The finding that adults in KwaZulu-Natal have lost trust in democracy is cause for concern. All the more so given that the province is beset by several social ills, including being one of the biggest producers of assassins. It has deep and long-running socioeconomic chasms.
Trust in democracy, its institutions, processes and leadership is crucial if the province is to deal with these ills and narrow the fissures.
The Electoral Commission said at the weekend that the 2026 voter participation survey conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council found that confidence in democracy among KwaZulu-Natal adults had fallen from 54% in 2004 to 6% in 2025. That compares with the drop in the national average from 65% to 36%.
This is most worrying in light of KwaZulu-Natal’s deep-seated sociopolitical and economic tensions, which have a long history. In July 2021, the province was the epicentre of the most violent unrest since 1994, which nearly sunk the nation’s insurer of last resort, the South African Special Risks Insurance Association.
KwaZulu-Natal also has special characteristics. It is the historic home of Zulu-speaking people, an identity that is contested, with some groups saying, for example, that their forebears were never part of the Zulu kingdom. Yet there are now calls for “Natal” to be dropped from the province’s name.
The Zulu identity has long been mobilised for political and other purposes. Similar mobilisation triggered violence in the 1980s that resulted in the loss of hundreds of lives and the displacement of as many as 500,000 people by some estimates. The wounds of that war between Inkatha and United Democratic Front supporters still haven’t fully healed.
KwaZulu-Natal also is home to the country’s largest share of people of Indian descent, whose tenacity has made them important players in the provincial economy. They are better off relative to Africans in terms of entrepreneurship and education — occupying higher positions in the professions, technical and management ranks — a position that has been the source of simmering tensions in the province, especially in and around Durban.
Grim statistics
KwaZulu-Natal’s poverty headcount of 49.6% sits well above the national average of 37.9%, according to Stats SA’s 2023 poverty trends. The province’s share of the country’s poor is almost 25% compared with the national average of 19.4%, a burden that is carried disproportionately by Africans.
KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi has warned about the causal link between socioeconomic ills and crime. He singled out the Umzinyathi District Municipality: “Almost every hitman we get is recruited there, and they are recruited from a young age,” Mkhwanazi reportedly said last August.
The district’s median age of 19 is lower than the national average of 28-29. More than 60% of households are either headed by women (58.9%) or children. Poverty is high at 66%, with Nquthu (75.2%) and Msinga (71.9%) being the district’s most poverty-stricken areas. Msinga has a history dating back to the late 1800s of inter-clan wars fuelled by land.
Add to that mix of socioeconomic ills and a lack of trust in democracy populists and influencers of various hues who are pushing narrow Zulu nationalism and who are purveyors of various phobias, and you are close to getting to what the expert panel on the July 2021 riots warned about: “The fear of many is that not only will a repeat of such violence find ground in the all-too-familiar contexts of negative political contestation, where certain interests take advantage of the levels of poverty, inequality, lack of service delivery and social tensions to advance their cause.”
• Sikhakhane, a former spokesperson for the finance minister, National Treasury and South African Reserve Bank, is editor of The Conversation Africa. He writes in his personal capacity.
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