Now is the time to ask: what have you done for me lately?

It is at the local level where we may measure the successes and failures of governance in material terms. Local government elections are precisely a time to be honest – never mind the revolutionaries, the gradualists or the free marketers. Now is the time to ask: what have you done for me lately, and can I trust you to do better the next time around?

It’s official. The country will go to the polls on 1 November to vote in 2021’s local government elections.

Voters should be clear about their choices when they head to the polls. Some politicians may say, “We liberated you”, but you have every right to ask: what have you done for me lately?

Others may bang on about taking back the land, or White Monopoly Capital, but the voter has every right to ask: what have you done for me lately?

Yet another group may point to their clean linen, but the voters may ask: what have you done for me lately?

The point here is that municipal elections are where the rubber hits the road. It is about where and how you live. It is about whether you have running water or a reliable supply of electricity and a functioning sewerage system. It is about whether your streets are cleaned, and whether rubbish is collected regularly. It is about the availability of libraries, functioning traffic lights, local healthcare facilities and, perhaps most importantly, about community safety.

Sure, some of these public goods and services are heavily dependent on national departments, but it is at the local level where distribution happens. Local government is where elected officials are meant to get things done.

South Africa is a terribly fractious country. If there is a pothole or a dysfunctional sewer in Okiep, President Cyril Ramaphosa is blamed. If there is a shortage of housing, and people in the precariat scavenge for food, push wobbly trolleys filled with what some consider to be junk, White Monopoly Capital or “white privilege” is blamed. If the streets are cleaned in Fresnaye, it is said the Democratic Alliance looks after its own.

There may be a sliver of truth in some of those claims, but Ramaphosa does not micromanage the country, Julius Malema and Kenneth Meshoe may not even have representatives in Okiep or Kakamas.

For most of the past 30 years, inequality has spun out of control. Between the East Asian Crisis of 1997, and the global crisis of 2008, the world has been turned upside down.

Altogether, we may feel like the world is running away from us and we are no longer in control, but at the local level citizens still have a say. This makes it important for local communities to vote for their most urgent daily needs and requirements to live a full life and build prosperous and stable communities with high levels of trust among citizens.

Let’s be honest, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, Karl Marx, Thomas Sankara or Frantz Fanon are not going to build or improve a new police station in Khayelitsha or Soshanguve. Forget the legends of the past.

This is not a paean for pragmatism or draining the blood from ideology, it is the time to ask politicians: what have you done for me lately? The provision of local public goods and services traverses ideological boundaries. The electorate cannot be withheld from intellectual trespassing.

With this year’s local elections there is a grand opportunity to take a hard and intellectually honest look at politicians. Look at what they have achieved in their current or previous positions and determine whether they can do better or work harder.

Local governance is also about courage. How do you secure public transport when there are taxi organisations running around in a lawless world of their own, commuters are held to ransom while trains or buses are set alight, and train stations are in a state of decay or they have been completely stripped?

Again, some of these may fall within the purview of national departments, but local governments and locally elected officials are responsible, in the main, for the provision and maintenance of public goods.

Malema, Ramaphosa or Meshoe (among others) are not directly responsible for potholes, or trains that don’t run on time. Of course, Ramaphosa’s central government is responsible for the disbursement of funds, but it is up to locally elected officials to gain access to those funds and spend them wisely.

Time will come, in three years from now, when voters have to elect national office bearers. For now, however, the local government elections have to be a trial run. Voters have to send a message to the people who govern.

Voters also have to play their part. Citizens should not wait around for the government to come and solve all their local or community problems.

The government may provide schools, but parents must ensure their children attend school. The government can print textbooks, but parents have to ensure those books get to the children.

If we cannot prevent 10- and 12-year-old girls from unwanted pregnancies – things for which Malema, Ramaphosa or Meshoe cannot directly be held responsible – the citizens have to look at themselves.

Children emulate their parents or teachers (adults) who, in turn, emulate prelates and politicians. So elect politicians who set examples of moral and ethical respectability.

It is at the local community level where people build communities. The electorate has to do its part.

The informal settlements along the N2 between Somerset West and Cape Town are a heart-wrenching sight. This is not a time for blaming people for the shacks they have built, but we cannot ignore the new houses that have been built in places along that highway.

We also cannot ignore that the people who are caged, in a manner of speaking, behind concrete fences break through and play with death when they try to cross the N2, or when children play ball games along that stretch of highway. All of that represents the successes and failures of governance.

For this reason, the local elections serve as a time to be honest. Now is the time to ask: what have you done for me lately, and can I trust you to do better the next time around?