Part 1 – Journalist for the Alex News Leseho Manala reflects on the pre-election campaign and the past 25 years of democracy
Politicians are strange bedfellows who after the elections will soon be in slumber for the next five years.
This as others honour, respect and pay back the electorate through a pledged commitment to duty as public servants.
Some of them campaigned as one-man shows of little known parties wooing voters with unattainable promises. Others, resurrected only for the election period spewed dreamland commitments insulting of the public’s intelligence. Interestingly, hangers-on of the nonentity parties and gullible voters attracted to ‘lalaland’ (dreamland) cosied up to these one-day-wonder politicians’ gimmicks. They visited communities, weaving strategically through alleys for the public to see them skip over rivulets of affluence and at that moment, pretended to withstand the stench from squalor and human excrement scattered indiscriminately by the uncaring.
Travelling in the poor environment seemed to them the best strategy of endearment to the vulnerable and helpless waiting for a voice and hand wave that could give them temporary solace in their time and years of dire need. So is the story of the campaigning and voting for the highly sought-after five-year positions in the provincial and national assemblies.
For some politicians, the contest was a first and last escapade. Their loss will see them retreat to their comfort zones to rue the missed opportunity at self-enrichment and curse the public for letting them down. Others will retreat to plot the next move in preparation for the next elections. They will, meanwhile, have nothing to do with the public, tuck away the free campaign T-shirts and stop the food parcels they so willingly distributed to the poor as they goaded them for the vote. They won’t anymore be peeping in shacks and shaking the odd ladies’ dirty hands. Why waste precious time endearing with squalor and staining their designer shoes, clothes, groomed hair and perfumed bodies with vermin?
The victors will instead shine as they strut their way to splendour and comfort of the hallowed corridors of parliament with its well-manicured lawns and subsidised frills. Wholesale prices will see them sip the best of whiskies and water and enjoying exquisite meals and bar life with gay abandon for the next five years. They will be pampered only to reemerge for the next elections, weightier and with toned bodies unlikely to fit into the shacks and alleys they previously traversed on their way to legislative, executive and other positions of power which gave some of them, unfettered access to public resources.
Others will take it simple, spend the five years snoozing away unashamedly in parliamentary pews and in full public glare, unperturbed by the public’s concerns about their failure to deliver on promises made. Their snooze time would be a strategy to amass vigour in anticipation of the next campaign for positions they will have no one dare to challenge. Then, they will reemerge with new promises and strategies to ingratiate themselves to power again through the gullible voter’s only power, his or her vote.
Democracy and voter education is sorely needed to empower the public to be more circumspect. They need help to better understand the importance and power of using their vote to hold parliamentarians as public servants accountable.
Those who will fulfill their commitment need not expect a pat on the back as their successes are what is to be expected of all well-paid public servants.
Related article:
https://www.citizen.co.za/alex-news/131633/elections-2019-5-things-need-know-post-elections/
