Making your X will be tricky

On Tuesday I came across a radio news programme on one of the national radio stations and heard the anchor dissecting the political choices confronting voters in the coming national general elections.

These elections will be the most hotly contested since the demise of apartheid and the arrival of democracy to replace it.

In 1994, we had 19 political parties on the national ballot paper and 19,726,579 votes were counted with just under 200,000 declared as invalid.

The voter turnout was an impressive 88.87%.

The ballot paper that confronted the first time voters probably had only one page, two at most.

The political parties were easily distinguishable and choices for people were not that difficult as the parties on the ballot paper were very different, representing very solid interest groups.

People still had racial and tribal political mindsets, making voter choices easier to predict, and less complicated.

Roll on 2024 and you can no longer say any of these things about political choices confronting the voter.

For starters, there are three ballot papers which have independent candidates on top of the regional and national ballot.

All three will have different colours as if this will make the job any easier.

As you stand there alone in the ballot booth you will have to scroll through pages and pages of ballot papers and if your party has a name that starts with the letters X, Y or Z, and so on, happy reading as you will be standing there for a long time.

There are hundreds of political parties and now there are also independent candidates.

The decision to put an X alongside a party means you will have to sift through these numerous parties, that’s assuming you have decided not to vote for the four main parties.

How do you even begin to go through these newer parties and assess whether they have anything to offer that you may be interested in? Do you go for the party that meets your needs 100%? Is that even possible?

When you see that no party meets this criteria, then what do you do because not voting is just not an option.

The radio presenter said, choose the party that just comes closest to what you want as you will never find any party that 100% meets your requirements.

So how do you go about sifting through the stew the political landscape is dishing up for you? Do you just go along with what you have always gone with? Do you go with the party whose leader sounds more convincing to you? Do you just vote because you like the person on that ballot paper?

Do you vote for the party that gives you KFC and Tshirts and hold lekker parties and stadium entertainment?

Do you have any special interests you want the party to prioritise and if they do, you choose it?

Have an open mind, but do not get too confused in the process. Go through the manifestos of the parties you might be interested in and check their history as well, since no leopard changes its spots. Good luck, as you will need it.