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10 May 2024 Photo Supplied
Dr Harlan Cloete
Dr Harlan Cloete is a research fellow in the Department of Public Administration and Management at the University of the Free State.

Opinion article by Dr Harlan Cloete, Department of Public Administration and Management, University of the Free State (UFS).


I know that there is great hype around the upcoming national and provincial elections on 29 May, some going as far as calling this our second 1994 – I get that. But I think that we might be making too much of this and forget that what counts is what takes place between elections. For some reason, we seem to think that voting is enough to bring about change, and we can then sit back as citizens and not wait for services to be delivered to us. Or we think that the coalition government will be the saviour. That we have left it to politicians to decide our fate and we simply capitulate to their whims is beyond me. Sometimes I even hear the argument from academics that ‘I do not vote because it will legitimise the current corrupt system’, or ‘I want nothing to do with politics’ – yet politics has everything to do with you, every day.

Performance of municipalities

South Africa is blessed with a three-tier democracy. Constitutional democracy spells out the Bill of Rights and the governance framework. Representative democracy allows the space to elect political leaders through the ballot, and finally participatory democracy calls for active participation between elections. Locally, this is expressed in the co-creation of an integrated development plan with communities and ward committees – real grassroots governance. However, this process has not been without fault, with many officials simply using this process as a tick-box exercise that makes a mockery of genuine participation that would bring dignity to contested spaces.  What is worse is the performance of our municipalities. Let us take the Free State province as an example. As reported by the Department of Cooperative Development, all 23 municipalities in the Free State are deemed dysfunctional. Consequently, it is no wonder that not a single municipality has managed to attain a clean audit from the Auditor General in the past decade. Ratings Afrika earlier reported that the financial situation of the Mangaung Municipality is so dire that it is struggling to pay its suppliers on time; the capital was also rated the worst metropolitan performer in the Good Governance Africa rating for 2023.This is an inditement on the entire local governance system.

Active citizenship

The National Development Plan identifies active citizenship as the key ingredient to ensure that this democracy works. Eve Ensler reminds us that an activist is someone who cannot but help fight for something. That person is usually not motivated by a need for power, money, or fame but is in fact driven slightly mad by some injustice, some cruelty, some unfairness, so much so that he or she is compelled by some internal moral engine to act or make it better.  Through my Great Governance ZA podcast, I found that there is no shortage of active citizens in our country. Over the past three years, I have conversed with more than 100 passionate people. In Bloemfontein, I crossed paths with Boeta Swart – his organisation Anchor of Hope gets the job done; in the Winnie Madikizela municipality, ethical leader Luvuyo Mahlaka runs a tight ship; and youth development champion and author, Frank Julie, generously shares his gifts and talents throughout the land.  There are so many untold stories.

Activists – need I remind you – are not just active during elections but work passionately in concert with others to make the world a better place. The 2024 elections are important, yes, but the watershed election will be the 2026 local government elections when we will elect new ward councillors and ward committees. And coalitions are here to stay, it is a natural consequence of the electoral system, says Prof Jaap de Visser of the Dullah Omar Institute. The Sustainable Development Plan – specifically goal 16 – speak to peace and justice and strong institutions through partnerships (goal 17). Our future is partnerships – coalitions of people with the right heads, hearts, and eager hands. And yes, sometimes we will be tested and called to work with people that we do not like, agree with, or trust as Adam Kahane puts it. But that should not deter us. Democracy is difficult work, a contact sport.

Make an even greater impact

Voting or participation in elections is a first step, but I am afraid this is not enough. As an academic community specifically, we must use our privileged position in society to make an even greater impact, as advocated by the late Prof Bongani Mayosi, who argues that what matters most is service to society.

The National Development Plan concludes that a comprehensive, coordinated, multi-sectoral approach to development is required. Such an approach must include partnerships between civil society, the private sector, government, and academia. To make this coalition work will require buckets of good(will) and activism. We are on the brink of the new. God helps us as we do and dare.

*Dr Harlan Cloete is a pracademic and research fellow in the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies at the University of the Free State. He is the founder of the Great Governance ZA podcast and founder member of community radio KC107.7 in Paarl in 1996.

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News Archive

UFS receives several awards for communication projects
2014-11-26

Staff from the Department of Communication and Brand Management received five awards at MACE 2014. From the left are: Leonie Bolleurs (Excellence awards for the Internet Broadcast Project and the B Safe safety campaign), Lacea Loader, Director of the Department of Communication and Brand Management, Lelanie de Wet (Excellence award for the #FaceOfFacebook social media campaign and Merit award for the Redesign of the UFS website) and René-Jean van der Berg (Merit award for the No Student Hungry media campaign).
Photo: Hannes Pieterse

The Department of Communication and Brand Management at the University of the Free State (UFS) received several national and international awards for communication campaigns and projects this year.

On international level, an audit of the university’s stakeholders received the Jake Wittmer award for research in communication from the International Association of Business Communicators

(IABC), a merit award in the category communication and research management from the IABC, a 2014 IABC Africa Gold Quill award and a bronze medal from the International Business Association (IBA). Furthermore, the audit was a finalist in the Golden World awards (GWA) of the International Public Relations Association (IPRA). The Bult magazine also received a bronze medal from the IBA.

Staff from the department also walked away with five awards at this year’s Marketing, Advancement and Communication in Education (MACE) Excellence awards, which formed part of the annual MACE congress held at Sun City from 13-15 November 2014. Some 185 communication, marketing and institutional advancement practitioners from across South Africa attended the event.

Lacea Loader, Director of the Department of Communication and Brand Management, says: “The national and international recognition from our peers in higher education, as well as from the industry, is of exceptional value to us and I am delighted that the standard of our projects and campaigns could be benchmarked in this way.”

The UFS received awards from MACE for excellence in:

- Internet Broadcast Project (category: audiovisual)
- #FaceOfFacebook social media campaign (category: social media)
-  B Safe safety campaign (category: integrated campaigns)

Merit awards were presented to:

- Redesign of the UFS website (category: electronic media)
- No Student Hungry media campaign (category: media)

Mace fulfils a leadership role in the Higher Education (HE) and Further Education and Training (FET) sectors within Southern Africa by adding value to practitioners in marketing, communication and advancement through high-quality development programmes, facilitating networking partnerships and transformation, as well as promoting best practices among these professions at member institutions.

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