Ideology Matters in Politics and Who Governs Your City

Policians who claim to be ideologically neutral are dangerous because they are lying or because they know their ideologies are too harmful to say out loud.

Let’s bust a few myths ahead of the Local Government elections:

MYTH 1 – IDEOLOGY DOESNT MATTER IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

TRUTH- GOVERNANCE IS SHAPED BY IDEOLOGY

MYTH 2 – IDEOLOGY GETS IN THE WAY OF SERVICE DELIVERY

TRUTH – IDEOLOGY DETERMINES WHO GETS SERVICES AND HOW

MYTH 3 – EXPERINCE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN IDEOLOGY

TRUTH – GOOD EXPERIENCE CAN BE GAINED FASTER THAN BAD IDEOLOGY CAN BE CHANGED

EXAMPLE – THOMAS SANKARA

Let me introduce you to Thomas Sankara. At age 33 Sankara became prime Minister and then president of Burkina Faso. He was a clear socialist and immediately started delivering schools, economic transformation and Healthcare to his country.

He believed that it was his socialist values that emphasized “changing the material conditions” that would bring change and when he go power he delivered.

Sankara said:
“Our revolution is not a public-speaking tournament. Our revolution is not a battle of fine phrases. Our revolution is not simply for spouting slogans that are no more than signals used by manipulators trying to use them as catchwords, as codewords, as a foil for their own display. Our revolution is, and should continue to be, the collective effort of revolutionaries to transform reality, to improve the concrete situation of the masses of our country.”

Promises to Depoliticise Governance & The Myth of the Business Saviour in Politics

Ideology is Directly Linked to Service Delivery

Thomas Sankara‘s socialist politics was delivering until he was killed for those ideas. He was killed by people who did not agree with his ideas because they did not like that those ideas where liberating and empowering Black people through service delivery.

In the local government elections, do not be fooled, ideology matters. It matters even for the people who claim that they have no ideology or that we should ignore their ideology.