CAST YOUR X WISELY

With Election 2009 now in full swing, parties across the country are pulling no punches in trying to secure our votes. The ruling ANC has now flighted its first television ads and I must say, they make for really touching viewing. The theme is still the same; alleviate poverty, make a better life for all etc. These days it’s not enough to be the ANC, you have to go out and work for all the votes you can get. Plenty of work ahead for the party since people are increasingly becoming very disillusioned with its record of delivery over the past 15 years in government. More and more we see it losing by-elections in towns where communities are getting tired of rhetoric, corruption and lack of houses. The people see ANC fatcats in their posh cars and houses, dining in the finest restaurants and their kids getting the best education while they (the people) struggle to meet basic monthly expenses. I personally know people who have been empowered by Thabo Mbeki’s administration being empowered over and over and over while others have doors shut in their faces. Promises are just not going to cut it this time and loyalties are changing. To add chillies to the wound they have Julius Malema who, with every passing day, inflicts more pain in the ANC than any opposition party. Ironically the very youth he is supposed to represent are the ones he irritates the most. Come end of April the ANC will be licking its wounds and counting casualties caused by young Malema.

The Democratic Alliance could be a winner in this election of fighting and disillusionment. Helen “GodZille” Zille has rebranded the country’s biggest opposition party as a party of “the people”. We see this daily in media images where she is campaigning and you only see black people alongside her. Sadly the DA is not expected to win the election precisely because its leader is white. And a woman. Mzansi is still a very much race-based society and we are still paternal in our instincts. Besides that, GodZille is much more concerned about Cape Town than anything else. How else do you explain the leader of the biggest opposition party in the country deciding that she would rather be a mayor than an MP in parliament where she can take on her foes directly? She’d rather send in the weak Joe Seremane, the man she totally annihilated for the leadership of the DA when Tony Leon retired.

There is of course always Shenge and the IFP but that bunch doesn’t appear to be headed for anything significantly higher than what it garnered at the 2004 affair. The IFP has not transformed itself from a tribal gathering into a political party. Its leader, who started the Inkatha (later called the IFP) after leaving the ANC in the 1970s, is still in that position. Sure he claims his party keeps asking him to stay when he wants to leave but no reader of this blog is young or naïve enough to believe that lie. Leaders leave their positions all the time, even when parties say they want them to stay. In fact that is the mark of a great leader.

Bantu Holomisa has his UDM but no one can say exactly what the UDM plans to do and HOW it will do it. In fact who can tell me what the UDM has done for them in or outside of parliament except to rubbish the ANC? There’s no creativity there, the ANC is easily rubbishable. Holomisa’s credibility as a pseudo-visionary went straight off the cliff with his bold prediction in 2007 that Thabo Mbeki would convincingly defeat Jacob Zuma at the ANC conference in Polokwane. Anyone with enough eyes could see that was never gonna happen.

Then we have the PAC and the PAM, two parties of the same mother. It’s a bad idea because you are splitting votes that way like the MDC of Zim. Azapo will not play a role in Election 2009. Its ideas are good and form the ideal for returning Africans to their rightful place in their own minds first. Implementation is another story altogether. Azapo’s ideas need proper marketing but I have a feeling the Azanians would rather spend what little budget they have taking care of their leaders than selling themselves.

Lastly we have the new kid on the block which is the Congress of the People (CP). Formed out of anger for the new ANC, the CP has almost become the main opposition party through extensive media coverage. Leadership squabbles and Malema-like utterances by its leader Terror Lekota will dent its chances no doubt. For those seriously disenchanted with the ANC, the CP looks to be the best alternative. Whether this turns out to be true after the polls, only time will tell.

Votes are a precious commodity and we only use them once every five years. So let’s vote for people we know will look out for us in the best possible way. There’s no greater travesty in the democratic world than a wasted vote. Actually there is; it’s failure to follow-up on your vote, to keep checking if it’s being used in a good way or if it’s being abused.