Xsê – but not for the ANC

The DA is the proverbial headless chicken – trying to be all things to all people and fighting with each other more than grappling with policies.

Motorists are seen driving past election posters in Alberton. A record of 48 political parties will contest this year’s elections, 22 April 2019. Picture: Itumeleng English / African News Agency (ANA)

I like the thought that people can express their views about the organisation that will control all, or aspects of, their lives.

But I have done very little actual voting. When I was younger, someone adult chose the school prefects, the rugby captains. Democracy is not for sissies – or the youth … When I started working, I spent most polling days running around to polling stations, getting quotes.

In Zimbabwe in 1980, I got comment from voters and British “bobbies” in full uniform, who were there “observing”. I don’t recall pushing a ballot down a slot. Seismic change was coming – a first black government in a country which used to be called Rhodesia and would now be known as Zimbabwe … and there was nothing I could do about it, even if I had wanted to.

In Namibia, 10 years later, I spoke to voters, black and white, and then to bemused Canadians, Danes and Brits wearing United Nations blue uniforms. It wasn’t really my country, so I didn’t vote, although I could have. In 1994, I was so busy on the day – taking photos, writing stories – that I didn’t cast a vote. I knew the ANC would surf the crest of the tide to freedom. I didn’t feel strongly enough about anything to make my voice heard.

In the intervening years, it has been little different – although, with the obvious venality and corruption of the ANC’s leaders taking centre stage, I have dragged myself to our local polling station to register a “protest vote”.

This time around, it feels like this is a crucial election – although I know the ANC will still walk it. So, do I bother to vote and, if so, where will my cross go?

Clearly, it won’t be for the ANC. That would be condoning evil – and there is nothing more evil than stealing from the poor, which is how they have rolled for 25 years. I don’t buy the silly, typically naive white liberal argument – as posited by the spectacularly out-of-touch columnist and former editor Peter Bruce – that we should support “Cyril” so he gets the mandate to finally clean up the ANC.

What has happened since the ANC elective conference at Nasrec in December 2017, confirms that the “problem” never was Jacob Zuma – it was the ANC. The vote of the electorate counts for nothing – the national executive committee of the organisation decides where we are going … even if that means straight down.

The DA is the proverbial headless chicken – trying to be all things to all people and fighting with each other more than grappling with policies. The new SA Capitalist Party (ZACP, with its Purple Cow motif) has a bunch of intelligent, outspoken people at its helm.

I don’t agree with all their policies, and some of their supporters actively annoy me – but they are a voice for individuality and freedom in a way no one else is. I would love to see one or two of them causing kak in parliament.

I don’t think it will be a wasted vote – because the DA has done nothing in the past 25 years to rein in the ANC nationally. But my vote will go to the DA in Gauteng.

Herman Mashaba – despite his faults – has proved himself a man of action and things have got better in Joburg. And the best-run province in the country is the Western Cape.