It is a golden rule of democratic politics that when the cost of living rises dramatically, the party in power will come under pressure and often end up paying the price.
Some historians like to point out that the French Revolution of 1789 was: partially occurred In response to rising bread prices. (…and the lack of cake – Ed)
More recent history shows the impact that rising costs of living and associated declines in living standards have on democracies.
Read more at Daily Maverick: 2024 Election
In the years following the global financial crisis starting in 2008, many European voters were attracted to populism.
The fact that in the United States many people fear that their children's lives will be worse than their own; Life expectancy for white men declines for the first time outside of warwhich almost certainly helped elect Donald Trump as president in 2016.
Brazil, perhaps the country most similar to us in terms of structure and inequality, experienced a similar situation.a very Populist Jair Bolsanaro was elected president after a period of economic hardship.
(Interestingly, the hugely popular former president, who served two terms, made a historic return to politics. be elected president again. )
In South Africa, the effects of rising costs of living in the short term are severe.
First came the pandemic, then Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
As a result, by next year, 49% of South Africans will I go to bed hungry or suffer from severe food insecurity.
Alarmingly, the proportion of children whose growth is stunted because they have too little food has increased dramatically. Approximately 7 million children are growing up in households below the food poverty line.
That's 7 million children.
in our country.
All this shows how powerful the political message from Umkhonto we Sizwe is. Life under Zuma was better than under Ramaphosa.
muted response
But strangely, there has been no impactful response to this from most political parties.
In these days of madness, it would be reasonable to expect that most political actors will make some significant move toward populism in one form or another, and indeed compete with each other in making the most radical promises.
However, there appears to be no appetite among those actually making the decisions to substantively address the issue of cost of living. In fact, strangely enough, things are moving almost in the opposite direction.
Instead of promising to ease monetary policy, The National Treasury also has its doubts out loud. Whether the South Wales Reserve Bank's inflation target should be lowered. This will require keeping interest rates high for a longer period of time.
Amazingly, this is being considered months before a very difficult election.
Furthermore, there is no demand from the political center for a real increase in the huge basic income subsidy or other social subsidies.
Of course, it is true that the Social Distress Relief Grant was recently changed from R350 to R370 per month, but this also does not replace the losses due to inflation since it was first created four years ago.
Almost the only movement from what could be called the political center on this issue has come, oddly enough, from Action SA. The party, led by the former chairman of the Free Market Foundation, has promised a BIG of R780 per month, which will increase over time.
All of this seems to leave the radical playing field in the hands of other parties, the largest of which is of course the EFF.
If elected president, he has promised to simply double social subsidies.
And while it is possible that the EFF will increase its vote share in this election, it is not yet certain.
If the EFF fails to win significantly more votes, and parties that do not promise significant increases continue to have a majority, the debate over whether receiving social grants influences voting behavior will die down completely. there's a possibility that.
The fact that the opposition appears to have largely ignored the cost of living crisis seems to go against all democratic norms.
However, there may be an important reason for this.
The first is that it is difficult to find practical solutions to a series of crises. Improving people's lives will require a comprehensive set of interventions, many of which will be opposed by many vested interests.
There is an important reason our economy remains concentratedAnd why were so many able to take advantage of the system for their children to succeed, while so many others were left behind?
Finding solutions to these problems is difficult and probably beyond the ability of many of the people who manage our political parties (this is not a comment on the leadership of our political parties, but rather an explanation of our problems). This is a comment about depth).
This makes it difficult for any political party to promise solutions that appeal to diverse populations.
Again, the fact that the EFF is so radical proves this. The EFF is able to support its ideology precisely because the EFF is not chasing the votes of a diverse group, but a much narrower range of votes.
Second, voters are likely to be familiar with the very nature of our society. They know that it is difficult to solve their problems quickly.
Adversarial tactics preferred
As a result, they can be very wary of trusting certain companies that offer a set of blockbuster solutions.
This may explain the cries of so many people around the braais and dinner tables that they don't know who to vote for because they “can't trust anyone.”
This means that it is much easier for the parties to focus on other issues.
They may believe that scaring voters into voting for them is a better use of airtime and resources than finding their own positive economic message.
Again, like any other democracy, there is nothing special about this. Many political parties in many places seem to spend a lot of time attacking their opponents rather than focusing on their own positive messages.
This may be what made Barack Obama's “Yes We Can” slogan so unusual and powerful. It was an intentionally positive message that didn't focus on the other person (which also contrasts sharply with the current situation in the US, where Trump and Biden are at odds), basically telling voters to stop the other person. (We tell them that we are the only ones who can be affected.)
Unfortunately, unless something unexpected and dramatic happens in this election or in future polls, there will be little political incentive for parties to change course. Positive economic messages don't get votes.
Therefore, despite the incredible hardships people are experiencing, the cost of living is likely to remain fairly low on the campaign agenda. DM