Former Mpumalanga premier and ANC veteran Dr Mathews Phosa flew from Gauteng to Mpumalanga on Wednesday to cast his vote in White River in the local government elections.

Despite his stature as a prominent political figure, Phosa arrived at the voting station accompanied only by his driver, without a police escort or bodyguards. He joined fellow voters in the queue and cast his ballot without seeking preferential treatment.

For Phosa, whose political career spans South Africa’s liberation struggle, constitutional negotiations and the establishment of democratic government, voting remains an important responsibility.

He told Lowvelder that exercising one’s democratic right was essential and that people could not expect change without participating in the electoral process.

He urged South Africans to vote for the political party of their choice, emphasising that democracy was fundamental to the country’s existence.

Struggle roots and path to premier

Born in Nelspruit township in 1952, Phosa qualified as a lawyer and established the first black-owned legal practice in Nelspruit in 1981. His involvement in the liberation struggle forced him into exile in 1985, when he became a regional commander of uMkhonto weSizwe in Mozambique.

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Following the unbanning of the ANC in 1990, he was among the organisation’s members who returned to South Africa to help initiate negotiations with the apartheid government.

He played a significant role in the transition to democracy, including the Convention for a Democratic South Africa negotiations, and headed the ANC’s legal department.

Phosa became Mpumalanga’s first premier following the 1994 democratic elections, serving until 1999.He later served as ANC treasurer-general from 2007–2012 and remains a prominent figure in the party’s political history. His involvement in constitutional negotiations and the constitution-making process also forms part of his political legacy.

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He describes himself as one of the authors of South Africa’s Constitution.

Warning over party performance and coalition era

Phosa’s call for voters to exercise their democratic rights comes amid increasingly frank criticism from the ANC veteran of the party’s declining electoral support and governance failures.

In a recent appearance on the Frank Dialogue podcast, in partnership with Sunday World, Phosa acknowledged that the ANC could no longer rely on its liberation struggle history to secure electoral support. He said voters were increasingly judging the party on its current performance, pointing to corruption, poor service delivery, load-shedding and unemployment as key reasons for growing dissatisfaction.

‘The romanticism of liberation’ had disappeared, he argued, with voters now demanding accountability and tangible results. Phosa also warned that the era of one dominant political party governing South Africa was over, with coalition governments and political compromises increasingly becoming part of the country’s political landscape.

He called for a radical restructuring of the ANC, including dissolving compromised branch structures and rebuilding the organisation to restore its original objectives and integrity.

Failure to deliver apartheid-era justice

In the same discussion, Phosa acknowledged the government’s failure to deliver justice to families affected by unresolved apartheid-era atrocities investigated by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

He expressed regret over more than 300 unresolved cases, conceding that the state had failed victims and their families by not ensuring accountability and justice.

The former premier’s reflections underscore the challenges facing South Africa’s democracy more than three decades after the country’s first democratic elections.

For Phosa, however, the ballot remains one of the fundamental tools through which citizens can influence the country’s direction.