some stage obtained a two thirds majority. The ANC supporters, claimed the experts, were angry at the party that liberated them and in retaliation stayed away over successive polls resulting in the electoral stalemate of 2024 which already started showing as far back as the 2016 local government elections that saw the country’s metropolitan municipalities, for the first time, being governed through coalitions.
While they may have been some genuine service delivery failures, the ANC has been an exception as compared to the rest of the liberation movement on the continent and even if the party’s tenure in government had been as disastrous as the elite analysts would have us believe, staying away from the polls is by no means not the best response. In fact, not voting is tantamount to cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face and this is particularly so for the black majority.
Need there be a reminder that for more than 400 years black people were not allowed to vote nor were they afforded any other rights. The whole point behind the struggles against apartheid, armed or otherwise, was about, ahead of anything, the proverbial ‘one man-one vote’.
It is worth mentioning that the white population has not grown significantly since 1994 nor have their politics changed. All the so-called white parties have consistently made the same offer to their constituencies, preservation of privilege in one form or another, resistance to transformation and other things consistent with apartheid South Africa. Consistently this constituency has showed up for the white parties and although it only represents just a little over 20 percent of the voting population, it has gained a voice and most recently, state power through their inclusion in the Government of National Unity.
If the apathy continues, South Africa will soon be ruled by those who led the aparheid administration most of whom remain active both in mainstream politics and in the civil society sector.
It is foolhardy for the black child to think staying away from the polls, to punish the ANC as many have claimed, is not as good as being a slave that prays for its master. The right to vote, the most important one we would argue cannot be taken for granted, lest we see a return to apartheid.
