This is increasingly so in the black middle class, most of whom voted unquestioningly for the ANC in the past. After 1994, South Africans, especially the black middle class, wanted to be able to live as normal citizens rather than as strictly political beings. They rightly wanted to pursue their career growth and explore business opportunities to catch up economically. They also wanted to be able to fully express themselves as consumers, which is important for expressing economic choice and enhancing self-esteem.

The role of political activism and change was in effect delegated to the ANC. For most of them, it was unthinkable that the ANC of Pixley Seme, Albert Luthuli, Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela would succumb to what Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe and Planning Minister Trevor Manuel characterise as the seduction of power in a recent book, Conversations in Transition, by Charles Villa-Vicencio and Mills Soko, and which breeds corrupt behaviour.

For most black voters, the ANC was run by a corruption-proof and pious committee of priests; had a deep well of international goodwill; and was the sole custodian of progressive ideas to build a better South Africa. Any other party was a chance-taker and the main opposition party was representative of the interests of those yearning for the old South Africa. This was all a false image.

The disappointment with the ANC’s governance failures today runs so deep that many in the black middle class threaten to stay away from the polls in 2014. Instead of challenging ourselves to explore how it feels to vote differently, the response generally is that there is no alternative and it is better not to vote. Even Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu fell for this emotional weakness and threatened not to vote again.

The ANC, on the other hand, continues to believe that its hold on power is unassailable and is convinced that the black majority will always vote for it no matter what. In its reasoning, the black voters are its captive political market and owe it an eternal debt for liberating them from apartheid.

To further entrench its psychological hold, the ANC stigmatises anyone who professes sympathies for the opposition parties — be it the Congress of the People or the Democratic Alliance (DA) — as betraying the revolution. It is as if a black person has no individual conscience and is not allowed to stand critically opposed to the ANC. Voting for a different party is castigated as a sin worse than infidelity.

Further, the ANC uses race to frame the DA as a party that would take the country back to the past and undo all the equity policies that underpin our political order. In this way, the ANC presents itself as the only hope for the black majority.

But it should be open identification with the ANC that elicits a sense of shame, as the party has dishonoured its history and undermined the nobility of its cause. Many black people should dissociate themselves from the character of its leadership and misrepresentation of their aspirations. This should spawn another "not in my name" movement.

There are many people in South Africa who have never experienced shifting their allegiances. In healthier democracies, individuals can be a member of one party but vote for a another party. This is an expression of citizens reclaiming their power as individuals — exercising choice unencumbered by an eternal commitment to a party. Changing allegiances does not require permission from anyone, including the ruling party.

Moreover, changing voting allegiances would also mean that, as citizens, we are more aware of the inherent limits of political parties. One of the powerful ways to curtail their arrogance and their leaders is to make their stay in office as uncertain as possible. In this way, they will understand that they govern on borrowed power and that the citizens are the source of their legitimacy.

Failure to vote does not advance democracy. Instead, it is disempowering. Arguing that there is no alternative is not entirely honest since no party other than the ANC has been given an opportunity to govern the country since apartheid. One thing that should preoccupy us more than the false notion of a lack of an alternative is that of enhancing the possibilities for an alternative government — before the ANC drags society along to the world of the dead.

This article appeared in the Business Day of 12 October 2012