The biggest political movement in South Africa has the unwavering support of 51% of voters — more than the ANC, DA, EFF, IFP, FF+, ACDP and UDM combined. It has no leader, no insignia, and no head office. But every five years it assembles to perform a ritual that affects every single one of us: it boycotts the general election, thereby guaranteeing another half-decade of the status quo.
Like any huge politician movement, it is a very broad church, and it’s members have many different reasons for joining it in its founding mission of not voting.
Many are not interested in politics, even though, as the cliché goes, it is interested in them.
Others used to be interested, perhaps even energetically so, but have become jaded and bitter. I understand this: most South Africans are not stupid, and there comes a point where promises to reform and renew and relaunch just start sounding like insults.
Finally, a surprising number still cling to the misguided belief that not voting makes some kind of statement that politicians will eventually notice. This is, regrettably, a profound failure to understand how electoral politics works. Politicians care about percentages, not aggregates: on election night, 51% of 100-milion votes is worth exactly the same as 51% of 1-million votes.
As members of their own party, these non-voters are worthless to politicians, and, arguably, irrelevant to the future of SA. But should they be persuaded to join another party — one that actually contests elections — they could utterly change the face and direction of this country.
Of course, persuading them to join existing parties is more or less impossible. Those who see our current politics as a rigged game will never vote for the casino owners. Those who don’t care won’t be made to care. And the harder a politician woos a gatvol ex-voter, the more gatvol and ex that voter becomes.
Indeed, Zibi has clearly understood that if RISE Mzansi is going to survive and thrive, he needs to position himself and it as far away from our current politics as he can.
No, the treasure chest containing 18-million votes is completely beyond the reach of South Africa’s politicians.
But Songezo Zibi is not a politician, at least not yet the sort we’ve become allergic to; and on Wednesday, as he launched his RISE Mzansi party, he gave a speech that sounded an awful lot like a direct pitch to those 18-million unrepresented citizens.
Zibi, a former journalist, is an intelligent man, and has clearly taken the time and the care to assemble a team of intelligent people around him. He will know exactly what usually happens to new political parties in South Africa, and he will know exactly how difficult it is to try to lure voters away from established parties and entrenched ideological silos.
I doubt, for example, that he was trying to woo anyone in the ANC by condemning corrupt cadres, or sweet-talking the right-wing of the DA (or all of the FF+) by talking about the scars of colonialism or calling for economic justice.
Indeed, Zibi has clearly understood that if RISE Mzansi is going to survive and thrive, he needs to position himself and it as far away from our current politics as he can.
Instead of offering a messianic vision of the promised land with himself as the anointed, infallible prophet (or commander-in-chief), Zibi warned that “no-one is coming to save us” and that there will be “no perfect politics” and “no perfect options”.
Of course, we’ve heard those sorts of warnings many times before, usually as set-ups for an invitation to fix the status quo in place, albeit with newer, shinier bolts.
On Wednesday, however, those warnings were part of something much more radical and important; something that would have spoken directly to the suspicious non-voters and gatvol ex-voters who make up the majority of our largest political bloc.
“The establishment tells us that there is nothing wrong with our political system, and all that is needed is to remove the ANC,” he said. “Yet we cannot build a new future on a political system that is unaccountable, unresponsive, corrupt and removed from the people. We cannot use the same rules that delivered the unserious people who call themselves leaders today.”
I don’t know how Zibi and RISE Mzansi plan to change our current system without becoming part of it. I don’t know how you pack up a circus without having to work closely with clowns and shovel all kinds of animal poop. But I must admit that I’m genuinely curious.
Zibi said good and timely words. If they are heard by even a fraction of that unseen 51%, things might be about to get very interesting indeed.
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