Why your vote is special

The joy of the elections is, honestly, the right to vote. The right in itself is a right we ought to celebrate.

It matters not who one votes for; if one wanted to remove the corruption plaguing the ANC and elect a new government, no amount of soap box explanations and storytelling will deter them from their voice.

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While we may moan that the ballot paper is unnecessarily long – and it is – we must celebrate the freedom of choice that it represents.

That one can exercise the right to elect leadership that determines who the president is, is a right denied to so many, for so many years.

And on election day, with snaking queues at voting stations and a buzz for change in the air, one is reminded that this freedom cannot be taken for granted.

This is a freedom to be cherished, daily. So, when a young person elects to vote for the ANC (much to the amazement of their peers), or the gogo continues to vote for “Mandela’s ANC” out of emotions and a fear of the unknown, these are people exercising a right that they understand is truly personal: an expression of what they want for their country, devoid of what their neighbours wishes for, to each their own…

And when people of colour are losing their minds with other people of colour who elect to vote for the Democratic Alliance, believing that they are “sellouts who have forgotten what the apartheid years have done to non-whites”, then one realises that our people do not understand that one’s vote is not contagious.

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Person A does not have to catch your vote sentiment. It is not collective; one’s vote is personal, regardless of how you feel.

I am allowed to vote differently to you. The real voter education should be that one does not have to like my chosen party, but they must respect it. The elections have come and the voting process has gone.

We are now in the aftermath of the elections. But that being said, the reality of my neighbours’ choices are playing out right in front of me: they are either in celebration or extremely anxious as to what this all means.

Everyone who wished to participate has spoken their heart’s song – and this is what political engagement conversations should be; an understanding that each has the right to make their X where they see fit, regardless of the next person’s sentiments…