Reasons to vote on May 7

What is the point of voting?

This is a question often asked and accompanied by the statement “it will not make any difference”.

The ward 18 councillor and former chief whip for the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Ekurhuleni, Clr Heather Hart, has often had to deal with this and other difficult questions especially around any time of voting.

“When confronted with this question, I ask the residents to give me half an hour to convince them otherwise,” said Clr Hart.

“Inherent in this attitude is a sense of helplessness and resignation, a sense that all is lost and that the incumbent government will stay in power forever, no matter how hard we try to remove it via the ballot box or even with acts of civil disobedience,” she said.

“Sometimes they just feel that whoever governs will do a bad job and therefore there is just no point in voting, ever, for anyone,” said Clr Hart.

Why should I vote on May 7?

“Well, if you do not, one thing is 100 percent certain. Nothing will change. The government will rest on its laurels and so what you have now, is what you will get going forward, except of course that it could get a whole lot worse,” said Clr Hart.

“Also, if you do not vote, you are more or less saying to the government that you are happy with the way things are, that they can just carry on doing what they are doing, which generally is exactly the opposite of what you feel,” she said.

Clr Hart also believes that by not voting, residents are playing into the ruling party’s hands because “they would rather have people not vote, than vote against them”.

Will my vote in May even make a difference?

“It may sound trite, but yes, every vote counts and the way our system still works, a party becomes the majority party if it has more votes than any other party and it only needs one vote to do that,” said Clr Hart.

“Yes I know that in South Africa the ruling party still has a large majority, but this majority has been steadily declining over the years and by a growing amount each election. The way to reduce that majority is not by withholding your vote, which just takes it out of the equation, but by voting against the majority party to help reduce that majority even further,” she said.

Therefore, by voting against a party that is not serving the needs of the community, residents will be able to shift the balance of power.

“Also remember that each vote goes towards helping the party you vote for gain extra seats in Parliament or Provincial Legislatures,” said Clr Hart.

The estimate is that any party needs about 44 000 votes to win a seat in Parliament.

But one party is just as bad as the other.

“There are a few points to make here. It is difficult to compare the current government to any, other than the DA-led goverment in the Western Cape and Cape Town, because no other parties have had the opportunity to govern,” said Clr Hart.

“One either has to visit the Western Cape or live there, or read about it in order to make an informed decision, which of course, not everyone is able to do,” she said.

“There is another reason why some people choose not to vote and that is because they are so unhappy with the ruling party that they want to teach them a lesson. Unfortunately, the only one that will learn the lesson is the voter and that lesson will be that they wasted their opportunity to have their say,” said Clr Hart.

As opposed to not voting, there are many reasons to vote in these national and provincial elections. “Let us not even talk about little things like local government service delivery failures like potholes, faulty water meters and overflowing sewerage.

“Let us rather talk about failing healthcare, education and corruption in housing, and economic growth that has just about stalled. Let us talk about more power outages and more e-tolls and even faster failing infrastructure. Let us talk about how the arms deal was only R70-billion worth of corruption, but now we have budget overruns of twice that on two coal-fired power stations. What will be next? Let us face it, Nkandla was just a drop in the ocean,” said Clr Hart.

“A little closer to home, let us talk about someone you know who has been promised an RDP house for the past 15 years and that the education of a child of someone you know is so bad that they will be lucky to get a good job. People are living in the most abject squalor and poverty, and more people are jobless and going hungry day after day. I say, that should give you more than enough reason to vote and to vote for change,” she said.

“Remember, we defeated apartheid, although through taking up arms and resorting to violence. We will defeat corruption and maladministration at the ballot box, but only if you vote to do it,” said Clr Hart.