The Local Government Elections coming up on November 4th – we shouldn't just see them as a regular democratic ritual, standing all by themselves. Think of them more like a political thermometer, really, giving us a reading on class consciousness here in Occupied Azania, especially among our working class and young people. Elections, when we're talking about bourgeois democracy, aren't the whole point of our struggle. They're just one part of the battlefield. The ruling class uses them every so often to try and look legitimate, while the oppressed masses, now and then, show us whether they approve, are frustrated, or just checked out entirely. As Marx and Engels warned us, way back in The Communist Manifesto:
“The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie.”
So, getting involved in elections isn't, and can't be, the whole picture of political engagement. It's just one tactical moment, at best, within a much bigger, strategic struggle for power. That's the perspective we need to bring to November 4th.
Voting as a Measure of Consciousness, Not an End in Itself
The big mistake in liberal political thinking is raising voting up so high, making it seem like a replacement for class struggle itself. But really, our participation in elections, even if it's a bit distorted, just shows us how well organized, how clear in their ideas, and how confident in their material situation the working class truly is. Lenin made this incredibly clear in State and Revolution, saying:
“The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in parliament.”
That statement really cuts through any illusions, doesn't it? Voting doesn't make class power disappear; it just records it. So for us, as revolutionaries, the ballot isn't some sacred thing. It's more like a diagnostic tool. It helps us figure out if the working class is moving towards expressing itself politically on its own terms, or if it's still stuck inside those bourgeois ideas. Trotsky, in the Transitional Programme, built on this method, writing that “The task consists in helping the masses in the process of the daily struggle to find the bridge between present demands and the socialist programme of the revolution.” These elections are just one piece of that “daily struggle,” not the grand finale.
The Temporal Politics of November and Global Capitalist Synchronisation
The fact that these LGEs are happening in November should make us think, politically speaking, rather than jump to conspiracy theories. November is a pretty big month in bourgeois election cycles globally, especially with the US midterm elections. Now, it's too simple, and frankly, analytically weak, to just say this timing is some deliberate coordination. But it's still crucial to see that bourgeois democracies everywhere move to interconnected global rhythms, rhythms shaped by finance capital, by donor networks, and by imperial political calendars. Frantz Fanon, in The Wretched of the Earth, gave us this warning:
“Colonialism is not a machine capable of thinking, a body endowed with reason. It is naked violence.”
Today, that violence often comes to us through financial flows, the influence of donors, credit rating agencies, and these vast transnational capital networks, instead of the old direct colonial administration. So, the real question isn't about whether some single person “chooses” election timing to line up with outside powers. It's more about how deeply post-colonial states are structurally dependent on these global capitalist cycles. Chris Hani reminded us quite clearly: “A people without land, without control of their economy, are not truly free.” Political sovereignty, without economic sovereignty, always feels incomplete.
On Bourgeois Democracy, Funding Networks, and Structural Influence
In these liberal democracies, political competition is hardly ever neutral. It's always filtered through capital, through who funds campaigns, who owns all the media, and who decides what's even considered acceptable policy to talk about. Marx's look at the Paris Commune still teaches us a lot. He said the Commune “was to serve as a lever for uprooting the economic foundations upon which the existence of classes rests.” This was from The Civil War in France. That fear of such a fundamental change, of things being uprooted, is exactly why bourgeois democratic systems build such complex ways to keep things contained: through funding networks, by gatekeeping policy, and with ideological production. It's in this light that we really need to grasp the role of these big domestic and international capital networks. Don't see them as all-powerful conspirators, but rather as structural forces, actively shaping the very ground where electoral politics plays out. The aim here isn't to point fingers or blame individuals. It's about class analysis, plain and simple.
Why Revolutionary Youth Must Engage the Electoral Terrain
For the working class, the most dangerous place to be isn't choosing to participate or choosing to abstain. It's simply being politically passive. Steve Biko, in I Write What I Like, famously warned us:
“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
If we abstain from political processes, we're not actually weakening bourgeois democracy. What we are doing is weakening the working class's own ability to gauge, challenge, and then reshape political consciousness from inside that system. This is precisely why revolutionaries shouldn't just abandon electoral spaces. Instead, we need to go into them strategically. Our engagement has to involve a few things: getting our youth and the working class registered on the voters' roll; consciously participating as a way to really check our class awareness; organizing communities around political education and getting people mobilized; and fundamentally, turning these electoral spaces into platforms for agitation, not just places for illusions. Just remember, though, participation should never be confused with resolution. As Lenin wisely cautioned in What Is to Be Done?:
“Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.”
Beyond Elections: Towards Dual Power and Working-Class Organisation
The biggest question we face isn't about winning elections. It's about building counter-power. Trotsky, thinking about revolutionary breakthroughs in Lessons of October, wrote that:
“The most difficult task is not the seizure of power, but the preparation for it.”
Elections might show us the mood of the masses, yes, but they don't take away the need to build real working-class power. I mean structures that are deeply rooted in our communities, in workplaces, on campuses, and even in our informal economies. The Paris Commune, historically, is still our clearest example here. Marx noted that “The working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes.” That insight is crucial, absolutely. It tells us that even if revolutionary forces somehow gain real traction in elections, the state itself has to be transformed. We can't just inherit it as is.
Conclusion: The November Threshold
Look, the November 4th LGEs? We should see them as a threshold, a moment where things might shift, not as the final destination itself. They will tell us something pretty important: about the current level of political consciousness among ordinary people, about how strong our working-class organizations really are, and just how deeply disillusioned everyone is with bourgeois democracy. But one thing they won't do is resolve the core contradiction we face in Occupied Azania: how we can have political liberation while still living with economic dispossession. As Marx reminded us, “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please.” So, the job for revolutionaries is really two-fold: we need to participate in the political landscape right now, but without any illusions, and at the same time, we need to get organized beyond it, without delay. The ballot might show us where consciousness stands. But it's only through organized struggle that we truly transform it.
No comments:
Post a Comment