Ramaphosa’s skewed praise exposed

As South Africa heads to next year’s local government elections, many citizens are asking: “who should we vote for?”

The fact is that no single party has all the solutions. While new parties still lack a credible record, the ruling party has failed dismally on service delivery. This was admitted by President Cyril Ramaphosa this week when he told ANC councillors to emulate their DA counterparts on how to run cities.

But Ramaphosa forgot to also mention the DA’s service delivery is skewed. The next time Ramaphosa visits Cape Town he must stay awake so that he can be “shocked” at the rows of shacks as his plane is about to land.

Although Cape Town has been well run, Ramaphosa must take a walkabout around Langa, Gugulethu and Khayelitsha where he will again be “shocked” by the squalor. He will notice that the Joburg CBD that “shocked” him was nothing compared to this.

Ramaphosa must also be reminded that services were far from better in townships around Joburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni when the DA was running the metros.

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That means our responsibility as citizens is far greater than before. We cannot simply cast a vote and wait for change.

Now, with new entrants like Floyd Shivambu’s Afrika Mayibuye Movement (AMM), the question is whether the ballot box alone can still deliver the change citizens crave.

Recent history suggests the odds are stacked against AMM. Roger Jardine’s Change Starts Now (CSN) collapsed before making it into the 2024 ballot. Although Songezo Zibi’s Rise Mzansi and Mmusi Maimane’s Build One South Africa (Bosa) did contest, their impact was intangible.

These parties had bold manifestos and media buzz. However, they lacked the ability to connect with ordinary people.

Many are sceptical of Shivambu’s intentions as he aligned himself with Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, only to depart when it became clear that space at the top was already occupied. That stint painted him as an opportunist who is willing to hop between vehicles in search of relevance.

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Now with AMM, he is faced with the predicament of shaking off the perception that this is just another political side hustle, born from frustration rather than vision.

South Africans are tired of recycled promises. More parties do not necessarily mean more representation; they often split the opposition vote, cementing ANC, DA and EFF dominance.

Unless Shivambu can show AMM is different from the EFF and the MK party he left behind, voters will dismiss it as another personal fiefdom for him to use to raise money to sustain his lifestyle.

Perhaps the real vacuum lies elsewhere: in civil society activism. Love them or loathe them, organisations like AfriForum and Solidarity have mastered the art of mobilising around specific issues, often wielding more influence than small parties.

But where are the equivalents fighting for poor communities on issues like unemployment, health, crime and education?

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South Africa may not need another ballot logo but it may need stronger civic voices holding the state to account between elections.

For AMM, the challenge is clear. To avoid the failures of the ANC, the skewed service delivery of the DA, the fate of CSN and the irrelevance of Rise Mzansi and Bosa, it must prove it can build a genuine grassroots base.

If it fails, it risks becoming just another footnote in the long list of forgotten parties.

For AMM, the challenge is two-fold: survive the organisational test that sank CSN and convince people it isn’t simply EFF-lite. If it cannot build a base beyond social media debates and press conferences, it will not survive a single election cycle.

What SA lacks are credible vehicles – whether civic or political – that can genuinely mobilise communities and deliver services for everyone, not just for the wealthy, like in Cape Town.

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