Elections can quite easily be compared to a guessing game. Take Cluedo, for example. You have to be vigilant of the bad guys, try to identify the innocent parties, and not be lead astray by misleading appearances that could lead to Colonel Mustard’s death in the ballroom with the candlestick.
Elections can quite easily be compared to a guessing game. Take Cluedo, for example. You have to be vigilant of the bad guys, try to identify the innocent parties, and not be lead astray by misleading appearances that could lead to Colonel Mustard’s death in the ballroom with the candlestick.
Or, in South African politics, more like someone from the opposition party being killed by a supposedly communist politician with his Mercedes. One first has to guess who to vote for – guess who will actually deliver on their promises, or guess which party will best oppose the ruling party if that’s what your agenda is…
But in preparation for the 2011 municipal elections, many people even had to guess when and where voting registration would take place. How many posters were put up in town to advertise and inform people? None that I can recall. I saw a few small billboards at the venue, so at least some people were given a clue.
They did, however, fail to advertise where the registration stations were. I almost thought that I had gone to the wrong place when I saw how empty the voting station was that I went to. It was St Aidan's church and, seeing as it was Sunday, it had every right to be quiet and peaceful. Except that the church was one of two voter registration stations in Ward 4.
Shouldn’t there be at least a small gathering of townsfolk going, ID in hand, through the motions of being responsible citizens? The three women facilitating the administration told me that the day before, only 30 people had registered. My class in high school had more people than that.
As for the total on Sunday, well, I was number 11. Of course it is possible that a number of residents may have registered already – but Ward 4 is densely populated with students, who are not likely to be registered. I can’t tell whether they just don’t care about the local elections, or they just don’t have a clue about them.
Sure, there was some marketing. Bland TV ads and boring clips on the radio of B-grade South African celebrities telling us how much they loved whichever town they mentioned, and a brief word at the end of it telling us to register.
I don’t know if the IEC is aware of this, but there are a lot of people in South Africa who do not have TVs or radios. Why was there not one poster in the Grahamstown CBD or residential areas? Even on the IEC’s website I couldn’t find the advertising that supposedly exists.
Strangely, all of the posters and billboards on the net could not be accessed. I was told that I did not have permission to open the file, or the file did not exist. Huh? So we can’t even have access to the posters when we go looking for them ourselves?
In Grahamstown of the majority of people I spoke to in the two weeks prior to registration, hardly anyone knew that some of the wards in the municipality had changed, where they could register, or even about the election registration.
Why was there so little effort to promote the recent election registrations? South Africa is at a time when politics and promises are often suspicious, so we, the public, should be more vigilant than ever.
An uninformed or apathetic society is simply asking to be taken out with a candlestick, or Mercedes… Democracy should empower people – but what happens when the people don’t know enough, or care enough, to make informed decisions? Your guess is as good as mine.
