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Over the next few weeks, South Africans will be confronted with a crucial decision about the country’s future as we head to the polls on May 8.
The question confronting all of us, then, will be: Who can we trust to offer South Africa the kind of ethical, visionary and inspirational leadership that will take the country out of this morass, and also bring out the very best in us as a people?
There is definitely no shortage of candidates.
With each election since 1994, more political parties have sprung up as vehicles to enable their founders to occupy cushy seats in national and provincial legislatures.
As a people, then, we are not without a choice on May 8.
While none of the parties or their leaders is perfect, it remains important that South Africans exercise their fundamental right to vote.
Regrettably, there are those who, out of disillusionment with politics and politicians, have decided that voting is a waste of their precious time because it “makes no real difference”.
All politicians, they argue, are the same – they make promises, but, once elected, deliberately ignore those promises and do what they would like to do anyway, which, most of the time, is to mess up, plunder, steal and advance their own selfish interests instead of those of the nation.
While that disillusionment is understandable, the decision to opt out of politics and, in the process, forgo one’s right to vote, is grossly irresponsible.
It is laziness of the worst kind on the part of those compatriots who may be so inclined.
They forget that, even if they did not exercise their right to vote, once elected, our bent politicians go out to do what they do in the name of “the people”.
Included in “the people” are those who, myopically, may have made a decision not to vote at all as a sign of protest against our rotten politics and its practitioners.
Read: Why I won’t vote
Our disillusioned compatriots ignore – at their peril – the simple but truthful fact that, in a democracy such as ours, it is during election season when even the poorest of voters is at his or her most powerful.
Now is the time that even the most arrogant and obnoxious politician has to humble him/herself and come crawling to beg for our votes.
Now is the time when the pendulum swings decidedly against the rich, proud, smug or vulgar politician in favour of the poor voter, who, in reality, is the real repository of power.
While they may strut around proudly and make all sorts of claims about enjoying mixing with the people, the truth is that politicians do not enjoy humbling themselves and travelling to every nook and cranny of the country to shake hands with our poorest compatriots, to smile and sing as they promise heaven on earth.
They do not enjoy having to take trains, buses, go to taxi ranks and be exposed to some of the dirtiest streets to beg for votes in return for their parties’ T-shirts and sundry paraphernalia.
Nothing reminds them so strongly of the fact that the power they exercise after an election has its origin in ordinary South Africans.
While the decision whether or not to vote is for each person to make, it would be prudent for South Africans to go out and send the strong message to political mandarins that we, ordinary men and women, want our country back from those who have dared to steal from it, to abuse it in different ways or even to pawn it to the highest bidder/s.
Our votes will remind politicians that none of them has a God-given right to govern this country.
Regrettably, our choices continue to be confined to political parties as opposed to individuals, thanks to what was supposed to be a limited-duration deal that was struck during the pre-1994 negotiations at the World Trade Centre to end apartheid.
As a result, many of us will have to block our noses to avoid the stench emanating from objectionable names of crooked, unethical or downright corrupt individuals on the lists of some of the parties we may vote for.
It is precisely because it has served the parties well that we continue to have this obnoxious system in place, when we should have had a system by now that combines both constituency representation and proportional representation.
One is encouraged by the fact that there is, on the court roll somewhere in the country, a case seeking to assert our rights as citizens to vote for men and women of our choice who will stand as individual candidates and represent specific constituencies, as opposed to voting – as we now do – for political parties.
Were we sufficiently respected, as citizens, to vote directly for the president of the country, as opposed to leaving this important responsibility to political parties to choose one of their own to become president, the choice confronting us on May 8 would be much easier.
Many would find it easy to vote for Cyril Ramaphosa as president, without simultaneously feeling guilty that a vote for him, through his party, will also be a vote for men and women of questionable integrity in his party.
That shortcoming notwithstanding, we should vote with a view to produce whatever we may consider the best possible outcome for the country.
Such an outcome will be one in which no party feels entitled to govern, or feels that it can take the electorate for granted because, regardless of its performance while in office, it can always be assured of victory at the next polls.
Let us go out and reshape South Africa’s fate, take responsibility for our actions and decisions, and refrain from bleating afterwards – as is typical of South Africans – as though, collectively, we are powerless as a people.
The power resides firmly in our hands. Let us use the vote to make ourselves unmistakably heard.
Only then will politicians take us seriously.
- Nyatsumba is a business executive based in Johannesburg
