PRETORIA, Gauteng — South Africa’s democracy is currently “on life support, if not dead already,” according to Dr Pali Lehohla, who argues that a catastrophic failure to utilize data and address severe unemployment has betrayed the nation’s constitutional promises. Speaking as the keynote speaker at the Electoral Commission’s Thought Leadership Seminar, the Pan African Institute for Evidence director highlighted how poor evidence-based governance is directly driving voter apathy, particularly among the youth.
The Labour Disappearance Index and Democratic Collapse
Addressing the seminar’s focus on rising unemployment and its impact on voting patterns, Dr Lehohla referenced Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) findings showing a growing refusal among citizens to visit the polls. To illustrate the depth of the crisis, he presented a longitudinal meta-data analysis drawing on four national censuses conducted since 1996, alongside the Quarterly Labour Force Survey.
Highlighting data from the December-ending quarter, Dr Lehohla pointed out a critical demographic tipping point: 16.9 million people were employed, while 16.7 million were not economically active. Utilizing a robust local methodological innovation, he introduced the “labour disappearance index.”
“People have not disappeared; they have become invisible because they do not work,” Dr Lehohla explained. He demonstrated a direct, accelerating correlation between areas with high labour disappearance and the collapse of local democratic participation since 1994.
Rejecting Political Quick-Fixes
When pressed on strategies to reverse these trends, Dr Lehohla flatly refused to provide politicians with an “easy way out.” He criticized political leaders for having a “cavalier” understanding of the crisis, arguing that rushing to solutions without first identifying the root causes and seeking atonement only guarantees further mismanagement.
Reiterating his controversial stance from both 2019 and 2024, he suggested that elections should have been postponed to properly address these foundational issues. He questioned the logic of citizens voting for politicians who campaign over broken sewers, asking, “How do you go and vote for the sewer standing below it?”
Instead of top-down political fixes, Dr Lehohla called for a radical decentralization of data. He urged that census findings be digested to the village level—citing areas like Bali—so that communities can analyze their own realities in churches and schools. “South Africans are just too lazy to think, and I am not going to be part of that,” he stated, insisting that citizens must use the data to craft their own political manifestos.
Monopoly Capital and the Economic “Siphon”
Delving into the economic drivers of the crisis, Dr Lehohla described South Africa as a R21 trillion economy that is artificially constrained to operate at only R7 trillion. He blamed “monopoly capital” and extreme financialization, explaining that monopolies intentionally operate at the precise point where marginal cost equals marginal revenue. This strategy allows them to avoid the risks associated with expanding operations and creating jobs.
He pointed out a glaring global anomaly: while South Africa boasts one of the 18 largest stock exchanges in the world, none of those peer nations suffer from such extreme levels of unemployment, poverty, and inequality.
Dr Lehohla described this disparity as the result of a massive economic “siphon.” He noted that the top 10% of income earners control 65% of the country’s resources. Illustrating this extreme wealth extraction, he observed that money entering Alexandra is siphoned to Sandton within two hours.
This extraction, he argued, drains wealth from rural and working-class areas. “The 14 trillion has gone… it gets funnelled from Qutubeni in the Eastern Cape and through the mining towns,” he said, noting that mining communities in South Africa live in conditions unseen in other developed nations. The wealth is aggregated at corporate head offices and sent offshore.
Global Policy Shifts and Privatization Warnings
Dr Lehohla also criticized international and domestic economic frameworks. He pointed out that the World Bank recently admitted its past criticisms of China’s industrial policies were incorrect, acknowledging that Asian tigers succeeded through those very policies. Similarly, the IMF has acknowledged that its historical lending processes harmed developing nations. Domestically, he questioned the fragmented economic leadership, describing the coordination between the Reserve Bank, Treasury, and industry as an “amorphous group.”
Turning to local government, he issued a stark warning against the creeping privatization of municipal services. He criticized the division of Eskom and the push for private sector involvement in service distribution, arguing that this transforms essential public services into profit-making ventures. While the Auditor-General has heavily criticized municipalities, Dr Lehohla argued they were “destined to fail” under the current macroeconomic policies.
Concluding his address, Dr Lehohla stated that the only true solution is to “weld the economy in the regions where value is produced,” rather than allowing corporate structures to continuously extract regional wealth.
