Thabang Phetla

Goodness this is quite unfortunate a tweet. South Africans were exercising democracy when they voted for the ANC, just as they exercise it when they vote for other parties. Those were the choices of millions of citizens. Describing them as a “monopoly” diminishes the agency of the electorate. The language of an “old” South Africa departing and a “new” one emerging is also deeply uncomfortable in a country with our history, especially from you as a white man. Applied to the decline of a liberation movement’s electoral support, it carries racial undertones…the suggestion that the choices of a predominantly black electorate were something the country needed to outgrow before democracy could truly flourish. Celebrate greater political competition, Dan. Demand accountability from the ANC and every other party. But democracy did not begin when the ANC lost its majority, and the ANC’s electoral decline should not be confused with South Africa’s liberation. Our democracy belongs equally to those who vote ANC and those who don’t. Its legitimacy cannot depend on whose political preferences prevail.