Maybe we should have elections every year so the government is forced to work

You’d need to at least be in your 30s to recognise South Africa over the last month. There’s no load shedding. Crime is down. The JSE is up. We were even reminded that NPA head Shamila Batohi is still alive and somehow still has her job when she made a statement last week. This is the world we pay taxes to live in. It’s wonderful.

Without putting on the tinfoil hat and proclaiming conspiracy, it does feel like a convenient correlation that all this is happening so close to an election. But who cares? We’re getting what we pay for. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Will it last beyond the election? Are we burning an inordinate amount of diesel to keep the generators going? Will we be paying for Tom’s rhinoplasty through the NHI? Those are all tomorrow’s problems so let’s enjoy what we have now. After all, it isn’t much.

You’ve probably never heard of half of the chapter 9 institutions. I mean, when last have you heard of the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities doing anything? Their latest official media statement was in January and related to the 2021 July unrest. To quote the great Eastern European philosopher, Borat: “great success!”

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On the subject of quotes, remember the revolutionary minister of finance Malusi Gigaba invoking his inner Kendrick Lamar to tell us “We gon’ be right, we gon’ be alright”? If only the auditor-general was empowered to hold him to account on that one. Incidentally, one thing we never have to imagine in the mouths of political leaders are words of grandeur because there’re no shortage of those. Whether they translate to results on the ground is an entirely different story. It just happens to be a story that has seemingly started to materialise.

Is it because the Public Protector has finally started to deliver? LOL. Is it because after years of terrible audit results, the government has finally begun to care about clean governance? Bombastic claim. What about the Human Rights Commission? When last did they twist the cement arm of the state?

What’s left? Either the state has caught a wake up just by happenstance or it has something to do with a difficult upcoming election, in which case; the IEC is the greatest institution to make the state work for us. Who would have thought?

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Obviously, there’s the whole thing about the electorate being pissed off and demanding of inconvenient things like their rights and functional toilets and what not but there’s little need to care about that when your jobs are secure anyway. It’s only when they’re not secure that one may consider the repercussions of not offering clean water and some education. Who’s the buffer between the political jobs being secure or insecure? One may say it’s the voter, but really it’s the institution that catalyses the voter and that’s the IEC.

And for all the flack they’re catching, the IEC doesn’t seem to be doing a bad job with this election; voter registration went off smoothly, applying for a special vote was a seamless process and they’re actively engaged in the seriousness of their work as illustrated by their litigation with Jacob Zuma.

Nobody wants to be that person who claims that things are only getting done because of the election. Yet the people begging for our votes don’t make it easy to not be that person. It’s quite telling when that seems to be the automated response of everybody after we’ve had years of getting acquainted with our notifications alerting us that load shedding will start in 55 minutes.

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Fortunately, there is a test for this. If in a few months’ time, there’s less electricity or it’s more expensive, if the grass grows too high or Batohi goes back into hibernation, we’ll know this month was just electioneering.

If that’s the case, we know who to turn to.

If it’s what it will take to have the South Africa we deserve, then please IEC, give us annual elections.