Why should we vote even when it seems like no one cares for us?

I would like to share my views on the rationality and importance of voting. These views are shared days (4 November 2026) before the Local Government Elections are about to take place in South Africa.

We have observed with awe- the Election Posters hanging with party candidates (and independent candidates) in our areas and, Rallies with promises that sound surreal and have seen many parties and candidates moving in our areas touting us to give them an opportunity to represent us and our interests in different municipal councils.

The elections are taking place when our country is at the crossroads and when there is a lot at stake- like the high rates of unemployment, of violent crimes, of deplorable treatment of women, children and the disenfranchised, and the explosive revelations made at the Madlanga Commission and the normalization of ‘the political economy of inefficiency’[1] - which is characterized by deliberate failure (wherein systems are intentionally collapsed or engineered not to work),

Disguise of implementation (wherein the government creates great policies to give impression that something is being done while the implementors quietly ensure that none of these policies are implemented), dysfunctional systems (wherein dysfunctional systems are created to create financial opportunities for specific networks).

Temporary fixes as a result of dysfunctional systems (wherein dysfunctional systems fail to function and in turn triggers a continuous, lucrative demand for temporary fixes, private contractors, inflated pricing and tender processes which benefit the special networks) and administrative paralysis (wherein the model relies on high political turnover who in turn oversee the dysfunctional system).

All these (the plethora of challenges) create a misgiving relationship between ‘the people’, the voters’ and the politics. Politics as a result has come to be synonymous with lies, corruption, dysfunctionality and not “...the affairs of the people” or the management of the affairs of the people.

As such I would like to call for the cleansing of politics or the saving of politics from the ‘Den of Thieves’. Politics should be about the people, servicing the people, securing the people, bringing hope (with actions) to the people, rehumanizing the people, conscientizing the people, emancipating the people. In a democratic country- the cleansing of politics is by taking power into your hands and voting wisely.

People should vote in order to avoid being led by those who are dishonorable, bad and clueless. This was an idea shared long time ago by one of the Greek philosophers namely Plato.

For Plato and those who followed after him, the argument was that, if the people refuse to choose their own government or if people refuse to give a mandate to their desirable leaders, then those with bad intentions, those with no honor, those who are clueless will then form a government and will do as they please.

However, in the modern day, some argue that the main reason people vote is to influence, or try to change, the outcome of an election. People vote for their benefit whether socially or economically. It must be mentioned out-rightly that, voting has an opportunity cost embedded in it.

This is because, the act of voting takes time and effort that could be used for other valuable things such as- working to get paid, doing other things that couldn’t be done in other days, relaxing, going on long weekend getaways, meeting up with friends & families.

Furthermore, voting requires that, you must take time to register to vote, gather political information about your preferred party & candidate and then evaluating that information against your life.

Furthermore, economically, voting requires that, you must take time to think about the expected utility of the outcome of voting. This means that, those who must vote, usually check what is their benefit economically- What do I get in return? Of course, the answer lies in the act of cleansing politics- that is taking power back and voting for people who put the affairs of the people forward-in this context- the affairs of the people are about service delivery and not mediocrity.

Ideally, we could out-rightly argue that voting is a legal right-duty given ‘the sacrifices done by those who fought for this democracy’. Of course, this argument has a good historical backing because, a majority of the people in this country were not allowed to vote as the system had made them invisible and did not socially, politically and economically recognize them.

However, this argument gets to be trashed quickly by the material conditions of the people on the ground. The material conditions push the people to respond like all the defeated people throughout history by saying ‘we were slaves in…. but at least we ate’.

This response of course is of the socially, politically and economically defeated people. The defeated people usually learn an art of survival in their oppression-exploitation-discrimination-exclusion. Of course, with this art they learn to survive but their identity gets to be crushed and unfortunately the material conditions force them to find common ground with their oppressor or their oppressive conditions.

The material condition on the ground say to them, you do not own anything, you are just accommodated, you are not really part of this, and for convenience they are politically needed only to exercise their vote once in a while but institutions around them say to them you are not socially and economically part of this. The material conditions unfortunately force some of them to yearn for the past with a quavering voice “we were slave in…. but at least we ate”.

They then say, during those dark those we were discriminated against, we were beaten, we were arrested but at least our towns were clean, at least we had jobs, at least our institutions were functioning, at least when you called any government office someone would respond to you. In short, they say, we do not see the need to vote because there is nothing to protect here.

 Ideally, we could argue that voting (as a right) is a moral duty, a political duty, an economic obligation, and a philosophical imperative. The argument put forward for ‘voting as a moral duty’ is that ‘when we vote, we can make government better or worse’. In turn, our votes make people’s lives better or worse.

The rational here is that, if we make bad choices in the polls, then we get undesirable outcomes (e.g. corrupt government, non-caring government, non-responsive government etc). Morally, when we make good choices (of course these are based on what we want) then we change the quality, scope and kind of government.

The way we vote can help or harm the people. Like they say, the electoral outcomes can be harmful or beneficial, just or unjust. Our choices can either lead to the continued exploitation of some and the benefit of some. The argument put forward for ‘voting as a political duty’ is that, politically there should be a gain for those who were previously excluded.

For instance, in South Africa, we come from a dark past where the majority of the people were politically, socially, economically and otherwise excluded and as such, voting becomes a duty politically in order to make sure that we do not find ourselves in that situation ever again. Of course, some would argue that the initial struggle against the past regime or even colonial apartheid was the return of sovereignty and total liberation and not the right to vote.

Those who put this argument forward, argue that, once we had won the fight for the return of sovereignty and total liberation on our terms then voting as part of a democratic process would have come automatically.

For them, this initial fight was abandoned, and the majority was just ‘included’ politically- via voting to dupe them to think that they part of the system. They vote but their material conditions remain the same. Those who duped knew this because they pushed for constitutional democracy instead of parliament democracy.

The argument put forward for ‘voting as an economic obligation’ is that, if we fail to make right choices via the ballot then, we are bound to have a government which will make wrong economic decisions, a government which will compromise the economy and in turn if we make good decisions on the ballot then, we are bound to get the government which will grow the economy, a government which will implement economic policies that are for the interest of the people.

This argument of course assumes that everyone is participating in the economy. The argument put forward by those who argue that ‘voting is a philosophical imperative’ is that any reasonable person or any person who can ‘reason’ must choose who governs them.

This is because, if those who can reason decide to abandon this philosophical imperative then they will be governed by those who will make choices (whether socially, politically, philosophically) that are anti-reason.