Thursday, April 23, 2009

My Election Post

So everyone is sharing their election experiences or writing about the state of SA post elections and even putting in their two cents worth on Zuma and his Satan spawn cronies...

Here are my two cents worth.

The day before Election day!
I woke up very up-beat and positive (mostly because I would be getting Wednesday off, this almost never happens). I packed my things and headed home to Greytown (ca. 70km from where I study) after a day working on my thesis. On the way home I realised that my Cellular phone had been left behind, traffic was so bad that I decided I could do without it for a day. Just as we were getting near Greytown my little brother asked me if I have my ID book... CRAP CRAP CRAP!!! It was still in PMB! Screw it I refused to go back and get it. maybe they will let me vote with my passport which is in Greytown.

Election Day!
It was a freezing cold night, I had to use a blanket and duvet for the first time this year. The freakishly cold weather a sign of colder darker days ahead (politically speaking). Is this an omen? Will my voting be in vain? Like a small rebellion force crushed under the massively dominant and well equipped Galactic Empire.
Wait, maybe there is hope, let us not forget that the Rebellion in Star Wars came out on top against all the odds! A few local heros will undoubtably rise up and make a difference...
...ummm...
...no we are all equal in a democracy... even the local heroes get just one vote.

Perhaps the cold spell was a just sign of a looming winter.

So I woke up early and headed out to the polling station with my Brother-in-law. The Queue wasn't too long, 30 to 45 mins at the most. I got halfway down the queue before an official came by to check everyones ID book. He saw my passport and said he would query if I could vote with it. 3/4 of the way through the queue he returns to me and says 'bugger off you idiot, you can't vote with a passport...' or at least that's what he meant. So I organised to get my ID book down from PMB (it's a long complicated story...) and would be able to vote when it arrived in the evening.
I eventually cast my vote and felt that after all I had been through, I should at least make my X as big and bold as possible....It was huge!!! filled the whole slot (15mm by 20mm). It made me feel that much better. Hey at least my second visit to the voting station was greeted by a distinct lack of queue.

So on to Zuma and his uneducated posse.

As things stand, we are looking at ANC 64%, DA 18% and COPE 9%. It looks to be an ANC landslide once again. I've decided to try take a positive view on the direction of political affairs (unlike the doomsday 'Zimbabwe all over again' predictions made by others).

I think that ALL politicians are corrupt pieces of lion faecal matter (lion poo is apparently the worst kind...). The only difference is between those that have been caught red handed and the ones that havn't.
Zuma has (in my opinion) already been caught out. Okay, I admit, flaws and chinks in various processes have ended up in him becoming the president of the Republic of South Africa as opposed to him wearing an orange overall with numbers on it in a damp cell near Kokstad (Geez! being positive can be difficult sometimes...).
My point here is (take a deep breath), our new leader has been accused of so much that he has no choice but to take a morally correct stance in his position. He has to proove to South Africans that he deserves to have been let off the hook by the NPA. Everyone is keeping such a close eye on him from previous experience, that he will be crucified if he steps out of line just once.
Can we say that we know where we stad with Zuma? He is easy to read, predictable as hell and more than likely will be less of a wienee than Thabo. This man isn't intelligent enough to be evil. He has experienced poverty like no other man in the hotseat before him. I'd like to think that he will reach out to those hundreds of thousands of citizens that live in a 3rd world SA.

Perhaps SA needed Zuma. A simple leader for simple people...

Let me end off by saying that I don't respect Jacob Zuma. I am, however, willing to give him a chance to earn my respect. A chance that I feel we are all obligated to give to any human being. I will most certanily have more to say about Jacob Zuma in the future (let's hope that most of it will be positive).

4 comments:

sarah said...

wow. thats so very mature of you ,eebs. i respect you for having the ability to do that... i think i have had my heart broken by too many a politician... and i know for a fact that jacob is corrupt. and stupid. and so if he earns my respect, it will be a long long time coming. and i will not hold my breath. i just hope he has some good people around him.

Helen said...

Wow, you really are a better person than me! I'm watching the election results with quite some trepidation, last night he was leading with 80%, they're down to 66.9, but that's still 2/3 majority... although I fing it interesting that KZN has the ANC at less than 2/3 majority, even though Zuma always goes on about his homwetown and heritage there and stuff

EEbEE said...

I think that i like SA too much to predict that it will go down the toilet (a very sad thought indeed).

wrt the ANC only getting 2/3rds in KZN. Apparently Zuma is against having local chiefs (not the soccer team) around and IFP is keen to keep the old chiefs in power. This is a dividing point (albeit debatable).

Luke said...

I am also really impressed with your standpoint on Zuma! I certainly can't see what you see in the man.

In my opinion, having a simple leader to lead simple people is all the more dangerous. It just means that the leader has as little fore-thought and intelligence as the average man on the street! It's scary!

As for Zuma's 'being in the spotlight forces him to be good' thing, I really don't agree! I think that he has shown what he is capable of, and got away with it. He committed several crimes, unashamedly and had to pay no recompense for them at all. What makes us think he'll change his tactics? He can beat the system so why bother trying to work within it?

Sorry, it's a very cynical viewpoint, but it's what I've been thinking. Sorry...