North West at a Crossroads — From Beacon to Broken: Unity or Fragmentation Will Decide Its Future…

When South Africa embraced democracy in 1994, the North West Province arrived at the new dispensation with more than hope — it arrived with advantages other provinces coveted. Much of this rested on an unusually solid institutional and socio-economic foundation inherited from the Bophuthatswana homeland administration: functioning local structures, relative social cohesion, an enterprising citizenry, and proximity to Gauteng’s economic engine. Batswana communities across the province have long been characterised by patience, resilience and a civic culture that prizes order and collective advancement.

Today the picture is painfully different. The province that once stood second only to Gauteng sociologically now suffers among the worst governance, economic decline and social distress in the country. Roads, clinics, schools and municipal functions have deteriorated. Unemployment, especially among youth, and business flight have hollowed out local economies. Most damaging of all has been the corrosive spread of corruption and political capture that has hollowed public institutions and sapped public trust.

The eruption of anger in 2018 — when residents took to the streets, burning and destroying public property in a despairing response to alleged corruption under then–Premier Supra Mahumapelo — was not an isolated outburst. It was the audible breaking of a long, simmering trust. For many citizens it was proof that patience had limits and that governance failures bear immediate human costs. But protest without an organized, strategic plan for constructive change risks becoming cathartic rather than corrective.

Since those turbulent years, the province has seen an impressive popular energy for change. Citizens have formed civic movements, grassroots organisations and political parties arrayed against the political elite they accuse of looting and misrule. Groups such as Gatvol, Bophuthatswana Civil Movement, Freedom for Democrats, Save Mahikeng and new socio-economic activists speak to the urgency of reform. Their emergence signals that the people of the North West will not be silent. That is a source of hope.

But there is an urgent caveat: fragmentation will not save the province. The multiplication of organisations — each with sincere motives but divergent strategies, leaders, agendas and timelines — has had a predictable effect: it divides scarce civic energy, disperses public attention, complicates negotiation with entrenched power structures, and makes it easier for those who benefit from the status quo to play groups off each other. When civic actors compete for the same constituency or pursue overlapping, sometimes contradictory objectives, the result is a dilution of impact.

What the province needs now is not more organisations acting in parallel but a shared strategy that channels people’s anger into durable institutional change. The stakes could not be higher. North West citizens can choose to continue along a path of fragmented resistance that yields short-term headlines and long-term inertia — or they can build unity without erasing accountability, plurality or healthy internal debate.

Principles for an effective united front

- Common minimum programme: Agree on a core set of non-negotiable objectives (transparency, anti-corruption measures, municipal turnaround plans, basic service delivery, job creation and social protection), while allowing member organisations to retain independent identities and broader agendas.

- Shared leadership structures: Create a representative coordination forum with rotating leadership, joint spokespersons and clear decision-making rules so no single organisation dominates.

- Accountability and transparency: All participating groups should adopt, and publish, codes of conduct, anti-corruption commitments and financial disclosures to maintain moral authority.

- Strategy for elections and governance: Decide collectively whether to contest elections, join coalitions, or focus on community-monitoring and watchdog functions — but do so strategically to avoid vote-splitting.

- Civic education and community mobilisation: Invest in sustained voter education, community assemblies and ward-level structures to translate protest energy into organized, localised change.

- Partnerships with civil society and business: Build alliances with national NGOs, independent media, trade unions and ethical business groups to leverage resources, expertise and national attention.

- Safeguards against co-optation: Establish mechanisms to probe offers from political elites, foreign actors, or business interests; require transparency before entering negotiations.

Concrete tactical suggestions

- Form a single, time-bound Task Team to negotiate a “North West Civic Compact” — a public agreement on immediate priorities and a roadmap for the next 12–24 months.

- Launch joint monitoring of municipal budgets and tender awards, with regular public reports and clear red lines for escalation.

- Coordinate election strategy: where necessary, run consensus candidates or sign electoral pacts to prevent splitting reform-minded votes.

- Use legal tools urgently: pursue forensic audits, support public interest litigation and assist whistleblowers with legal protection.

- Prioritise service delivery “wins”: identify 5–7 quick, visible local projects (water restoration, clinic refurbishments, road fixes) to rebuild community confidence and demonstrate capacity to govern.

- Invest in youth leadership pipelines and mentorship to convert frustration into disciplined activism.

To the people of the North West

You have shown you will no longer be spectators to decline. That is your province’s greatest resource. But passion without coordination risks entrenching the very problems you seek to eradicate. Unity does not mean uniformity. A united civic front can preserve diversity of tactics and opinion while concentrating power where it counts: on shared outcomes, enforceable standards and realistic pathways to governance.

AGT Media Group invites this hard but necessary conversation. Tonight between 18:00 and 22:00, we will host a round table simulcast on Radio Bop Africa and Radio Mmabatho Africa to discuss whether the many organisations that have sprung up in the North West are a sign of strength or the very thing that will keep the province mired in decline. Representatives from Gatvol, Bophuthatswana Civil Movement, Freedom for Democrats, Save Mahikeng and a well-known socioeconomic activist will join us. We aim to move beyond rhetoric to practical commitments, because words without plans do not rebuild hospitals or fix pipes or create jobs.

An appeal

Bring your voices, your evidence, your proposals and your willingness to compromise on tactics in service of objectives. If civic actors can align on a compact that prioritises transparency, service delivery, institutional reform and electoral pragmatism, North West can recover. If we continue to splinter, the province will remain prey to business-as-usual politics.

This is the moment to decide: continue with earnest but scattered agitation, or coalesce into a disciplined, principled force capable of governing and holding power to account. The future of the North West depends on that choice. AGT Media Group will provide the platform tonight — the people must provide the strategy.