Here’s how to weaponise your vote for the good of your community

The time has come for thinking South Africans to stop sacrificing themselves as political cannon fodder, and to vote in their own best interests.

South Africans must vote strategically and with the real goal in mind. With 1^st November looming, voters need to think of themselves. After all, they are the ones directly affected by the outcomes of elections.

How do you this?  Weaponise your ballots.

In your mind, separate your ballot papers to make each of your votes fit for purpose.

What does this mean?

Simple.

You will receive two ballots (three if you live in a District Council area, outside of a Metro) – one for a ward candidate and the other one (or two) is a proportional representation vote for a party (PR). The first is actually for an individual candidate, even if they are standing for a party, and the other/s are for a party, which has pre-selected its PR list candidates.

Every South African should use their ward and PR ballots independently of each other.

Use your ward ballot to vote for the person you think will serve your interests in your ward. This is your local community, this is where you live, this is where you want potholes filled and the refuse removed efficiently and your streetlights working.

The focus here is about service delivery. So vote for the PERSON you believe is going to work for YOU and your fellow citizens in the street where you live.

Many, mostly opposition, politicians in South Africa repeatedly tell you that local elections are only about local service delivery issues. John Steenhuisen and the DA are correct in pointing this out. However, this only tells you 50% of the story.  

You should not fall for voting for a useless ward candidate, one who perhaps did nothing for you for the past 5 years and is standing for election again, just because that person is standing under the banner of the party you’re supporting.

You are under no obligation to vote for a candidate, whom you know – or instinctively believe – to be unworthy of the title of your ward councillor.  For example, if you vote Party X traditionally, but you do not want to vote for the dodgy person standing for Party X as your ward candidate … DON’T.

Look carefully at the other candidates and vote for the one whom you believe, to the best of your knowledge, will serve you well, respond to complaints and try to make your community better. It doesn’t matter if this better option is standing for the DA, as an independent, or the FF+.

Stop rewarding ineffective lazy people who only want to be elected because they can’t find a better-paying position.

The only option that is counter-productive is to choose a candidate standing under the banner of the ANC or EFF – and this is because these organisations are both centralist and collectivist in nature, meaning that their ward candidates always operate under instruction from head office and not in the interests of the ward residents.

Aiding and abetting these parties in any way whatsoever cannot possibly be in your interests ever – unless, of course, you are a cadre looking for a job.

This is all about YOU. Frankly, it’s about extending the life of the bubble you currently live in, hopefully making your life liveable for a longer period of time than it would otherwise be under the ANC socialist regime, intent on controlling every area of your life.

However, your ward ballot only accounts for half of your voting power.

It must be remembered that in South Africa, under hegemonic ANC rule, all of this is constrained by the stated objectives, policies and ongoing practice of the national government’s drive to centralise and control every aspect of all levels of government. In such a scenario, in which South Africa finds itself, local government often finds itself hamstrung or simply carrying out the will of the central government.

This is where the bigger picture, your PR ballot, comes into play. This is your political, strategic vote. This is the ballot where you make a statement for or against the policies and ideology of the parties begging for your vote. This is where you have the opportunity to vote against the regime in power.

This is where the local election is the same as a national one.  

This is the missing 50% of the story about this Local Government Election, that the DA, other parties and political commentators are trying to divert your attention from. Why? Because they want you to choose their party for both ballots simply on the basis of who fills potholes best.

This way they can secure both your ballots without having to explain their position on more controversial issues.

In fact, your PR ballot impacts on national political agendas that affect you – now and far into the future.

It is PR councillors who should be tackling the political issues that threaten the success of the municipality in which they work and you live. That would include fighting against corruption, for greater devolved power, and many more issues that impact on voters.

It is in local councils where non-ANC governing parties must make their presence felt, using the powers devolved to them.

Many, including the DA in some instances, do not maximise these powers and challenge the national government for more. In Cape Town, for example, the DA Mayor with the support of the DA Premier in the Western Cape should stand up to the ANC central government and refuse to implement its socialist policies and programmes, such as the draconian Covid lockdown regulations, that are not in the interests of the citizens in that area.

The crux of the matter is this: Naturally, people shouldn’t support any incapable, deceitful government. In South Africa, the ANC epitomises such government and must naturally be opposed. But it goes further than that. People must use their PR ballot to oppose the ANC, not because it’s the ANC per se, but because of its authoritarian, nationalist socialist ideology, embodied in the Nationalist Democratic Revolution (NDR) which inevitably includes policies such as BBEEE, cadre deployment, NHI, EWC, etc. The enemy is SOCIALISM being imposed onto every level of government – national, provincial and local.

Why? In the nature of our party politics being a numbers game, and in light of knee-jerk reactions to majoritarian populism, even a liberal party like the DA could bow to pressures to accommodate leftie woke thinking in areas where it may govern and even worse, and as recently reported, consider coalitions with the ANC where that is their only route to power.

It is also not as completely wasteful as you may have been led to believe that voters support smaller parties who clearly stand against socialism and do not collaborate with the ANC/EFF.

There is a high likelihood that metros in particular may need to form coalitions in order to form a local government, strengthening the presence of parties such as the FF+, ActionSA, the ACDP and community-based organisations, which alongside a strong DA, may serve this strategy well.

In order to broaden representation, the PR system itself is designed to make every vote count equally, and give oxygen to smaller parties, as it has for the DA and its predecessors since 1994.

Such coalitions would further ensure that the DA stays true to its stated anti-socialist principles and policies in order for it to lead the local authority. All parties should then accept that it is better to have these votes consolidated in an anti-socialist bloc, rather than people not going to vote at all because they’ve been told over and over that votes for small parties are a waste of time.

A coalition that services all like-minded anti-socialist voters could bring about a comparatively successful municipality, even under ANC centralism.

Voters must beware that as the size and support of the ANC diminishes in every election, so it will increasingly tighten its stranglehold over all South Africans in order to stay in power.

Citizens must not be intimidated into accepting or capitulating to this inevitable increasing oppression of their personal liberties. The ANC’s hegemony will eventually implode. Stay the course and use your vote on 1^st November and your voice thereafter as a weapon to double down against this total onslaught. 

• The authors are Russel Crystal and Shelley Loe, who between them, worked for the DA and its predecessor, the DP, in various capacities, for a combined total of over 30 years. Crystal served in Tony Leon’s office as national Deputy Executive Director. Loe has fulfilled a number of senior campaign roles and served as a public rep in all spheres of government. Both now work at Crystal’s communications company, Brand Physicians, in Johannesburg and their views are not necessarily those of The Citizen.