Does democracy even still exist in a country where the voter turnout is only 25%?

in Abundance Tribe2 years ago

Here in sunny South Africa we have just had our local government elections, where we voted for municipal leadership. The major national election is in two years from now. Nelson Mandela, honored as the father of the nation of the New South Africa, spent his early adult life fighting for the emancipation for his countrymen from the Apartheid regime. He went from being a lawyer, to being a terrorist and eventually a freedom fighter, including spending 25 years in jail, before he was released and became president of the new democratic South Africa.

mandela statue Pretoria pixa.jpg

It’s quite a story, where he and his comrades struggled against oppression in order to enable all South African adults to vote equally and fairly for their government political party and leadership. So how ironic is it that now 25 years later, when citizens all have a chance to use their power of voting, that the overall national turnout at the election polls was a feeble 25%. Yes, only 25% of the entire adult voting population of South Africa actually bothered to cast a vote in the recent elections.

That means three quarters of the nation did not bother. This looks to me like all of Mandela’s struggle was in vain. He and numerous of his fellow comrades sat in jail for decades in order to give this right to vote to all his compatriots. And here we are today where they simply cannot be bothered to use it. What does that tell you about our so-called democracy? It tells you that despite having had the ability to vote for the past 25 years, the citizens are so despondent with their own choice of government, that they have given up. They just can’t be bothered any more.

Despite the fact that there were multiple new political parties on the ballot, all vying for a seat or for leadership of a council or local municipality, still the masses have given up. Voter apathy is like a chronic malaise over the mindset of the masses. They have thrown away the very tool that could empower them to effect change in their lives. That is seriously tragic, in my opinion. In our political system, unlike USA, we can have as many political parties as we like, instead of just two. Of course USA has a third and fourth party, namely the Green Party and the Libertarian Party, from what I can make out, but I don’t see them getting any airtime and I don’t know if they even appear on a ballot anywhere.

Here we had about 20 parties on my ballot paper when I went to vote last week. It was mind boggling to see all the new names popping up. So on paper we have a vibrant and robust democracy, yet on the ground we have a failure. The voter apathy clearly suggests that the masses have become so despondent with their beloved favorite political party, namely the ANC of Nelson Mandela, that they have just given up voting at all. And this is not the solution of course. The solution is to go out and vote for the opposition, or in this case any number of oppositions.

If you don’t like the DA because they are too “white” for black South Africa, then go and vote for those radical upstarts who are even more left wing, namely the Economic Freedom Fighters. How’s that for a political party name? They are the new kids on the ballot and red is their color, so they are even more radical in their policies. Yet the mass of citizens could not even be bothered to vote for them.

This degree of voter apathy is a total surrender of ones own power. The people have given up their power to effect change. They must be so disheartened by the past 25 years of democracy that they have been stunned into shock and have frozen. I presume that the massive corruption as well as the poor service delivery, lack of jobs (30% unemployment) and other crises, have made the people so despondent that they believe there is zero hope whatsoever. They have given up. And this is a dire state to be in. I would call it a collapse of democracy, which is now there only on paper.

It makes me look like the odd one out, like an anomaly, being a voter. One in four people voted nationally. What a joke. Well the joke is on those who didn’t use their power of voting because they now have no leg to stand on when lamenting the sorry state of the nation under the current political leadership. They could have steered the vote but they did nothing. Therefore they cannot complain about the leaders who actually get voted in. They have disempowered themselves.

Nelson Mandela must be looking down in despair as all his hard earned effort goes to waste. Not only is his own ANC political party a laughing stock and a cesspool of corruption, but three quarters of the adult population have simply lost hope and can’t even use their own power of the vote to have their voices heard. Presumably they tried for 25 years and it got them nothing but deteriorating conditions, so they just gave up. What a political tragedy. I wonder what will happen in two years time at the national election?

I foresee the ANC party of Mandela, that has been in power for the last 25 years, slowly sinking into the background and losing their long standing control, while new even more problematic parties emerge. Or we may end up with some sort of coalition between former enemies, as you have in UK or Israel and other countries sometimes. The problem with those kind of coalitions is that they seldom work. You can’t put parties with opposing policies together and expect anything more than a stalemate, where nothing gets done on the ground and the result is stagnation for the people and for progress. Well, you get what you voted for – or didn’t vote for in this case, so we will just have to live with our lack of ability to act when the time required it.

(image pixabay)

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Anywhere there is rule by force there is only a varying degree of freedom.
When you can commit any crime, election fraud is high on the list, imo.
Until the masses reject ruling over others through violence and the threat of violence, this is what we get.
More and less enslavement.

Good insights there friend. We have a long way to go as a civilization until we come to a harmonious working model for all.

Thank you, but they are second hand to me.
It's all been worked out before:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-conquest-of-bread.pdf
https://archive.org/details/lookingbackward01bellgoog
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alexander-berkman-what-is-communist-anarchism

It's just been hidden from us profane illiterates, the muckety mucks have known all along.
Tptsb don't have to burn books when they can just as easy train people to reject reading them.
Through the use of cat videos they rule over us all.
I was always partial to the bum fights, but we can't have those, anymore.
What higher sacrament is there in crapitalism than making bank off paying bums a pittance to fight and selling the videos?