BiblioPolit: LGE2011

Showing posts with label LGE2011. Show all posts

Friday, May 20, 2011

Some political parties will have to rethink either their strategy or their existence

Image courtesy
Amazingly Pretty and Somewhat Literary

Once again, South Africans have gone to the polls and have made their decision as to which political party they prefer to run their respective municipalities in this country.

At the end of any election cycle, it isn’t always easy to analyse the data, since you do not actually know what the voters were thinking while they voted. As a result, you simply sit with raw data. So, in order to make sense of the raw data, you have to extrapolate from past election cycles into the present and then try to predict what the future holds.

At this point, I am sure many political parties must be thinking about the future. Some parties have had a downward slide for several years now.

Since 1994, we have had 4 general elections (GE) and 3 local government elections (LGE). LGEs are simply municipal elections.

Voting experience with the local government elections 2011

Well, this was my first real voter’s experience in a long time. Back in 2006 I was a candidate in my ward for the ACDP. Hence, I did not have to stand in any long lines to vote. In subsequent elections I was an ACDP party agent, and again didn’t have to stand in long lines to vote.

However, this year I was a simple voter ready to make my cross behind my chosen party and candidate. We arrived at the voting station at 11:10 this morning and had a voting line that was only 50m (55yds) long.

Of course, the problem wasn’t the length of the line, but how long it took the IEC to get us to the front of that line to vote! It took us one and a half hours to get to a voting booth! For a 50m line, that is simply astounding, and unacceptable! The problem was not that the voters took their time in the actual voting booths inside the voting room. When my wife and I walked in there, 3 of the booths were empty. That means that if the IEC officials had a better system going, voting could have gone much quicker.

Christ and politics: He rules over all

Just received a very short and concise newsletter from Africa Christian Action on Christians and politics. The whole letter is here below.

Who to vote for in the South African municipal elections in 2011, Part 2

I wrote part 1 of this short series last night, although I only got to publish it after midnight, hence its date is 17 May 2011. As you may expect, I was quite tired by that time. Hence, I forgot to say some stuff. So, here I will continue in that vein.

The thing is, as a Christian, I would like to vote my convictions. And, based on my convictions, and policies that are available to ponder from the different political parties in South Africa, I can only side with two parties, and they are the ACDP and the CDP. But, as you can see from my previous post on these matters, it certainly isn’t easy to choose between these parties. They are almost exactly the same.

I know people from both parties, and I have to admit, they are good people. As I said in my previous post, I was part of the ACDP for several years, and have met some really good people there. Naturally, there are some kooks there too. On the side of the CDP, I have met and spent an entire weekend with the leader of the CDP, Theunis Botha and his wife Kerry, at a worldview seminar that the Biblical Christian Network hosted (where I am involved). We had good discussions, and although many in the leadership of the ACDP have a huge axe to grind with them, I found him very cordial, but also direct, which I like.

Who to vote for in the South African municipal elections in 2011

I would like to tell South Africans who to vote for definitively but alas, I can’t! This is the first year since 1994, in which I don’t know who to vote for. All other years it was easy for me. It was a foregone conclusion even before the election date was declared, in those years, that I would vote ACDP. However, this year, I am not sure whether I want to vote for them or not! This post will probably make many people come after me with baseball bats, ice-picks, shot guns and more! Hey, but that is part of the fun of blogging!

It is definitely easier to know who I will NOT vote for: the ANC, PAC and what I would call the communistic left. It is here that the devil’s plans find root for South Africa. It was under the leadership of the ANC and “Saint Nelson Mandela” that abortion, pornography and homosexual marriage were legalised in South Africa. It is they that are leading South Africa into the ocean of despair just like the Pied Piper led the mice to a watery death!

However, living in Pretoria, I have been toying with the idea of voting for the DA. I know that the DA, as a political party, is not against abortion, homosexual marriage or pornography. In fact, according to the DA, they do not have any policies regarding these issues. When votes on such issues come up in parliament the DA gives their members of parliament (MPs) the right to vote according to their conscience. That means that different DA MPs could vote opposite to one another in a true democratic system. This is something that does not exist in ANC ranks. Their MPs are consistently told what they are to vote. However, while the DA certainly does not seem to be an upstanding moral party, there are other issues that must be considered. The ANC has brought Pretoria to brink of financial disaster, and corruption in the ANC-led council in Pretoria seems like a bottomless pit. Currently, if we are to be realistic, no other party apart from the DA has even the remote capability of taking over the reins of the city from the Abortion Nepotism and Corruption party. Many areas around Pretoria have not received adequate services and hostels that were promised by none other than Jacob Zuma to be rebuilt, after several years never happened. Also, the DA only needs another 20,000 votes to topple the ANC out of ruling this city. That is certainly something to think about!

South African municipal elections down the toilet!

With the open toilet debacle in the Western Cape implicating the DA and also in the Free State implicating the ANC, the Local Government Elections of 2011 on 18 May truly ARE down the toilet!

Cartoon courtesy of Zapiro at M&G

Saturday, April 23, 2011

The Ant and the Grasshopper in 2011

... in South Africa ...

ORIGINAL VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY:
Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference , demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

SABC1, 2 and 3 show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. The world is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Good Morning with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.'

Demonstrations are held in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome.'

TV commentators explain that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and there are calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the Government drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government and handed to relatives of the grasshopper.

The grasshopper instigates a lawsuit against the ant, and the case is tried under the watchful eyes of the trade unions.

The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighbourhood.

MORAL OF THIS STORY:
Be VERY careful how you vote in 2011!!

Friday, April 08, 2011

I will vote ANC! SHOCKER!

. . . if it is for the ANC's demise, I will!

Julius Malema, that perpetual firebrand of the ANC Youth League, who wants the boers/farmers (whites) shot, says that we should vote for the ANC to keep Nelson Mandela alive.

Now, I know there are some out there who swoon at the name of Nelson Mandela, but the fact is that we do not vote for parties to keep personalities alive. We vote for what is best for South Africa, and anything ANC is NOT good for South Africa, and that includes Nelson Mandela. He may have been good for South Africa in some respects, but under his watch, almost 1,000,000 people have been brutally murdered. And, yes, that was after his release from prison. I am not even thinking here about the atrocities he was in charge of while a terrorist!

LGE2011: Why your vote counts!

Back in 2006 I stood as a candidate in the Local Government Elections (LGE2006). This year I will not be standing in LGE2011! I currently have my mind set on different ways to effect change, of which this is one. Back then I also wrote several blog posts on LGE2006, and you can read them here (and more generally on politics here).

Voting is not a hassle that can be ignored like a stop sign, as so often happens here in South Africa! It is in voting that you can make use of your constitutionally democratic rights. By not voting, you in essence say: “I don’t need this right. It makes no difference to my life!” You will not be saying this when evil overtakes this country completely and you lose all your free-speech rights, or your right to worship whom you please and being open about it, for instance.

So, in order to help you towards being a voting member of society, I repost this newsletter from Africa Christian Action, to make sure the word goes out.