With more than 27 million citizens registered to vote in this week’s provincial and national elections, it is interesting to know if they voted with sympathy, for change, or even loyalty.
I would love to know how they decided who to vote for and the reasons for those who didn’t vote.
According to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), this was the highest registration since the dawn of democracy.
If that is factual, let’s put our hands together for the country’s growing political awareness and engagement.
Before the elections, my curiosity had been high; I listened to radio shows covering the elections and I read newspapers and online publications to find out what was going on out there. But my interest was in young people. I am happy to say most radio talk shows also focused on young people’s involvement in politics. I am still curious about the number of young people who voted yesterday. I cannot wait to see the numbers and that of first-time voters. I hope the turnout at the polls was high.
A few days before the elections there were many reports of uncertainty, dissatisfaction and frustration with the government. The reports of communities closing roads because of service delivery were a worry to me. The current decline of our economy was also a big worry that could have lead to people boycotting the election. Those are factors that could have contributed to a decline in voting.
The positive things that came out of the election were the debates and campaigning by all the political parties. The formation of many new political parties was interesting to see. But again, to me, the absence of small political parties like Ganja, Kiss and Soccer parties left a bitter taste in my mouth. I always looked forward to such parties among the big ones like your ANC, DA, Inkatha, UDM and others. But hopefully the new parties like Umkhonto weSizwe (MK Party) and others have given the big guns a run for their money.
There were other factors that would have led to people going to vote and how they voted. This included the perceptions about the parties, the lies and dissatisfaction or wrong information about the election itself. It is an open secret that people believe if you have voted before and now you decided not to, your vote automatically goes to the party that you voted for in the past. That is a big lie and unfortunately, so many people believe it. But I would assume that it helped so that people who maybe wanted to change their vote, went and voted this time.
Now that people have voted, we wait in anticipation to see whether a new party will have a chance to lead us. Have the voters done a good job? Is there a party that will win convincingly? If not, who are we likely to see working with who in the coalitions.
I am not a political analyst but I see an upset in many regions, and nationally. I do not see any party having a two-thirds majority. Will we have a new president? We will see that in the next few days.Whoever wins, remember us; we have been forgotten for a long time.
