Writing in the Book of Proverbs millennia ago, King Solomon issued a timeless injunction to the youth: “Make hay while the sun shines…” It is a call to act with urgency, discipline, and foresight when the moment presents itself.

In contemporary South Africa, that moment is now. South Africa is supposedly engaged in a National Dialogue, an essential process first proposed by Former President Thabo Mbeki in his seminal reflection on South Africa at 30 years of democracy.

The Dialogue is not a ceremonial exercise. It is a necessary intervention in response to a sobering reality. Over the past seventeen years, South Africa’s political and socio-economic trajectory has undergone a sustained decline.

This deterioration continues to erode the quality of life of ordinary South Africans, reversing hard-won democratic gains and weakening the transformative potential of the democratic state. To appreciate the scale of the crisis confronting the country, one must briefly return to the foundations of democratic South Africa.

The democratic breakthrough of 1994 was the culmination of a protracted struggle against settler colonialism and apartheid, systems that entrenched political exclusion, economic marginalisation, and spatial injustice on the basis of race and gender.

The defeat of those evil systems marked not only a political victory, but the birth of a new national democratic project grounded in equality, dignity, socioeconomic justice and shared humanity. For millions of South Africans, 1994 represented far more than the right to vote.

It signalled the restoration of hope and the promise of a fundamentally transformed society. Those who had been denied the right to determine their own destinies for centuries understood democracy as a vehicle for significantly improving their political, socio-economic, and spatial conditions. This inherent aspiration is vividly captured by the African National Congress’ (ANC) Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) policy framework, which was adopted at the verge of the 1994 democratic breakthrough.

Accordingly, the RDP states: “The result [of apartheid] is that in every sphere of our society – economic, social, political, moral, cultural, environmental – South Africans are confronted by serious problems. There is not a single sector of South African society, nor a person living in South Africa, untouched by the ravages of apartheid. Whole regions of our country are now suffering as a direct result of the apartheid policies and their collapse.’’

“Millions of ordinary South Africans struggled against this system over decades, to improve their lives, to restore peace, and to bring about a more just society. In their homes, in their places of work, in townships, in classrooms, in clinics and hospitals, on the land, in cultural expression, the people of our country, black, white, women, men, old and young devoted their lives to the cause of a more humane South Africa.’’

The first decisive step in this direction will be the forthcoming one-person, one-vote elections. A victory for democratic forces in these elections will lay the basis for effective reconstruction and development, and the restoration of peace.’

‘’But an election victory is only a first step. No political democracy can survive and flourish if the mass of our people remain in poverty, without land, without tangible prospects for a better life. Attacking poverty and deprivation must therefore be the first priority of a democratic government.”

If, for whatever reasonable doubt, the RDP policy framework was ambiguous, the Preamble of our Constitution is unequivocal is expressing the people’s aspiration:

• “We, the people of South Africa, Recognise the injustices of our past;
• Honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land;
• Respect those who have worked to build and develop our country;
• and Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.

We therefore, through our freely elected representatives, adopt this Constitution as the supreme law of the Republic so as to –

• Heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights;
• Lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law;
• Improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person; and
• Build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations.”

An obvious question to answer is: What has happened to that aspiration in the last 32 years of South Africa’s democratic journey? An important question that the National Dialogue must answer correctly if it is to successfully fulfil its envisaged mandated of producing a meaningful social compact that must respond to a myriad of political and socioeconomic challenges confronting the Republic of South Africa, effectively carving out a better future.

There is a substantial body of both quantitative evidence and qualitative analysis which demonstrates that, in the first decade and a half of democracy, South Africa was making measurable progress towards realising the aspirations articulated in the RDP and the Constitution. This period was characterised not only by improvements in material conditions, but also by a particular configuration of political leadership, institutional coherence, and policy certainty that underpinned economic performance and sustained a sense of national direction.

This assessment is reinforced by comparative analyses which draw a clear distinction between the first and second phases of South Africa’s democratic journey. As observed by Former President Thabo Mbeki, the period from 1994 to around 2008 was marked by steady economic expansion, rising investment, and a consistent improvement in key social indicators.

During this time, reduced political uncertainty, improved business confidence, positive capital flows, lower real interest rates, and stable macroeconomic policies combined to produce what has been described as a virtuous cycle of investment and productivity expansion.

