Polls vs. Protest: The Disconnected Data of South Africa’s Democracy

As survey results dominate headlines, they often obscure the deeper intersection of race, inequality, and historical injustice that continues to shape South African public life.

Everywhere you look, it feels as though the elections of 2024 were a complete myth, a bump in the round. Suddenly, an abundance of polls have been dumped on a million South Africans, still left with little choice but to rely on poor accountability mechanisms of the media, justice system, and public discourse. What do we make of these statistics, particularly when it comes to governing South Africa?

It must be stated that, though at no point is the credibility of the poll questioned, the questions used to gather data regarding the polls limited the degree for a greater and more reflective understanding of how South Africans actually engage issues in totality, rather than in isolation to one another.

The recent Ipsos poll released on News24 explored what the most pressing issues to South Africans were. Reducing unemployment/job creation at 21.6% being the most important, stopping corruption at 13.6% second, and reducing crime and violence at 8.9% in third.

In the bottom three, excluding the last category that includes other issues, in last was address gender-based violence at 4.6%, promote access to land in second from the bottom, promote land access at 4.7%, and address inequality at 5.2% third from the bottom.

Now, initially, it may be assumed that South Africans do not actively care for social issues. However, that is not the case, at least at face value. On the 11th of April 2025, South Africans gathered to be in solidarity against gender-based violence in the Women for Change march. In February, student and civil society took the street to address the inhumane nature of the then 2% VAT increase that was bound to further cripple vulnerable communities and leave them with less money and more expense in an already crippled economy. The Economic Freedom Fighters, who have had some obstacles in recent months, based much of their political identity on land, hold a significant share in Parliament. But the polls reflect the opposite.

In actuality, the polls do not say the opposite, but rather affirm the root of the issues and need to solve those problems rather than changing the issues legislatively. There is no difference in the need to stop crime and violence and GBV; they both aim at improving the justice system's ability to properly deter crime and ensure accountability. To an extent, this extends over to corruption, which is empowered to continue with poor prosecution and collection agency in the NPA, SARS, and SAPS.

The need for a job encompasses access to the economy and, in turn, if done correctly, access to land. There is no value of land without resources and capital to invest into the land and ensure it benefits you. Land comes with cost: electricity, water, and, in some instances, labour. There is a need for their income to be present.

Furthermore, the separation of unemployment and inequality in South Africa appears to frame the issues as separate. In September of 2024, it was 37.6% among Black South Africans and 7.9% among White South Africans. It was 23.3% among South Africans of mixed race, according to Reuters. There is apparent class and racial discrepancy that is fulfilled by access to jobs, which in turn allows access to the economy.

Major attempts to separate race and capital discredit the issue at hand, but all the need for both state and individual support. Refusing to recognise the history and the false nature of integration in South Africa on the basis that there is more integration at schools, institutions, and the workforce is to refuse to recognise that the reality of the matter is Black South Africans have been denied access to the South African economy, as it is still yet to improve.

Particularly, when the ideas are put into action and parties use this information to promote their stance and politics. Neoliberalism is quick to remove the importance of race and emphasise the need for individuals' upskilling and job opportunity, but fails to address the redress that has not taken place in South Africa.

Yes, there is a great deal of recognition that the South African government, particularly the ANC, have worsened a bad situation, but that is not to say it was not bad to begin with. The population restricted access to city centers, jobs, and education as a result of spatial planning of Apartheid continue to feel the effects of failed transition today. Transport costs remain high, as the government is unable to build legitimate state-owned public transport. Schools remain expensive, especially the more amenities are tied to them, and job sectors remain the same as boards remain mostly unchanged, finding ways to write out the influence of Black South Africans. Point out a great failure in South Africa and political discourse.

No longer is it about the need to transition and transcend the needs of the people to change-making institutions like Parliament or the court. Rather, it is a place where politicians play down to their political agenda as they live life well outside the ordinary of an everyday South African.

25% of the poll was shared on issues of building more houses, addressing the cost of living, improving education, and bringing down inflation. Many South Africans are simply asking to live a fulfilled and dignified life.

It is important that there is a careful balance of addressing the issues of the past and the most current and pressing issues now. But we ought not to separate them as though they do not contribute to one another.

The poll attempts to separate race and capital is disingenuous to the history that is South Africa. Apartheid was a system aimed at extracting capital from the country to fuel a white minority base. It used race as means of enforcing inferiority and suspicion amongst individuals, further enforcing inferiority and hierarchy that was assumed by the system. It is not without race that Apartheid does not happen, and not without the pressure of sanctions on capital that Apartheid ended.

Though the country may be quick to dismiss the importance of race in history and country, focusing the issues on more race-neutral issues and economic-focused issues, there is a need to not forget the system that brought us to where we are now.

For the Government of National Unity, these issues, concerns, and solutions to race and capital will govern the future of the country. NHI, BELA Bill Act, and Expropriation Act strike core to the intersection of race and capital, potentially exposing a system that is still in operation, just more dormantly.

Apartheid system evolved from 1948 to 1994. It was planned, transformed, and modeled to fit the times of the day. Did 1994 mark the end or the second phase of an already evolving machinery?

The ANC accused the DA of being anti-transformative, calling for the removal or editing of these acts that are crucial in providing the government the legal legitimacy to take on such pressing issues. The DA claims the ANC is uncaring for the average South African. Both parties attempt to be the party of South Africa and for South Africa.

Now more than ever, it is important that the same mistake of 1994 that led to political concessions without economic benefits does not happen again. South Africa ought not be a country that is blinded by the facades of race as though it is separate from capital. South Africa ought to find the pot of gold that was promised at the start of the Rainbow Nation.