South Africa at local level

In n the last ten years 4.5 million households have been provided with free basic water, 4 million have been
given access to sanitation (flush or chemical lavatories), and 2 million have been connected to the national
electricity grid. Despite these successes, discontent with local government is increasing and citizens are no longer content to wait patiently for the promised improvements to their lives.

According to Municipal IQ, an organisation that monitors and assesses local government in South Africa, between January and July 2013 there had been 97 protests sparked by issues that are the responsibility or the perceived responsibility of local government.

This is compared to 10 in the whole of 2004. Also, according to the 2013 South African Reconciliation Barometer, only 49% of respondents said they had confi dence in local government.

Serious challenges such as corruption, skills shortages, large discrepancies between municipalities in the provision of services, increasingly violent service delivery protests, and mismanagement abound. This helps to explain why protests, specifi cally against local government, have been on the rise since 2004.

In his keynote address at the National Summit for Organised Local Government in 1996, Nelson Mandela said that local government was the vehicle through which citizens could ‘make their voice heard and [that
should] provide an effective instrument for them to improve their lives’. The challenges that confront local government impede its ability to deliver on its mandate to provide services, such as water and electricity,
which improves the lives of its citizens. This is in evidence in the vast differences in service delivery between the municipalities.

Courtesy of South African Institute of Race relations

Twitter handle: @AnoShumba

APATHY, PROTESTS, AND PERCEPTIONS

To what extent will loyalty and gratitude to the ruling party outweigh disillusionment and apathy in the forthcoming election?

As South Africa heads towards national and provincial elections, the ruling party — the African National Congress (ANC) — has to contend not only with other political parties but also with the apathy and disillusionment displayed by a large number of people in the country.

Apathy is showing itself through the overall increase in the proportion of eligible voters who did not vote at all in past elections, and disillusionment through the sharp increase in the number of ‘service delivery’ protests around the country. While support for the ANC has never been below 60% since the fi rst national elections in 1994, the proportion of eligible voters who did not vote has risen from 14% to 41% in the 2009 elections. This share is even higher in local elections, where voter apathy has hovered around 60%. The increase in the number of major ‘service delivery’ protests, from 10 in 2004 to 155 in 2013, completes the picture.

The South African Police Service reported a 93% increase in the number of incidents of public violence, from 974 cases in 2004/05 to1 882 in 2012/13. The increase may refl ect a ‘crisis of rising expectations’ as delivery falls short of the high expectations created. Faced with an official unemployment rate of almost 26%, many South Africans struggle to join the formal economy, thus increasing their frustration with what
they perceive to be the State’s slow delivery.

Despite the disillusionment, many may still be loyal to the ANC given the roll-out of services by the State. In 2012 some 56% of learners attended no-fee schools and the number of social grant beneficiaries increased from 2.4 million in 1996/97 to over 16 million in 2013/14. In addition, 47% of households receive free water and 28% receive free electricity.

With declining confi dence in state institutions, rife corruption and the lack of accountability among public officials, yet an increase in state provision of services, voters’ decisions at the polls are now more diffi cult
to predict than in previous elections. Another unknown factor is whether disillusionment at local level will affect national voting patterns.

Courtesy of South African Institute of Race Relations

Twitter handle: @AnoShumba