South Africa’s 2024 Elections Test Maturity of Country’s Democracy: Catholic Official

He also projected that South Africa’s democracy may now have a coalition at the level of national and provincial government, adding, “There are a lot of uncertainties as to the extent to which such coalitions will work for the common good, and not solely the interests of the political parties.”

Fr. Muyebe said there should be a concern about the amount of money that is being spent on elections, adding that private donors could also be controlling political parties and election outcomes in South Africa.”

“Over R160 million was donated to political parties in 2024 elections. Rising levels of private funding pose a grave danger to democracy and ethical leadership in South Africa,” he said. 

According to the priest, stagnant economic growth, growing youth unemployment, economic inequalities and the racial divisions that he said continue to manifest in South Africa, will test the country’s maturity of democracy and ethical leadership in the next four years.

 “To ensure moral renewal in politics in South Africa, what South Africa needs is not only a mature democracy but also ethical leaders both in the government and business sectors. This is what is severely lacking at the moment and we need a strong moral regeneration movement to achieve this,” the JPC Coordinator said.

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Weighing in on the May 29 polls, Fr, Muyebe said, “When measured against the ten international minimum standards of free and fair elections, we can say the 2024 elections can be considered to be free and fair.”

“In the 2024 elections, we saw the two institutions that are important for fair elections, the judiciary and the electoral commission, being heavily tested. Although there were some concerns raised against their credibility, the political pressure has not severely eroded their independence and effectiveness,” he said.

He continued, “In our assessment of the reports from the election observers, although we did not have widespread irregularities in the 24000 voting stations, there were a lot of inefficiencies that impeded the ease of voting and in some cases the right to cast a vote.”

Fr. Muyebe thanked the security cluster for “ensuring that we did not have a huge crisis of electoral violence.”

“There were few incidents of electoral violence during the campaign period and on election day, as well as sporadic incidents of voter intimidation. However, different from the 2019 election, we did not have political assassinations,” he added.