Tomorrow, all roads lead to the voting stations as South Africans go to make their voices heard on who will run their municipalities.
Getting to this stage hasn’t been without challenges as, at some stage, it seemed the local government elections would be postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic until the Constitutional Court settled the matter last month.
Young and the old will be queuing for the first elections to be held under a pandemic. Registered voters will be masked, expected to observe social distancing, and sanitise their hands before entering their respective voting stations.
In the weeks leading up to this much-anticipated day, a lot of young people used social media to express their dissatisfaction with their municipalities’ current leadership.
The Sunday Independent spoke to a few eligible voters to hear what informed their decision to cast their votes.
Oratile Kganakga, 27, who currently lives in Johannesburg but made reference to the her hometown of Mogwase in Rustenburg, will be voting for the second time tomorrow, said she is switching political parties and voting for a rival candidate.
“My vote is my voice, and me voting will be basically voicing the change I want to see in my community. The candidate that I will be voting for has proven in their actions to be looking after my needs as a community member, and it will be my first time voting for their party.
“I want to live in a community that caters for young people and is drug-free. I pray that things change. I know they will not change overnight, but I want to at least see a direction.
“You cannot fix in five years what has taken 27 years to be broken, but as a person, you will be able to see effort when people are working. This will enable us to vote for them again in the next five years.”
Soshanguve East resident Daniel Maleka, 63, said he is looking forward to casting his vote. He said he appreciates the opportunity to exercise his right as it allows him an opportunity to put his preferred leaders in power, unlike in the 1970s when he had no such rights.
“I’m voting for the ruling party again, and I will not change. I’m an ANC voter through and through. It is my life. If it wasn’t for the party, I wouldn't be here today. I don’t care who says what. This party pays for my livelihood through Sassa (South African Social Security Agency). What if I vote for another party and they cut the social grant. How will I survive?” the pensioner said.
With some voters looking forward to putting an ’X’ on their ballot papers and making their votes count, there are eligible voters who feel that voting is a waste of time, and they have since lost faith in the election process.
“I’m not going to vote. I don't want to lie. We keep on voting, but nothing changes, and yet, we (voters) continue to suffer. I don’t want to vote for any other party but the ruling party. It gave us our freedom, but now the problem is that the party is no longer the same. For this reason, I will not vote. I will only vote once they change their ways,” 33-year-old Katlego Mphahlele from Soshanguve East said.
She added that before she can vote, the current government should give her a decent RDP house that is better than the conjoined one she has at present.
Another eligible voter who will not be exercising this democratic right, Renolda Maswanganyi, 48, said the last time she voted was in 1994 when she thought that putting a black president in power would improve the lives of black people.
“I don’t see the need to vote anymore. All we get is empty promises close to the voting season. I have been waiting for my RDP house for years, and it has gotten to a point where I no longer want it.
“Now, they say they are building tar roads, but their process is taking forever. These trenches have been dug open for more than two months now. How am I supposed to vote when we are led by unreliable people? I will not waste my time.”
These voters, though they will be voting for different parties and others not voting at all, are confronted with similar issues such as no access to clean drinking water and proper sanitation, high unemployment and poor policing, but each one of them hopes to wake up to better living conditions after the elections.