Protest in Post-Hegemonic South Africa: Citizens Extracting Policy, Doing Governance

The time had passed for citizens to queue patiently for government to deliver better services and more economic transformation. Protest in the ‘lost decade’ in which the ANC had condoned and endorsed (and finally opposed) Jacob Zuma took over much of political life. Citizen trust in the ANC, also as government, had declined markedly.1 While politicians were fighting over ownership of the ANC, and whether to let the ANC go into ‘self-correct’, citizens generally (and including many ANC supporters) were adopting alternative and supplementary ways to get their demands across to government. Alternatively, they took government into their own hands. It was little wonder that in Election 2019 participation had dropped significantly, in addition to the further decline the ANC had suffered in national-level support percentages. Protest was not the sole or all-round dominant mode of political action, but it had become a significant, widely used part of citizens either doing government and policy-making for themselves or pushing government into doing more, faster, for specific communities or constituencies.

This newly institutionalised era of citizens making and implementing their desired policies for the immediate conditions of their lives built on existing cultures of challenging and subverting official policy. It was informed by conditions of constructive lawlessness. E-tolls, services such as water and electricity, and fees for post-secondary studies, were examples of how protest worked by making de facto policy or forced government decisions where government had been failing.

Conventional community (or ‘service delivery’) protests persisted. Election 2019 offered evidence of multiple repertoires of protest and voting, beyond the simple dual repertoire of ‘protest and vote’. The smooth coexistence of protest and pro-ANC voting was under threat – still used, but complemented by the actions of ‘self-service’ policy-making and governance – and, to a lesser extent, by angry abstention and vote-switching. The only barrier to deep disruption of prevailing ANC majorities, with protest superseding pro-ANC voting, was the formerly wide buffer of ANC electoral majority, but Election 2019 showed that these majorities were approaching points of depletion, as in the case of Zwelihle in Hermanus. Simultaneously, conventional protests became more disruptive, with major transport arterials and infrastructure under threat and under siege.