Nkosikhulule Nyembezi
Cape Town - There is a certain irony that this year we celebrate “Freedom Day” – the name given by South Africans to mark the first democratic and non-racial elections on April 27, 1994 – uniquely challenged to consciously exercise our equal enjoyment of the freedom to make political choices that will shape the next 30 years and beyond.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s signing of the much-awaited Electoral Amendment Act into law on April 17 directly challenges us to be deliberate in our political choices to form a political party; to participate in political party activities, including recruiting members and to campaign for a political party or cause; to massively participate in free, fair and regular elections by voting in secret, by also standing for public office and, if elected, by holding office in an honourable and accountable manner.
It further challenges us to be collectively involved in recruiting others and campaigning for our identified causes – not political parties – that will inform our voting intentions for citizens’ representatives – and not just political parties – in the 2024 national and provincial elections and beyond.
For over a decade, as corruption and maladministration wrought havoc on our miserable lives and as political parties across the ideological spectrum imposed unprecedented constraints on our freedoms and the country’s development goals, much discussion has been on what the “new normal” might be in our maturing democracy.
It focused on what it might take to achieve a composition of legislative bodies that reflect a proportional representation of citizens’ political choices and causes, not just divisive narrow political party interests.
Opening up space for independent candidates to stand for public office is a reminder that developments more profound than corruption, maladministration or the disruption of the coronavirus pandemic might shape the new normal.
The “independent candidature” rhetoric associated with debates about minimal changes introduced by this new legislation is understandable, and asinine.
It is understandable not just because we all desire a return to some form of normality full of hope for a better future for all the people, as the one characterised in the Mandela era, but also because we should be wary of elements of the unprecedented political party encroachments on our liberties of the past decade being folded into the “new normal”.
Political parties have become a liability in our democracy, as we have seen in their lack of vision and leadership in coalition governments and their instigation of the fast deterioration of the fundamentals holding us together as a nation.
It is asinine because this is no sudden leap from enslavement to freedom, from darkness to light, from a pure proportional representation electoral system to a mixed-proportional electoral system with multimember constituencies.
We must not classify this electoral system that accommodates independent candidacy in South Africa into mutually exclusive categories of public representatives in the form of party and independent candidates.
Instead, we must understand it as a point on a proportionality continuum that facilitates forming a democratic and legitimate government.
We must continue the critical debates about ensuring that public representatives obtain from citizens –not deployment committees – a proper mandate, provide regular feedback, and are continuously accountable to citizens for decisions and actions taken in office.
However, we should not confuse critical debates with dramatic social media debates about achieving “proportional seat allocation” in the legislatures.
This other debate trivialises the true meaning of representative democracy.
It ignores the fact that pinpointing an appropriate formula for seat allocation, the filling in of a vacancy, and allocating public resources are all part of enhancing the representative capacity of legislators.
A cursory analysis of the political mood suggests that the new normal may be much like the old normal, if the dramatic reference to independent candidates leads to opportunistic individuals without a mandate from citizens finding their way on to ballot papers instead of credible individuals specifically chosen to carry out citizens’ policy choices.
In recent years, there has been a significant decrease in the proportion of people who think the government is honest and truthful, believe what it says, and think it does the right thing in general, or acts fairly.
These are not new phenomena, as the atomisation of society and the erosion of trust in mainstream institutions have developed over many years.
What corruption and the pandemic have done is deepen already existing trends, exacerbate some of the worst aspects, and expose the manipulation of our anxieties by opportunistic politicians to the point where many people have begun identifying individuals to vote for in 2024, collecting signatures supporting prospective candidates, discussing election manifesto proposals and campaign strategies as a way of exercising their freedom to make political choices.
Crises and disasters often bring people together. The pandemic, particularly at the beginning, led to a flourishing of community spirit. From mutual aid groups to volunteers helping the vaccination drive, there has been a desire to show solidarity in the face of adversity.
But Covid-19, and the response to it, has also required greater individuation of society, in which social-distancing and self-isolation have become the most vital expressions of social solidarity.
On the upside, self-isolation also enhanced our awareness of our expected roles in making political choices through exercising freedom of conscience and autonomy and how doing so deliberately should lead us to prepare and vote boldly in 2024.
Trust rests on our ability to engage with others and our lived experience in a flourishing electoral space amid uncertainty.
To have a chat about our lived experience in public media, argue over a cup of tea, mingle after worship, debate in a seminar or public meeting or gossip with a friend we bump into in the street – all these little moments serve collectively as the foundations of a thriving politically engaged society.
The pandemic restrictions and the terror unleashed on whistle-blowers exposing corruption took away much of this, and it was inevitable that trust in the government and political parties would erode too.
All this takes us back to the question of “freedom”. It is a concept that has many connotations, and context inevitably shapes its meaning.
Whatever the new normal, the inclusion of independent public representatives in our representative democracy introduces a plurality of choice that will make it easier to restore a degree of trust and give shape to a nation in which the proportional representation of citizens’ political choices and causes supersedes narrow political party interests and the domination of our lives.
Nyembezi is a policy analyst, researcher and human rights activist
Cape Times