The local elections are a big day, and one would normally be filled with the nervous tension that the eve of a big day deserves. Some people would be worried about what to wear while others would be fretting about getting in line early. Do you have enough snacks? Are you going to bump into anyone you know? On any other occasion these would be questions chasing themselves round many a head the day before SA heads to the polls.
For a lot of us, though, this election day feels different. Not having read the warnings on our favourite bottles of political snake oil over the years, many of us are dealing with creeping apathy as a side-effect. It's not that we don’t want to vote, it's that the options available are like trying to pick your favourite STI.
Fortunately, SA is a vibrant democracy with a host of alternatives for those looking to try something different. So if you’re thinking of voting for something off the beaten track, why don't you try:
THE CAPE INDEPENDENCE PARTY
Cape Town is a special place. If you have a couple of hours, just ask a Capetonian about it. Sadly, if you have ever visited that part of the world, you'll have noticed that all is not well in the Mother City. That's about to change because the Cape Independence Party (CIP) and its plans for a “Capexit” (there are no notes on pronunciation) are here to save the day.
Founded in 2007, the CIP is sick and tired of the “long-standing political, social and economic oppression that they [the ANC] have imposed without challenge on the Cape and its people”. As such they want out of SA. In an ideal world they'd be something of a bougie Lesotho with a really nice swimming pool in their backyard.
Led by Jack Miller, who looks suspiciously smug, the CIP wants to set up an independent state in which:
- BEE and employment equity will have no place because it's the 21st century and everyone knows racism died when Mandela helped Francois Pienaar lift the Rugby World Cup (sheds patriotic tear);
- The government is elected via a direct democracy that uses an app;
- The death penalty is reinstated;
- Private schools are introduced in low-income areas; and
- Afrikaans as a language and a culture will be promoted and protected. According to the CIP the government has run roughshod over this unique language and in an independent Cape, “laws that criminalise the teaching of Afrikaans in schools and universities would never see the light of day”.
THE DISRUPT PARTY
Led and founded by Ryan Zalmon Pickford, the Disrupt Party manifesto reads as if someone scrambled together the enthusiasm of an Elon Musk zealot, the earnestness of a well-off leftist and the radicalism of a connoisseur of psychedelic experiences.
To be honest, Pickford’s bio alone may be enough to earn your vote. To hear his party tell it, he's been “a force of nature since he was born” and possesses “inherent ambition and powerful entrepreneurial spirit”.
The Disrupt Party promises to:
- Legalise the sale and consumption of street drugs;
- Remove the nation's borders to facilitate trade with other African countries;
- Give non-citizens who've lived here for more than five years the right to vote;
- Introduce conscription; and
- Digitise traffic fines.
IQELA LENTSANGO — THE DAGGA PARTY
A perennial favourite among those who like to vote off the beaten path, the Dagga Party would have a pretty simple mantra, you would think. But you, my friend, would be guilty of judging a book by its cover.
The Dagga Party is more than just a group of stoners trying to get everyone cooking the Devil’s Cabbage. Its members are freedom fighters and defenders of vaccine liberty.
If successful they would:
- Motivate that Cape Town be declared a “Section 235 Municipal Cannabis Homeland”;
- Oppose any and all attempts to enforce a “vaccination dompas” or mandatory Covid vaccinations. They would also oppose all “medical apartheid”;
- Promote urban agriculture and biodiversity initiatives;
- Boost job creation through the mass cultivation of cannabis for industrial purposes; and
- Implement municipal energy projects (solar, wind, biogas etcetera) to decrease our reliance on Eskom.
THE ORGANIC HUMANITY MOVEMENT
If you’ve ever done yogic chanting, it will come as no surprise that this party’s acronym — OHM — brings a sense of calm. The party’s logo, a dung beetle in the colours of the South African flag, is symbolic of a humble and industrious SA rolling itself towards change.
The party is built on six basic principles: liberty, the protection of life, respect for the Earth, self-reliance, continuous progress and national unity. In essence all the things that that one hippie aunt of yours always blissfully drones on about after she’s puffed one too many magic dragons.
OHM would like your vote so it can:
- Move to withdraw from the UN, Unesco, the World Health Organisation, World Economic Forum and any other organisation influencing government policymaking for their own gain;
- Ensure that people are free to choose how they want to live so long as it does not harm others;
- Drastically shrink the size of the government;
- Have the government lead the way in “transforming itself into a modern, inspiring institution that uses technology to beautify its spaces”; and
- Live in harmony with Mother Earth.
