Just whose dialogue is it? South Africa’s ‘citizen-led’ convention fails its own test

President Cyril Ramaphosa opened the National Dialogue at Unisa this past weekend with the promise that it belongs to “all South Africans”, asserting that “no voice is too small and no perspective too inconvenient to be heard”. The convention, held under the banner “Uniting Voices, Shaping the Nation,” brought together more than 1000 delegates from about 200 organisations.

But beneath this

While the idea of a nationwide dialogue is commendable — especially given the deep crises South Africa faces — the launch at Unisa revealed a disconnect between the democratic ideals being invoked and the opaque mechanisms underpinning the process. The official government narrative positions this initiative as people-led and inclusive, one that will build a new social compact from ward to nation. But the reality on the ground points to a dialogue engineered

From the onset, the process has been coordinated

One cannot call a process people-centred while

Much of the framing mimics the rhetoric of grassroots mobilisation, with the dialogue promising thousands of ward-level conversations and submissions through a digital app. But the digital divide in South Africa is real and stark — more than 14 million South Africans remain without reliable internet. And with nearly half of unemployed people lacking a matric, what assurances exist that their voices will shape the dialogue beyond checkbox inclusion?

Despite a price tag of R450 million, there has been little communication on how public funds will be used to support actual citizen engagement. Will township forums be re

The dialogue takes place in a fractured political moment. The ANC’s electoral support collapsed to 40% in 2024, signalling a decisive public break with liberation-era politics. But instead of confronting this turning point head-on, the dialogue’s first phase seems to recycle the very political logic South Africans are rejecting — one where elites convene, speak on behalf of others, and leave with a report that rarely reflects community experience.

What many participants and observers have noted — both in breakaway sessions and in reflections since — is that the dialogue risks becoming a eulogy to a dying era rather than a blueprint for renewal. Political parties have already begun to retreat from the process. The Democratic Alliance’s withdrawal and civic body Solidarity’s accusation that the ANC is “hijacking” the platform only deepen the scepticism around whether this process can transcend partisan interests.

If this is truly a moment for a national reset, then the dialogue must demonstrate it is capable of redistributing power, not only opinion. That means embracing independent community facilitation, co-creating metrics for inclusion, publishing detailed minutes of all sessions and allowing citizens — not technocrats — to define what matters. The old frameworks of centralised planning, symbolic inclusion and post-hoc validation cannot fix a democracy that is haemorrhaging trust.

This convention should have begun with a presentation on the methodology used to select voices in the room, the feedback loops planned for tracking citizen input and the criteria for inclusion at every level of the process. Instead, we got speeches about shared futures from the same actors who dominated the past. Even the public-facing narrative implies the dialogue will culminate in another “people’s compact”, but there is little detail on how it will be validated

If speech without substance is just noise, then consultation without transparency is political theatre. South Africa deserves better. The dialogue can still live up to its potential — but only if it turns away from state-orchestrated mobilisation and toward genuine democratic renewal.

Otherwise, the phrase “citizen-led” becomes just another slogan. And we’ve heard enough of those.

To avoid this, the next phase must reframe how legitimacy is built — from process to participation. Rather than defending the structures already put in place, the government must now invite an independent, community-led audit of the convention’s first phase. Facilitators for future sessions should be chosen from grassroots civic organisations with no ties to the state. Each provincial leg of the dialogue must publish weekly updates on whose voices are being included, how inputs are being tracked and what’s being left behind. This is the only way to demonstrate that this is not another elite negotiation exercise in disguise, but a sincere attempt to devolve democratic power to the very citizens whose future is at stake. Anything less, and we will have squandered an opportunity under the banner of progress.

Dr Lesedi Senamele Matlala is a governance scholar and lecturer at the School of Public Management Governance and Public Policy, University of Johannesburg, focusing on public policy, citizen engagement and evaluation.