Will participatory local government structures help deepen democracy in
South Africa? That is the proclaimed purpose of the ward committee system, the centre-
piece of post-apartheid local government reform, intended to facilitate deliberative
democratic decision making. Drawing on a case study of the Msunduzi municipality, it
is argued here that ward committees, as yet barely functional seven years since first
being established, have from the outset been caught up in relations of dependency with
ward councillors, political parties and the municipality itself, and that these relations
threaten to undermine the democratic dividends that the committees are expected to
yield.