AS my two friends and I were driving over Mandela Bridge, the friend driving turns to me and asks, “So are we voting?”
That’s a question that should typically get a yes or no answer but if you’re South African and have been watching our political landscape as we advance to the elections, it isn’t.
In my teens, aligning myself with a political party was simple. South Africa was fresh into a democracy and the ruling party had perfectly positioned itself as the ideal party – the liberator, “ukhongolose”.
The ANC has easily positioned itself as the people’s choice and for the longest time I had my undivided faith in them but names like Andries Tatane, Mido Macia, Anene Booysen, Michael Komape, Channélle Henning and many other ordinary South Africans whose stories never make headlines, have been failed by the government.
As much as I’m fully aware of how far we’ve come (being a beneficiary of the new political dispensation of our country), there are many people who can’t help but look the other way when asked about whether they’ll be taking to the polls.
The DA/Agang debacle has certainly added more confusion than clarity for voters, who like me, were looking to find a concrete alternative to the ANC. Who, with the birth of a new party, hoped that change would finally be making its way onto the political landscape of this country.
A friend had expressed how excited she was that struggle icon Dr Mamphele Ramphele had formed Agang and that she would be considering casting her vote for this newly formed party, that is, before the Kardashian-like marriage between Agang and the DA.
I believe she may have been feeling the same way COPE supporters felt when Lekota and Shilowa contested the leadership position in an ugly public spat. Agang presented South Africans with something new – a party that wasn’t steeped in our country’s ugly history.
It was a party born out of the democratic landscape that gave voters hope that may not at all be lost.
Unlike COPE, Agang wasn’t a breakaway party that was born out of disgruntlement rather than the pursuit of serving all South Africans and working towards the non-racial society that the country was once working towards. Unlike ANC, DA, COPE and even the EFF, Mamphele didn’t bring any baggage but now this has all changed.
The Democratic Alliance has never been a political party I could relate to. To me change does not immediately translate to antithesis, which for me is what the DA is. This party seems to always be reactive and be anti-ANC (this is obviously a very simplified view of the party and its policies) and the history of where the party comes from makes me even more wary of it.
Although I’m almost certain that Zille has no intentions of re-instating Apartheid before the ANC has fully moved out of parliament should the party win majority seats, I look at the Western Cape and know that I won’t be voting DA anytime soon.
When my friend jokingly said to our Agang supporter that we’d be casting our votes for Malema’s EFF, she immediately protested. It was as if the EFF was hardly worth considering and although Malema is erratic, unpredictable and unashamedly outspoken, the relevance of the EFF in the political landscape, and even possibly in parliament, is something worth considering.
Our dear ruling party has slipped into complacency and has taken for granted the majority of South Africans who still, like me, would rather have their liberator and no one else in power. This means that perhaps the EFF should be given an opportunity to be the proverbial Freedom Charter chanting thorn in the ANC’s side.
Although there’s a myriad of political parties that voters can choose from, very few have made an effort to really grab the attention of voters and so the more prominent parties, namely the ANC, DA, COPE and more recently EFF, will see voters possibly make a choice between them.
After our final registration weekend, I think it’s important that all South Africans scrutinise, discuss, question and debate the list of parties vying for our “X” – perhaps without noticing it, this may be the most crucial election we as a country have seen.
And so to respond to my friend’s question, I said to him: “Yes ,we will vote. If for no other reason, cast your ballot knowing that your grandparents and parents have only been permitted to democratically elect their president twice and hopefully for a third time in their lives in a few months’ time.
We have an opportunity that they at our age probably never imagined they’d witness in their lifetime. We’re part on an exciting time in South Africa, don’t let apathy take that away from you.”
