VERASHNI PILLAY: Channeling South Africans’ desperate need for accountability

Something curious caught South African Twitter’s attention recently. It trended for days - no mean feat - and curiously, was not driven by any particularly big “influencer”. As is the case with these things, it was summed up with a hashtag: #MalemaMustFall.

They were the young, black South Africans who have been marginalised by an unequal economy. They were the ones who hustle harder than you and I could know, and are desperate for any opportunity, any helping hand up that steep cliff of upward mobility. But it wasn’t the detailed exposes by amaBhungane, Scorpio and the like that caught these voters’ attention. It was something far more deep-rooted. A sense of justice, fairness and common courtesy. A deeply held value that is far more powerful than reams of facts, numbers and technicalities of what a politician and their party may or may not have done wrong.

But there are just so few avenues to channel this energy. Our system has shut out all but its most moneyed voices. The average voter has woefully few channels of engagement with their government authorities outside the elections that roll around every few years. But elections, even free and fair ones like ours, do not an active citizenry make.

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