The state runs a public consultation cottage industry, from presidential imbizos to parliamentary public hearings and municipal meetings. They follow a cut-and-paste formula — politicians take centre stage, surrounded by hand-picked VIPs, with a token nod to people’s engagement.
It’s a format that ensures political control amid performative public participation. It allows for claims of people-centredness to obscure the government’s political imperatives and presidential legacy-building. In this carefully orchestrated state consultation machinery the staging and venue choices shape what is heard, who is seen and, ultimately, what outcome is possible.
This could be holding local economic development plan consultations during working hours in venues inaccessible to township residents or returning repeatedly to the same handful of community venues for parliamentary public hearings. It could be the lack of clarity on the resolution of the grievances noted down by the phalanx of officials who attend presidential imbizos.
It is this question on how to garner SA’s voices that fundamentally underlies the controversies over the national dialogue and the withdrawal of five legacy foundations from Friday’s national convention. That those remaining repeat ad nauseam how this national dialoguing was “citizen-led” means nothing without genuine inclusion.
People’s active participation in democracy, or deliberative democracy, does not happen by accident. It requires accessible meeting venues, skilled dialogue facilitators and conflict resolution experts, accurate record-keeping and more. In political science, an entire field of theory and practice explores the complexities of people’s participation and impact on democracy.
That South Africans feel ignored emerges sharply when MPs on legislative public consultations are told not about the draft law, but about unresolved issues from crime to electricity shortages, lack of water, healthcare, social support, failing housing and more.
This sentiment of not being heard despite constitutional rights and statutorily stipulated public consultations is facilitating SA’s populist turn — be that politicians’ racist speech or Operation Dudula’s unlawful citizenship status checks at health facilities, which police seemingly leave unchecked.
The sentiment of being ignored is also central to disengaging from democracy’s formal processes, like voting — as successively declining election turnouts illustrate.
Today’s fractured national mood is quite different from 30 years ago, when South Africans were last asked to contribute their views to shape democracy — then constitution-making. About 1.7-million submissions were made in writing, in person at public meetings, by phoning the constitutional assembly hotline or in face-to-face outreach, particularly in remote areas. Submissions were processed and grounded the discussions that finalised the constitution.
What does this mean for the 2025/26 national dialogue? This national conversation requires a fundamental shift from the government’s fixation on large numbers — three meetings per ward, or about 13,000 meetings, plus thousands of sectoral meetings, according to Monday’s briefing — because such numbers do not mean success.
Honesty and accountability about costs and funding is needed. Even if the 60-40 funding split between taxpayers monies and donations is now on public record, the actual rand and cents remain elusive. Frankness about the money will help dispel cynicism that the national dialogue is not only a talk shop, but another potential feeding trough, like the Covid-19 personal protective equipment scandals.
Honesty is also needed on matters such as procurement and participation. Who will host these ward meetings, touted as the core of people-first dialoguing — local political parties, pliant civil society groups or someone parachuted in on a large-scale, maybe provincial, tender?
How will meetings be managed to ensure all voices are heard, recorded and shared? Who pulls everything together for the final powwow, and what is the standing of any national dialogue agreement — aside from it being Cyril Ramaphosa’s legacy project?
The questions are plenty, the answers few.
• Merten is a veteran political journalist specialising in parliament and governance.
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