Opinion: Freedom day and functional legitimacy - Defence Web

Ricardo Teixeira

Thirty-two years into democracy, African National Congress (ANC) rule finds itself confronting a myriad of problems, some more fundamental than electoral decline. While it may not realise it, the ANC is beginning to lose its functional legitimacy. The first duty of a state is to defend its citizens and its territorial integrity; this is what justifies a government’s authority.

Freedom Day is meant to commemorate political liberation, South Africa’s transition to democracy, and is also the anniversary of the South African National Defence Force’s (SANDF) founding. Occasions such as this should reinforce the image of a capable state with a firm grip on its coercive instruments. Instead, both anniversaries land in a moment where the state’s claim to control, order, and authority is in a precarious position.

Functional legitimacy, as outlined in by Carlo Burelli and Chiara Destri, rests less on historical moral authority and more on performance. Citizens tolerate, even support, the state when it provides security, enforces law, delivers services and maintains order. When it fails, legitimacy shifts from “right” to “might”, and eventually collapses altogether.

South Africa is edging toward that uncomfortable middle ground.

The liberation dividend that sustained the ANC politically for decades has thinned. What replaces it should be competence, but instead for the ANC, it has been systemic corruption. The state’s coercive arms, primarily the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the SANDF, are increasingly overstretched, politicised, and simply ineffective in the face of rising criminality.

The recent suspension of the National Commissioner Fannie Masemola, followed by the appointment of acting head Puleng Dimpane, is not just another bureaucratic reshuffle. It reinforces a pattern of instability at the top of the police service.

Fannie Masemola now joins every one of his predecessors, with the exception of George Fivaz, in being removed before completing a full term. In a policing system already under strain, the constant turnover at the top further has eroded the state’s credibility at the very moment it needs to demonstrate firm control.

Against this backdrop, the government’s increasing reliance on the SANDF for internal deployments is not accidental. It reflects a classic state response when policing fails: escalate to military support to reassert the monopoly on violence.

The Cape Flats deployments are a case in point. Soldiers on the streets signal intent, they are meant to communicate that the state is still present, still capable, still willing to act decisively. But signalling is not the same as effectiveness.

Further, reporting from the ground tells a different story. Despite military presence, shootings and killings have continued, with the death toll rising sharply in areas where soldiers are deployment. Gang activity has not meaningfully receded, and in some instances, criminals appear largely unfazed.

This is the core problem, when the state escalates to military force and still fails to produce security outcomes, it does not reinforce legitimacy, it erodes it.

Even within government-aligned rhetoric, there is an implicit acknowledgement of this tension. Statements by SANDF leadership suggesting that only “criminal elements” will feel harassed by deployments overlook a more complex reality, communities measure success not by intent, but by results. If people are still too afraid to walk the street, or to send their children to school, the state has no credibility.

There is also the structural issue at play, the SANDF was not designed for sustained domestic deployments to assist the police. It lacks the required training, investigative capability, community intelligence networks, and legal framework that underpin effective law enforcement. Its use internally is, by definition, a stopgap.

Meanwhile, the SAPS with its predicted R140 billion budget and inquiry into the corruption within the institution is unevenly trained, and organisationally unstable. The gap between what the state claims to control and what it actually controls is widening.

That gap is dangerous, once citizens begin to perceive that the state cannot guarantee basic safety, alternative forms of authority begin to emerge. Vigilantism, the increasing expansion of private security, and informal power structures all feed off this vacuum.

In that environment, the state’s claim to a monopoly on violence becomes contested, not in theory, but in practice.

All of this unfolds ahead of local government elections that already show signs of fragmentation. Polling suggests no clear dominant outcome, with the ANC’s support base continuing to erode as Helen Zille’s campaign highlights the collapse of Johannesburg under ANC rule. Coalition politics is no longer an exception, but is becoming the norm.

More tellingly, even alliance partners like the South African Communist Party are exercising independence and contesting elections separately. That fractures the very political architecture that once underpinned ANC dominance.

The implication is straightforward. Declining electoral dominance compounds declining functional legitimacy. A government that struggles to deliver services and security while also losing political cohesion finds it harder to project authority.

The ANC-led government now faces a dilemma it cannot easily resolve, deploying the SANDF more aggressively risks normalising military involvement in civilian life without delivering results. Scaling back deployments risks appearing passive in the face of escalating crime, and without any meaningful results. Reforming SAPS requires time, leadership stability, and political will that have been inconsistent.

If the state cannot restore its ability to provide basic security, its authority will continue to erode, regardless of electoral outcomes, and once functional legitimacy is lost, it is nearly impossible to reclaim. The question is no longer whether the state can project power, it is whether it can convert that power into credible, consistent control.

Right now, the answer remains uncertain.

Ricardo Teixeira is a defence analyst and Associate Editor of the Daily Friend

https://defenceweb.co.za/governance/governance-governance/opinion-freedom-day-and-functional-legitimacy/

This article was first published on the Daily Friend.