SO, WE ARE VOTING CATTLE AFTER ALL?

So, we are voting cattle after all?

I am raising this question after seeing the barrage of election posters that have flooded township and rural areas.

One can easily notice these posters on street lights, street corners, Spaza shop walls, school fences as well as at church premises.

Are election posters what we need as members of disadvantaged communities?

Are door-to-door visits by political party agents what we need in actual fact?

Are persuasive election messages delivered via loud-hailers day-in-and day-out in our neighbourhoods what we actually need?

My assertion is we need community development initiatives.

And I am not ashamed that as disadvantaged communities we also need community-controlled tenders so that as disadvantaged people we can also be rich collectively.

But alas, the said community-controlled tenders will never see the light of day.

Gangsters will always be in charge of such tenders while poor folks continue to watch them (gangsters) amassing state wealth with amazing ease.

Why can’t these tender projects also be advertised in public with the attendant adjudication process also being conducted in public?

Did I hear someone say this won’t be appropriate?

But flooding our neighbourhood with election placards and vociferous messages is appropriate?

If that is the case then my conclusion is that we as disadvantaged communities are nothing else but voting cattle…fit to vote but not qualified at all to have community-upliftment projects in our midst as well as tenders.

In South Africa democracy for disadvantaged communities starts and ends at the ballot box.

From then on we as voting cattle will have to watch helplessly for the next five years as funny laws like the ones dealing with immigration issues are delivered by institutions like the government of this country as well as institutions like the corrupt Department of Home Affairs and the controversial Constitutional Court.

From now on my dear readers, my political opinion pieces will go by the title “VOTING CATTLE.”

This title is appropriate as I don’t have any political power or influence whatsoever.