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Voter apathy in a democracy could stimulate community activism outside of party politics

23 November 2021 | Story Gcina Mtengwane | Photo Supplied

Gcina Mtengwane is a lecturer in the community development programme at the University of the Free State, QwaQwa Campus. He believes democracy is more than just voting. It is the expansion of self-determination opportunities.

Opinion article by Mr Gcina Mtengwane, Lecturer: Community Development Programme, University of the Free State.

Voter apathy has been diagnosed as part of the reason for the low voter turnout in the 2021 local government elections. The turnout was the lowest since democracy the dawn of democracy, with only about 12 million (46%) of about 26 million registered voters casting ballots. Apathy among voters in representative democracies is defined as a lack of interest in voting. Some choose to view this apathy as a threat to South Africa’s democracy. But it may not be the case, as some would like to put it. Instead, it may reflect the evolution of South Africa’s democracy and the expansion of choices available to South Africans outside of the voting principle commonly used to define democracy.

While I am inclined to agree with the view that this voter apathy has some messaging on the state of South Africa’s democracy, I argue that it is only a small part of the big picture. Democracy is, among many other things, the freedom to make choices. One of the permissible choices is the right not to vote. Defining the success or failure of democracy by voting is quite restricting and problematic at least for me.

Local government is about addressing challenges in daily live

Local government is mainly about addressing issues and challenges in our daily lives. It does not require much of an overly ideological stance. Put simply, a community member at an informal settlement or village does not need to know the works of Marx, Fanon, and Biko to know that she or he does not have a road, potable water, or ablution facilities. It takes building materials, not political slogans or party ideology to build a house for those without houses or to provide food for the hungry.

What is more interesting has been the activism of young people outside the banner of political parties. Young people are engaged in issues that affect them in their daily lives. They are also engaged in lending a helping hand to others. They are doing this outside of formal party politics. The writings of Adam Prezowski (2003) identify ‘autonomy’ as the ability to participate in the making of collective decisions, which is a paltry notion of freedom. Prezowski asks whether democrats should value the freedom to choose. He further asks whether people value facing distinct choices when they make collective decisions. In the absence of concrete answers to these questions, Prezowski comments that “true” democrats must be prepared that their preferences might not be realised as the outcome of the collective choice. When many people cannot vote for what they most desire, democracy suffers. The low voter turnout may indicate that none of the political parties offered what most South Africans desire, hence they see no impetus to vote.

Democracy is more than just voting

Democracy is about the expansion of opportunities and choices. Choosing not to vote does not necessarily reflect badly on our democracy. Instead, it speaks positively on the freedom of citizens to choose other arenas through which to have their issues heard. It is the freedom to decide on the relevance or lack thereof of the formal party-political system. The choice not to part take in party politics has allowed young people such as Lonalinamandla Bawuti, who responded to the plight of a young boy from the Eastern Cape living with his grandmother who needed support to go to initiation school. Bawuti appealed for assistance from South Africans to get the youngster to initiation school.

It is the freedom of a group of businesspeople putting money together to create boreholes for a community without access to potable water. It is Nasizo Mndende, a young social work graduate in the Eastern Cape seeing the plight of young rural girls and starting an NGO to educate on sexual and reproductive health rights. It is young people creating crowdfunding for students in need of university registration fees and for students wanting to go to university.

It is many others doing what they can with what they have and their influence contributing to change in communities.

The point I am making is that democracy is more than just voting. It is the expansion of self-determination opportunities. Low voter turnout may not be such a disastrous thing after all. This is because a lot of young people are contributing to making a better South Africa outside of the confines of political party membership.

News Archive

Bullying in schools: Everyone’s problem

2005-06-03

From left: Prof Gerhardt de Klerk, Dean: Faculty of the Humanities; Prof Corene de Wet; Prof Rita Niemann, Head of the Department of Comparative Education and Educational Management in the School of Education and Prof Frederick Fourie, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS

It is not only learners who are the victums of bullying in schools, but also the teachers. Prof. Corene de Wet from the Department Comparative Education and Educational Management at the University of the Free State reported, against the background of two studies on bullying in Free State secondary schools, that bullying is a general phenomena in these schools.

Prof. de Wet, who delivered her inaugural lecture on Wednesday night, is from the Department Comparative Education and Educational Management which resorts under the School of Education at the University of the Free State. She is the first women who became a full professor the School of Education.

Prof. de Wet says, “A student is being bullied or victimized when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative action on the part of one or more students. Bullying always includes the intentional use of aggression, an unbalanced relationship of power between the bully and the victim, and the causing of physical pain and/or emotional misery.

In some Free State schools there are victims and perpetrators of direct and indirect verbal, as well as emotional, physical and sexual bullying.

“Adults who say that bullying are part of the growing-up process and parents who set not only academic expectations but also social expectations to their children cause that victims are unwilling to acknowledge that they are being bulled. Many parents are also unaware of the levels of bullying their children are exposed to.

“Some of the learners were at least once a month the victim of direct verbal harassment, 32,45% were assaulted by co-learners and 11,21% of them were at east once per week beat, kicked, pushed and hurt in any other physical way. Free State learners are very vulnerable to bullies at taxis and on the school yard they are mostly exposed to bullies in bathrooms.

“Learners are usually bullied by members of the same gender. However, racial composition also plays a role in some Free State schools. A grade 12 girl writes, ‘There are boys in my school who act means against black people. When the teacher is out they take a red pen and write on the projector and spray it with spirits. It looks like blood and they would say it is AIDS and my friends and I have it.’

“Educators must take note of bullying in schools and must not shrug it off as unimportant. Principals or educators could be find guilty of negligence. A large number of educator respondents, 88,29%, indicated that they would intervene in cases of verbal bullying and 89,71% would intervene if they saw learners being physically bullied. However, only 19,97% of the learners who were victims of bullying were helped by educators/ other adults from their respective schools.

“The learners’ lack of trust in their educators’ abilities and willingness to assist them in the fight against bullying has important implications for education institutions. The importance of training must be emphasised.

Learners bully their educators to undermine their confidence. In Prof. de Wet’s study on educator-targeted bullying in Free State schools 24,85% of the respondents were physically abused by their learners, 33,44% were the victims of indirect verbal bullying, and 18,1% were at one time or another sexually harassed by their learners. These learner offences may lead to suspension.

“Educators are not only victims of bullying; some of them are the bullies. The South African Council for Educators prohibits bullying by educators. It is worrying that 55,83% of the educators who participated in the research project verbally victimised learners, 50,31% physically assaulted learners and a small percentage was guilty of sexual harassment.

“Every educator and learner in South Africa has the right to life, equal protection and benefit of the law, of dignity, as well as of freedom and security of the person. These rights will only be realised in a bully-free school milieu.

“To oppose bullying a comprehensive anti-bullying programme, collective responsibility and the establishment of a caring culture at schools and in the community is necessary,” said Prof. de Wet.

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