As we cast our votes, or withhold them, this week it may be worth interrogating what exactly current and prospective political office bearers really want from us.

We are meant to believe that we want something from them, hence we vote for them, but there has been no such thing as a free meal around these parts for a long time. Politicians all come for something, and as a famous political voice exclaimed a few years ago: "I did not join the struggle to be poor!"

In fact, politicians have made their agendas clear to us in so many ways it seems almost unfathomable to believe the sweet nothings they whisper.

Power remains one of the most visible and yet elusive components of social organisation. What does it really mean to have power and what does it actually have to do with anyone?

Many of us were raised with discipline, which was often modelled on a punishment and reward system. Potentially different configurations of discipline all served to teach us that every action has a reaction or consequence - a Newtonian law differently framed.

However, what we were not taught is how and through whom these consequences come to be.

Placated by "the way it is" philosophies, we become socialised to commit real experiences and encounters to mythology, which warrants no questioning. This, in essence, is power - the invisible hand that determines the course of our lives and the limits of our existence.

These are the crown jewels leaders and liberators are after when making grand promises of welfare and prosperity, knowing very well it occupies the least of their concerns.

This is why no matter how stellar a sitting president and their government performs; opposition parties will always be clambering over each other to unseat them.

Nobody wants the opportunity to serve, they want the opportunity to rule not only over others' lives, but also their own. In an unequal world, political domination remains the ultimate protection.

The hunger for power governs political aspiration in a system that is inherently self-serving and fuelled by ego. Ego does not serve, and scoffs at the idea of diffused humanity.

Politics is an inherently hierarchical structure and, through that service, can never sustain itself as an ideal because it will always be the responsibility of those lower down on the ladder.

This constellation of power has revealed itself within the rhetorical repertoire of South African politicians. Why do masses of people need to be governed by a small group? What does it actually serve?

Presidents are referred to as the first citizen, which normalises not only a hierarchy of citizenship but also of humanity.

In SA, it seems disingenuous to charge political structures with catalysing equality and transformation when they are modelled after structures that promote inequality. This is not a call to divest interest from our country's politics. Such a young democracy deserves the full attention of its citizens.

As we cast our votes tomorrow, reflecting on the unspoken words lodged in political mouths may bring us more clarity than the cold comfort of rehearsed manifestos and mud-slinging slogans. We know more than we think we do.

*Khan is a PhD Critical Diversity Studies Candidate