Monday, May 16, 2011

Don't spoil MY day by spoiling YOUR ballot! - SA Elections 2011



On Wednesday, May 18th, South Africans will go to the polls in Municipal Elections to determine their councillors and who will run their municipality for the next 5 years. For the majority of the residents in my Ward (Ward 23 of the Ethekwini Municipality), if the voter turn-out in the 2006 elections are anything to go by, it will be just another mid-week public holiday. You get the same excuses:

> My vote does not make a difference
> Why waste my time, all politicians are crooks
> There is no party that I believe in etc etc.

I am not here to criticize your opinion. Or go off on a idealistic soliloquy on how we should embrace our democratic duty because of the many who have sacrificed their lives to afford us this ideal. Or to state the obvious, that there is no such thing as a non-participatory democracy. If you do not vote, then for the next 5 years you should not complain about the lack of service delivery. This is your only opportunity to have a voice in the direction your community is heading in. If you are happy to let others determine that direction for you, then you are entitled to that belief. I love democracy, everybody has a role!

The new 'in-thing' amongst otherwise very sensible people is to vote but to purposely spoil your ballot. It is delusionally believed that this will send a message to the powers that be, that people want to vote but just don't have a viable alternative. I can assure you that all the ruling ward party would see is another unsatisfied voter who chose not to support the opposition. Score! And if voters turn out in large numbers and spoil their ballots, all you could possibly hope to achieve is a voter education program before the next election. Most importantly, do not come to the voting station with the intention of spoiling your ballot, because those queues are long enough without your anonymous pointless rebellion. Just stay home and enjoy the day off from work.

Symbol for the Socialist Green Coalition

I was shocked when I discovered the number of candidates running in my Ward (17 candidates). Why don't they all have posters? How will I chose? Luckily for me 9 of the candidates did not reside in the area so that narrows the list down considerably. To be fair, I was never going to consider voting for the Vryheidsfront Plus or the Afrikaner Christen Alliansie! To narrow the list further, I decided that any party that does not have a poster in the community will also be excluded from my list. The only party that could have a justifiable reason for not having posters is the'Socialist Green Revolution' because there are no state owned printing firms and it would be a waste of paper. I promise you, that had I arrived on election day and saw that name on the ballot sheet, I would have voted for them. Had this occurred then I would have asked a friend to slap me thereafter (because true friends never slap hard at moments like these). I will not go into the details but their website was an eye-opener into the level of naivety/ idiocy I would have helped gather an additional vote. They go the extra mile ( on their merry journey to la-la land in that they not only demand that Eskom supply the country with free electricity but also supply households with the means for renewable electricity production. As much as I want to continue with the sheer stupidity of that statement (which appears on their Manifesto), I will stop.

This is the first time I have taken such an interest in a municipal election and found it to be a very entertaining, yet informative ride. For example. The current ward councillor has defected (or been fired, depending on the source) from the ANC and is now running with the IFP. What is interesting is that both the ANC and IFP are running with the campaign “look what we have done for you over the last 10 years” yet they are both referencing the same work done. In a recent twist, the councilor has now reported the ANC to the Independent Electoral Commission for planning to bus in 450 former shack dwellers who were relocated to homes in Welbedacht so that they may swing the vote in this ward. One cannot help but wonder whether he would have blew the whistle on this if he was still the ANC candidate?

Even the runner up in the last municipal elections, Sokhalingam Pillay is now running as an independent. I am not sure why the Minority Front have chosen to replace him but I would never be able to bring myself to vote for the Minority Front. I don't wish to elaborate on this standpoint only to say that the wig and the returning 2006 election posters points to somebody who is trying to hide something and I am also against 'Leader for Life' Parties, which incidentally is the same reason I would not vote for the 'Truly Alliance'. When the posters first started going up, I was intrigued by this party but more specifically, it's name. 'Truly Alliance'. It just did not sound right. The word 'truly' was just the wrong adjective to use before alliance unless you were trying to emphasise that this alliance is now 'truly' an alliance. Then one day on the way to work, it all made sense. The leader of the party is former Municipal Executive committee member Tony Adams, hence the T A is simply an acronym for his name. It is the only thing that makes sense and for the record, Truth Alliance would have been a much better party name and achieved the same ego mileage for Mr Adam.

As a candidate for councilor the individual that has impressed me the most thus far is independent candidate Ish Praladh. With the exception of a poor picture choice for his election poster, his campaign has been the only real 'campaign'. He has posters everywhere, a catchy slogan (Stop the Rot!) and has been seen regularly campaigning in the area. Whether driving in the back of a bakkie or directing traffic after mosque prayers he seems to be the candidate who wants this job the most and if he can bring the same level of professionalism to his job as ward councillor that he has brought to his campaign then I would be impressed. He is also chairman of the Reservoir Hill's Ratepayers association and appears to have a long history of community upliftment.

I know what most of you are thinking. I am no better than the guy who votes based on the plate of Biryani he just ate and all this electioneering is just 'promises and lies', but one has to believe that tomorrow will be a better day and that there are people out there who will deliver on their promises. Otherwise, what's the point. However, I would like this blog to send out just one clear message.

If you intend spoiling your ballot paper, then please stay at home!


5 comments:

  1. What a great blog. I disagree with you on this issue (I did not vote yesterday because I do not like any of the political parties) but it is so great to see somebody who really cares about South Africa. Also wonderful to see the variety of things you write about. All the advice says you should stick to one genre when blogging, but I would feel stifled. I think you might enjoy some of the writing on my blog, check it out: http://clearlywords.blogspot.com/

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  2. Thanks Clea. Your comment really made my Day and it is clear that you are someone with great taste :).

    It's ok to disagree with me (my wife and I did not see eye to eye on this topic either) because I love a good debate but I have to concede her point. My blog was personal because I found someone whom I really wanted to vote for. I just believe however that you need to at least spend some time checking what your councilors have to offer because if I did not research my options a bit I would have just voted for the sake of voting and would not have enjoyed the experience as much.

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  3. A blog is meant to be a personal space for you to share your thoughts with whomever cares to read. It would therefore be pointless to stick to one genre because who has opinions on only one subject matter. I suppose if you have intentions of getting published or being picked up by a magazine etc then you could stick to one genre but there have been people who write about a variety of topics and then just compile those blogs into a book.

    I did enjoy your blog (you may notice that you have a new follower), especially the piece on "Women in the Mirror" was it.

    Thanks for commenting.

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  4. Thanks. Enjoyed this! Do you know who won our ward : 23?

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  5. Ward 23 was won by the ANC by around 1000 votes. That was a very narrow margin as opposed to previous years but only slightly over 9000 people took the time to vote during this election in our ward. Which means that they either took my advice and stayed home or they chose to not have a say in the future of their community.

    Had the supporters of the independent candidates and the DA (2nd and 3rd respectively) found common ground, things would have been very different but I am just bitter because my candidate did not win :)

    I was thrilled however that the Truly Alliance (159 Votes) and the Minority Front (640 Votes) did so poorly. The Socialist Green Coalition got 6 votes!

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