These conditions enabled relatively strong and sustained growth, which in turn created the fiscal and institutional space necessary to expand social programmes, extend basic services, and progressively improve the quality of life of the majority. In this earlier phase, employment creation, while not sufficient to fully absorb the labour force, nonetheless moved in tandem with economic growth in a manner that sustained a degree of social stability.

The expansion of the social wage, alongside improvements in access to housing, electricity, water, healthcare, and education, reflected a state that retained both the capacity and the intent to drive transformation. Importantly, this progress was underpinned by a functioning institutional architecture, within which policy coherence and administrative capability enabled the state to plan and implement at scale. The contrast with the subsequent period is both stark and instructive. As both empirical analysis and historical reflection indicate, the years following 2008 marked a decisive break in this trajectory.

According to the Bureau for Economic Research (BER), economic growth slowed significantly with the period between 2015 and 2019 ranking among the weakest in the country’s recent history, as real GDP growth averaged approximately 1.0 percent. More tellingly, per capita income declined over this period, contracting by 2.7 percent, from approximately R80,191 in 2013 to R78,061 in 2019.

These figures reflect not only a slowdown in aggregate growth, but a tangible deterioration in the economic prospects of ordinary South Africans. What makes this divergence particularly significant is that it cannot be adequately explained by external shocks alone.

The BER notes that global financial crisis of 2008– 2009, while severe, did not fundamentally derail South Africa’s trajectory at the time. Rather, the more decisive inflection point lies in a transformation of the domestic political and institutional environment predicated on the fundamental changes in leadership in the aftermath of the resignation of Thabo Mbeki as President of the Republic of South Africa in 2008.

The conditions that had previously supported investment, growth, and productivity were progressively weakened, giving way to a period characterised by declining confidence, institutional fragility, and policy incoherence.

This deterioration found concrete expression in the weakening of state capability. Key sectors of the economy, particularly those anchored within the state, experienced a marked decline in productivity.

The electricity sector, central to industrial development, became increasingly unstable and inefficient, while the broader public sector expanded in size but declined in effectiveness.

These developments, closely associated with the phenomenon of state capture, eroded governance standards, undermined institutional integrity, and compromised the state’s ability to lead development and coordinate investment. Taken together, these quantitative indicators and qualitative assessments point to a clear and inescapable conclusion.

The divergence between the pre- and post-2008 periods reflects not merely a shift in economic conditions, but a deeper transformation in the political economy of South Africa.

The earlier period of relative progress was underpinned by a positive alignment between political leadership, institutional capacity, and policy coherence. The subsequent regression reflects a breakdown in that alignment, with profound consequences for both economic performance and social outcomes.

If the comparative analysis between the two phases of South Africa’s democratic journey establishes anything with clarity, it is this: the crisis confronting young people today is not accidental. It is the lived consequence of a political and economic trajectory that has, over time, drifted away from the conditions that once enabled progress.

Nowhere is this more visible than in the condition of the youth.

Today, South Africa’s youth stand at the epicentre of a deepening socio-economic crisis. The quantitative evidence is both sobering and indicting. Youth unemployment has reached crisis proportions, with rates hovering between 57 percent and 62 percent among those aged 15 to 24 years in recent periods.

Even when broadened to include those aged 15 to 34 years, Statistics of South Africa (StatsSA) indicates that unemployment remains alarmingly high at around 46 percent, reflecting a decade-long deterioration in youth economic prospects. Behind these percentages lies a more troubling reality. Approximately 5.8 million young people are unemployed, while millions more have become discouraged work[1]seekers, effectively locked out of the economy altogether.

 Approximately 3.5 million of young people are not in employment, education, or training, signalling not only a labour market failure but a systemic breakdown in the transition from education to economic participation. This economic marginalisation is accompanied by broader social distress. High levels of unemployment and exclusion are closely correlated with rising levels of social instability, crime, and diminished life chances.

 While the democratic promise was to “improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person,” for millions of young South Africans, that promise remains a dream deferred.

It is precisely here that the distinction between the two phases of democracy becomes most tangible. The earlier period, despite its limitations, expanded opportunity, extended services, and created a sense of forward momentum.

The latter period, by contrast, has narrowed opportunity, weakened institutions, and produced conditions of stagnation that weigh heaviest on the youth. The question, therefore, is no longer abstract, it is immediate and generational.

What future is being constructed for the youth of South Africa, and who is shaping it?

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Kefentse Mkhari Power 98.7 Broadcaster and Socioeconomic Justice Activist