More Than Thirty Years After Freedom, the ANC Is Letting Johannesburg Rot

Five mayors in four years. That is what the ANC has delivered to Johannesburg, the economic capital of Africa's largest industrial power. Five faces, five promises, five departures, and at the end of it all, dry taps and sewer covers that give way under the wheels of cars. What family would accept being promised water for years while being left to drink from jerrycans? What nation would accept a party that freed its people from apartheid turning itself into a machine for handing out jobs and looking away while its cities decay?

This Wednesday, South Africans are called to the polls for the municipal elections. They must choose the leaders of the country's eight main metropolises, along with those of 44 district councils and 205 local municipal councils. Johannesburg is the beating heart of it all. This vote does not only decide who will occupy the offices at city hall. It tells us whether South African democracy is still capable of punishing those who have failed, or whether it has slid into that lethargy where people vote out of habit, out of inherited loyalty, out of fear of the void.

For decades, the ANC enjoyed an immense moral credit. Nelson Mandela, the end of the segregation regime, the 1996 Constitution so often cited as one of the most protective in the world. But that credit is not a blank cheque. A party that has governed since 1994 has no right to hide behind its past to justify its present. The past does not make water flow from the tap in a township.

Let us look at the numbers without detours. Unemployment strikes more than one working-age person in three by official measures, and even more among young people. Crime, from burglaries to murders, poisons daily life in many neighbourhoods. Power cuts, which South Africans have learned to endure under the name "load shedding," have brought small traders, hospitals and schools to their knees. Roads are deteriorating, water networks are leaking, and infrastructure is ageing without being replaced. These failures did not fall from the sky. They are the result of administrative choices, poorly supervised contracts, and political appointments that place loyalists where engineers, managers and honest accountants are needed.

And while the cities crumble, political life has shrunk to marriages of convenience. Johannesburg is now run by a fragile coalition led by the ANC, which the Democratic Alliance (DA), the country's second political force, intends to replace. The DA can point to results in some of the municipalities it runs, but it must prove, beyond slogans, that it can deliver. Voters no longer want promises. They want water, light, passable roads, and police officers who answer the phone.

We must also look beyond our borders, because the lesson reaches far past South Africa. This week, Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf travelled to N'Djamena to strengthen cooperation with Chad. Nearly thirty agreements were signed in April, including the construction of an Algerian-Chadian power plant on the outskirts of the capital. The communiqués speak of security, economy, partnership. They say almost nothing about press freedom in Chad, the situation of opponents, or the elections that have never truly been free in Chad. And at the same time, Algiers has sent military units to Niger, officially to protect "its energy interests," at the very moment when military juntas are seizing power from peoples who demand accountability. Which Nigerien people was consulted about the presence of foreign soldiers tasked with guarding pipelines? Which Chadian voter had a say over a power plant that may serve first and foremost the interests of those who finance it?

This is the real question facing the entire continent. For too long we have accepted that our leaders treat democracy as a formality and sovereignty as a campaign slogan. A government that cannot keep its own capital's water running cannot claim to safeguard the security of its partners. An elite that prefers opaque contracts to public accounts is not protecting the interests of its people; it is protecting its own.

So what is to be done? The first answer is institutional. We need municipalities run by professionals recruited on merit, not by party cadres chosen for their loyalty. We need independent audits published online, traceable public tenders, and water and electricity utilities subject to truly autonomous regulators. South Africa already has solid laws and a Constitution that protects rights. What is missing is the will to apply the law to those who govern.

The second answer is economic. The country needs to open its energy sector further to competition, private production, and investment capable of replacing ageing power stations. Private property, the freedom to do business, and the rule of law are not foreign ideologies. They are the conditions of prosperity, and they have proven themselves elsewhere. Botswana, which built its growth on rigorous management of its resources and a relatively stable tradition of peaceful transfers of power, shows that a well-governed Africa is possible. Mauritius has demonstrated that a small island state can become a diversified, attractive and respected economy. Senegal, in 2024, proved that mobilised citizens can force a power to step back and return the ballot to the will of the people. These examples exist. They must serve as the standard, not the exception.

The third answer comes from civil society and the private sector. Neighbourhood associations, chambers of commerce, investigative journalists and academics must scrutinise municipal budgets, publish the data, and ask the uncomfortable questions. A city that knows it is being watched manages its money better.

And now, to you, readers of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria, and across the continent: do not let anyone tell you that your vote changes nothing. Go and vote, and ask every candidate one question: what is your plan to make the water flow, keep the lights on, and get public money to where it must go? Reject vague answers. Demand timetables, figures, and the names of officials to be held accountable if they fail. Ask your party, whether it is called ANC, DA or anything else, to publish its accounts and ban complacent appointments.

And you, Africans elsewhere, who watch South Africa and wonder what will happen at home, ask yourselves the same question. Do your leaders owe you an account, or do they ask you to keep quiet? Democracy is not defended only in grand speeches. It is defended every time a citizen refuses the lie, demands public services worthy of the name, and tells their elected official: you are there for us, not for yourself. The era of the historical excuse is over. We want results.

Based on reporting by ACSS-EMAIL