Issues at Stake: Election circus ready to rumble
It's election time again and for a brief period the populace will have the rare pleasure of having politicians of all persuasions, shapes and sizes grovelling at their feet, writes CARL DE VILLIERS
Now that President Zuma announced 7 May as the date South Africans will go to the polls to elect the government to serve their interests for the next five years (an oxymoron if ever there was one), citizens need to brace themselves.
Over the next three months South Africans will be subjected to a bombardment of comical deception as the parties haul out their heavy artillery to wage war for the hearts and minds of the voters.
One doesn’t want to make light of what is a serious business. This year’s election is one of the most crucial for many reasons.
A heavy responsibility rests on voters to apply their minds and ensure they make their feelings known about what direction they believe our leaders should take to keep South Africa on the path of progress and greater prosperity.
Things are at a tipping point in many respects and, like never before, decisive leadership is required.
While burning, looting and toyi-toying do have an effect in that authorities take corrective measures to quieten things down over the short-term, the country simply cannot continue to function by reactive means. Proactive governance eliminating the need for secondary mob rule is what is required.
But election times are not about noble realities.
Gift bearers
Over the next few weeks – if for a moment we discard the ominous dangers of ever-present violent conflict so part and parcel of our ‘democratic’ process – the populace will be entertained and hoodwinked by cavalcades of gift bearers spouting empty promises and half-truths.
The good times will roll in the poverty-stricken rural areas, albeit very briefly. Food parcels will be dished out left, right and centre, children will be handed school uniforms and shoes, gogos will receive houses, road show and concert freebies will be in abundance, while all kinds of community upliftment initiatives will be cast on the horizon of heavenly bliss and happiness.
On stages the ruling party will breast-thump successes and its opponents will selectively distort facts.
Politicians will for once be humble and they’ll march ‘for the people’.
All this will evaporate the moment the results are out, so the populace must enjoy the brief ride of superiority while it lasts.
We trust we’ll be spared at least one vote-catching ditty – white female politicians going cultural with toyi-toyi wobbles on stage in silly tekkies.
If it be true that white men can’t jump, then they certainly strengthen notions that white women can’t toyi-toyi.
