1. You should vote.
We were all children once, in those days we could do whatever we wished, regardless of the consequences. We played all day and didn't care about the future, in short we had no responsibilities. As we've grown older so responsibility has crept into our lives, we have jobs, bills to pay and families to support. Voting in an election is every bit as important as any of these other obligations. Self-determination is a right that people all over the world have fought and died for. It all started long ago in France, moved to America, happened in South Africa (twice) and is still going on in the Middle East. These people didn't fall out of bed one day and decide that major political upheaval would be fun, they realised the potential of controlling their own destiny. It is your responsibility to yourself, your family and your fellow citizens to vote for the party that you believe has your best interest at heart.
Many people argue that "my vote doesn't count", this is utter crapola. Have you ever been to a polling station after the votes have been counted? I have, it's amazing how narrow margins can be. Trust me, I myself narrowly escaped election to a position on the UCT SRC in an election where five votes would have made all the difference.
If you're worried about the huge margins obtained by certain heavyweights and that a single vote wouldn't count you are even more mistaken. In proportional representation type situation, like municipal elections, no votes are losers because, as the name implies, representation is proportional to votes cast, if you don't understand this then go ask The SchpatDope. In non-proportional representation type situations, like ward elections, there is only one winner, the person who gets more votes, but even losing votes count. How so you ask? Well political parties use these votes as a sort of market research to determine what their chances of winning the next election in that area are. If an area was closely contested the winning party will be more likely to make sure that they deliver on their promises, if a party lost an area by a landslide they may have to consider whether or not it is productive to stand in that area next election.
The bottom line is that apathy is not an excuse. If you vote you will be making a choice on who should be in control of making sure your interests are seen to, you may not get what you choose, but your choice will make a difference in some way. If you don't vote you will also be making a choice, a choice to let someone else decide for you. Yes apathy is cool, if you don't care, but actively participating in your future is way more important.
2. You should vote based on the Issues
I was originally going to give a long description of the major political parties, what they were offering and, more importantly, what their faults were, but I'm sure anyone reading this blog is intelligent enough to know what the issues are, and what issues are important to them. I don't care who you are voting for, just do so in an informed and intelligent way. Too many people in this country vote out of loyalty and not based on the issues. This cartoon from today’s issue of Business Day is quite cool and shows that issues are starting to take over from loyalty, however this trend is still in its infancy. I'm a bit more pessimistic about this though, I would have drawn the old guy about to trip and fall before the baton could be passed.
Issues that might be important to you are: Corruption, Welfare, Policing, Service Delivery, Women’s Rights, Economy, Health Care, and much much more. Find out what the parties stand for and choose the one that best matches your own personal ideology.
3. Game Mechanics
I believe that for any democracy to be truly successful a strong opposition is essential. This is the only political viewpoint I'll be pushing today, I don't care who wins, only that they have decent opposition. Opposition ensures that the ruling party stays on its toes. They keep them honest.
If you don't agree with the above statement you can pretty much stop reading now, all I'm going to do for the rest of this post is point out some measures that can be taken to ensure good opposition. This is not an endorsement of any specific political party, only an observation of the mechanics of the election.
A few days ago the Freedom Front Plus accused the Democratic Alliance of misleading the voting population. What had the DA done? Well they told people not to "split the opposition vote", and that by not having a clear and strong opposition the ruling party gained relative strength. The VF+ argued that due to the proportional nature of the election the DA was lying and trying to scare voters into voting for them instead of the VF+. Are the VF+ right, were the DA blackmailing voters? Well here's the truth, election of ward councillors is not proportional. The person that gets the most votes in a ward becomes the councillor, that's the long and short of it. Now in a hypothetical situation where a ruling party held 40% support in a fictitious ward and two opposition parties each held 30% of the votes the ward would be won by the ruling party even though it is clear that a majority of voters did not vote for them.
So as you can see it is possible to split the vote to the detriment of opposition party and in so doing give unintended power to the ruling party. Previously alliances between parties have been forged to ensure that wards are only contested by one of the parties in the alliance and therefore opposition votes are not split. In fact this is how the DA came into existence when the Democratic Party, the New National Party and they party run by Louis Luyt joined forces to become the Democratic Alliance. That was before The NNP decided that they didn't really want to be opposition and moved almost entirely into the ranks of the ruling party, where their leader (Martinus Van Schalkwyk) was given a cushy job as Minister of Environmental Affairs, something's rotten in the state of Denmark, but I digress.
When it comes to the proportional representation part of the election it's a bit more difficult to assess whether or not splitting the vote has a detrimental effect on the opposition. I personally think it does because if the opposition is formed of many disparate parties it is easier to divide and conquer. If all the opposition parties in South Africa decided to stop their damn bickering and joined together I think we'd find that a strong, solidified opposition could really challenge our ruling party.
Conclusion
My final appeal here is that you go out and vote tomorrow, and if you do please take the issues and the mechanics into account when making your mark. This stuff is important.
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