Let us stop this nonsense of calling South Africans, especially blacks, victims.
A corrupt government is still a legitimate government because it expresses the will of the people. It may represent and protect foreign interests. But it was not parachuted from Washington or London. It was voted in, street by street, ward by ward, by people who knew exactly who they were voting for.
Those who vote for thugs and thieves are not victims but accomplices. They put the people into power, and they are the ones who fail to hold them accountable. And now they must live with the consequences.
We have spent 30 years making excuses for the voter. Betrayal. Poverty. Illiteracy. Legacy of apartheid. Information gap.
It is time to say: The people of South Africa are neither naive nor ignorant. They think before they act and make decisions in their self-interest. They are rational. And their rational choice has been to elect gangsters.
LEGITIMACY IS NOT MORALITY. IT IS MATH.
In a democracy, legitimacy does not mean clean. It means elected. Jacob Zuma’s government was legitimate. The current Government of National Unity is legitimate. They have the numbers. Those numbers came from people who stood in queues for hours.
You cannot say “the government is corrupt, therefore it is illegitimate” and then say “the people are innocent.” If the government is illegitimate, then the people who elected it are illegitimate. If the people are legitimate, then their corrupt government is legitimate too.
This is the hard truth moaners and complainers avoid: Corruption is not a coup. It is a contract. The people signed it.
When FNB Stadium was built and we were told it cost R3.3 billion, people knew money was being eaten. When SASSA grants were used to buy votes, people knew. When the same councillor who steals water tanker money comes to dance and sing in overalls or Gucci, people know. They know the thugs and politicians. They live in the same street. They see the designer labels that no teacher’s salary can buy. And they ululate.
That ululation is not fear. It is endorsement. It is investment. The thug becomes the big man because the street protects him. He is not imposed on them. He is produced by them.
THE ACCOMPLICE ECONOMY
We must understand how complicity works in South Africa.
A corrupt leader does not steal alone. He steals through a network that includes voters.
In the taxi industry: The terrible minibus taxis that kill our children every week are not a mystery. Everyone knows they are unroadworthy, overloaded, driven by boys without licenses. Who protects the taxi boss? The rank, the community, the mother who says, “My child needs transport to go to school, please don’t report.” The community benefits from cheap transport, even if it is death transport. They choose not to link their daily struggle with the corruption that causes it.
In the schools: Appalling state schools with no toilets, where children drown in pits. Parents know the principal stole the funds. They know the SGB chairperson is the ward councillor’s wife. But they don’t march. They say “at least there is a feeding scheme.” They trade a future for a meal. That is self-interest, yes, but it is accomplice self-interest.
In the hospitals: Hospitals with no facilities. Women give birth on floors. Everyone knows the tender for linen went to the MEC’s boyfriend. Do they link it? No. They say “at least nurses tried.” They don’t link unemployment, water outages, power cuts, and high cost of living to corruption because to link it would require action. And action is risky.
It is easier to say “the ANC will bring us freedom” or “EFF will bring us land” based not on honesty, competency and care, but on other considerations: leaders’ struggle credentials, singing, dancing, violent rhetoric, wearing overalls and PEP-style military fatigues. Those are not policies. They are theatre. And the people pay for theatre with their vote.
They know the thug. They praise him. Look at any township funeral where a tenderpreneur arrives in a Lamborghini. The old women praise him: “Our girl has made it.” They know her wealth is ill-begotten. They praise it anyway because proximity to wealth feels like protection from poverty. They are not naive. They are complicit.
FAILURE TO DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY IS A CHOICE
The second part of complicity is failure to hold the elected accountable.
We love to say “leaders failed us.” Or “the ANC has sold out or betrayed us.” Leaders did not fail. Leaders succeeded at what they promised to do: control the resources for themselves. It is the people who failed to do their job: hold them accountable.
Accountability is not a tweet. It is not an SAfm call. It is not a column. Accountability is:
- Attending ward meetings and demanding budgets.
- Refusing to protect the thug in your street.
- Voting differently when water has been out for six months.
- Refusing to vote for a man because he sings well or is a kwaaito star
South Africans don’t do that. They don’t link unemployment to corruption. If they’re in gangster areas where their life is hell, they don’t link it to corruption. They don’t link the lack of power, the water outages, and the high cost of living to corruption. And if they do see the link, they don’t translate it into voting because they continue to vote for corrupt leaders.
In 2024, we saw the result. 60% stayed home. That is not protest. That is abdication. The 40% who voted gave 40% to the ANC, 10% to MK, which is Zuma, and 9% to EFF, which is theatre in overalls. That is people choosing thugs and thieves and then complaining that they are being robbed.
You cannot be robbed by someone you hired as a robber.
LIVE WITH IT
This is why the obsession with statistics is a distraction. SAfm was forced to apologize for Jacinta Zuma’s thumbsuck stats because we wanted to argue about whether BEE helped 20% or 80%. The substance is that BEE helped the accomplices. The taxi boss who votes ANC, the principal who votes ANC, the nurse who steals linen and votes ANC – they are BEE beneficiaries. The stats are correct: BEE benefited Blacks. Which Blacks? The accomplices.
A corrupt government is legitimate because it is a mirror. It shows us who we are. We are a people who prefer a singing thief to a boring honest manager. We prefer a dancing thug in military fatigues who says “we will take the land” to a quiet man who says “we will fix the pipes.”
That is our will. That is our choice. And we must live with the consequences.
Consequences are:
- Terrible taxis will keep killing your children because you protect the taxi boss.
- Appalling schools will keep producing no readers because you protect the SADTU principal who is always absent.
- Hospitals with no facilities will keep making your sisters give birth on floors because you protect the tenderpreneur.
- High crime will continue because you live with the thug and praise his designer labels.
- No power, no water, high cost of living will continue because you vote for struggle credentials, not competency.
No one else will fix it. Not the Constitution, not Jacob Zuma, not Thabo Mbeki Foundation imbizo in a high-class home, not a columnist like me. Only the people who put them there can remove them. And until they do, they must live with what they chose.
You cannot vote for a hyena and then cry when it eats your goats.
The goat was yours. The hyena was your choice. Live with it. – @NewsSA_Online
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