Coordinated Multi-Stakeholder Action for a Stronger Democracy
By Dr Sithembile Mbete, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria
“…it is imperative to maintain the momentum of democracy initiatives to strengthen participatory democracy and hold the new government accountable to addressing the myriad challenges we face.” – Sithembile Mbete
Consolidation of democracy
Civil society played a critical role in safeguarding the integrity of the 2024 general elections – they contributed through civic education, monitoring electoral processes, and promoting peace in communities across the country. (For more on civil society’s role in the elections, see the text box below).
The 2024 general elections were the most significant since the country democratised in 1994. For the first time in 30 years, the ANC failed to win an outright majority at national level forcing it to govern in coalition with other parties in a government of national unity (GNU). The peaceful acceptance of the election outcome and the relatively swift transition to the new government is an encouraging sign of the consolidation of South African democracy. There are, however, indications that our democracy is not in the best possible state of health, and this will require concerted efforts from all stakeholders to ensure that South Africa has a strong democracy as a basis for creating a more just and equal society and for achieving the country’s development goals.
With the elections over and concerns of violence allayed, the real work of creating a prosperous, peaceful and democratic South Africa has only just started.
A strong democracy is essential to overcoming the many socio-economic challenges and social dysfunctions we face. In a country as diverse as South Africa, democratic institutions are important aggregators of the popular will and mechanisms for collective decision-making. Research has shown that democratisation has a positive impact on economic growth, increasing GDP per capita by between 20% and 25%. This is because democracy is associated with greater provision of public goods, effective management of markets, and reduced social unrest because political contestation is managed through compromise rather than violence. Separation of powers and transparent governance systems protect business from the arbitrary decisions of autocratic leaders who distort markets to maintain their political authority.
Many of South Africa’s governance challenges come from too little democracy, not too much. For many years, a lack of democratic competition concentrated power in party elites who became distant from the citizens and undermined rule of law. The constitutional provisions for public involvement in governance have been largely ignored leaving the majority of citizens excluded from decision-making and aggrieved by their marginalisation. As a result, South Africa has levels of social unrest more associated with authoritarian regimes than democracies. The politicisation of the civil service has eroded state capability and limited government’s ability to provide public goods.
South Africa’s democracy must be strengthened in order to fight inequality and create a conducive environment for economic growth. This entails enhancing citizens’ political participation, improving the state’s capability to provide public goods, and promoting an electoral system that yields inclusive and accountable governments.
Coordinated multi-stakeholder action
We need coordinated multi-stakeholder action to address the multiple crises facing our country, including stubbornly high unemployment (especially among youth), rising poverty, a cost-of-living crisis, and worsening crime and insecurity.
As the country adjusts to the new era of national coalition politics under the GNU, it is imperative to maintain the momentum of democracy initiatives to strengthen participatory democracy and hold the new government accountable to addressing the myriad challenges we face. Philanthropy can support efforts to strengthen democracy in three ways:
- Investing in large scale civic education initiatives: Despite the increase in voter registration in this election, voter turnout dropped from 66% to 58.6%. Research by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) indicates that citizen satisfaction with democracy has declined significantly with eligible voters expressing their disillusionment with party politics by abstaining from elections. The Daily Maverick pointed out that low voter turnout is concerning: “That so many people have not voted in what were regarded as watershed elections, needs great introspection.” Declining democratic participation threatens the legitimacy and sustainability of our democracy. One of the ways to restore faith in representative democracy is to equip citizens with the knowledge and skills to engage with formal democratic institutions and hold their representatives accountable.
- Supporting civil society initiatives to reform the electoral system: There is a new process underway to review South Africa’s electoral system following the Electoral Amendment Act of 2023 that allowed independent candidates to contest the 2024 national and provincial elections. Section 23 of the Electoral Amendment Act provides for the establishment of the Electoral Reform Consultation Panel (ERCP) to make recommendations on potential reforms of the electoral system for national and provincial elections to be held from 2029. Civil society has a fresh opportunity to advocate for an electoral system that enhances direct accountability of elected representatives and rebuilds trust in electoral democracy. Resources will be required to build public awareness on the options for electoral reform and to enable meaningful participation in the public consultation process.
- Supporting interventions to strengthen local government: The crisis in local government was a recurring theme in the 2024 national and provincial elections with voters raising their frustrations with collapsing community infrastructure and municipalities’ failure to provide services like clean water and decent sanitation, refuse collection, and reliable electricity. The Auditor-General’s report on local government audit outcomes for the 2023/2024 financial year revealed that only 13% of municipalities obtained clean audits. Local community-based organisations and social movements are often the least resourced and struggle to access funding from big donors. As we head towards the 2026 local government election, we need collaboration between established civil society organisations, organised philanthropy, and grassroots organisations to empower citizens to participate in local decision-making processes and to encourage greater participation in the polls.
The free and open democracy South Africa enjoys is the product of decades of hard-won struggle by millions of ordinary people against an unjust and oppressive system. Investing in strengthening our democratic institutions not only honours the immense sacrifices of those who came before us, but it also creates a free and open society for future generations to live a better life and fulfil their human potential.
CSO CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE 2024 GENERAL ELECTIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA
- CSOs organised civic literacy and voter registration drives, in collaboration with donors and other social actors.
- Organisations like Groundwork Collective (GWC) and Activate! Change Drivers developed innovative models using activations and online tools to encourage young people to vote. GWC offered prizes like meal vouchers, sunglasses and concert tickets to incentivise voter registration.
- Activate! Change Drivers’s #WeAreVoting campaign organised young people through activations and town hall debates as well as providing civic education in the form of a civic education toolkit.
- Civil society voter registration campaigns succeeded in stimulating interest in the elections among young people and in bringing the issue of voter participation to the attention of the media. This contributed to about 1.2 million new voters being registered by the IEC between November 2023 and February 2024 most of them young people between the ages of 18 and 29.
- Civil society initiatives aimed at safeguarding the elections focused on creating an open and transparent environment during the campaign period, training journalists on effective electoral reporting, monitoring media coverage of the elections, early warning systems and conflict resolution to address political violence and deploying election observers and monitors on election day.
- Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) collaborated with the IEC and social media platforms on an online public complaints portal called Real411 to enable members of the public to report cases of online mis- and dis-information during the election period. MMA found that there was a huge spike in the prevalence of false information relating to the 2024 election particularly aimed at casting doubt on the election processes, the credibility of the IEC, and the accuracy of the election results.
- The Democracy Development Programme (DDP) worked with a network of CSOs in KwaZulu-Natal in an Election Integrity Project to prevent electoral fraud, promote voter literacy, and safeguard the credibility of the elections. This included training journalists in effective electoral reporting, training election observers, and organising community dialogues on electoral matters. While the impact of pre-election dialogues and media monitoring can be difficult to measure, these initiatives are essential for creating a conducive environment for free and fair elections.
- Another critical area of work was the deployment of domestic election observers and monitors on election day. The Ground Work Collective (GWC) voter registration campaign evolved into a campaign for registered voters to serve as election observers monitoring the voting, counting and tabulation processes at voting stations across the country.
- Defend our Democracy (DOD) launched an Election Watch campaign which deployed over 1200 election observers from 86 different CSOs to voting stations across the country on election day.
The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR), South African Women in Dialogue (SAWID), Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA) and the MMA launched the Women’s Election Mechanism for Peace (WEMP) to promote women’s participation as peace monitors in the election period. WEMP deployed 300 peace and inclusion monitors across 5 provinces to report incidents of election-related violence and conflict in their communities.