This election, I’ll be voting in a new metro and ward, having changed cities since the last time our country went to the polls.
Like any responsible citizen I imagine would do, I have spent the last few weeks trying to get as much information as possible about the candidates who are standing for election in my ward.
Municipal elections are supposed to be about local issues, so for me it is important to hear from those who seek to run the ward about what they hope to do for the community.
Political party manifestos are usually of little use in this regard, as they mostly address macro political issues that have little to do with what is happening in one’s community.
It has, however, been a frustrating journey. Not only are there no public platforms where candidates can tell us about their plans to get rid of potholes and raise levels of community safety, the candidates are barely visible. At least in my area.
A drive around the neighbourhood looking at election posters mostly reveals the smiling faces of the DA’s John Steenhuisen, ActionSA’s Herman Mashaba, the EFF’s Julius Malema and, if you search hard enough, one of President Cyril Ramaphosa.
But, bar Mashaba, who is running for Johannesburg mayor, the municipal elections are not about national leaders and national politics.
If you are lucky to spot a poster with the face of a ward candidate, there isn’t much information about them to help you make up your mind. A visit to the IEC website does not help much either, as all they have are names and minimum details of ward candidates from each party.
It’s as if the political parties expect us voters to put our crosses next to ward candidates just because they have been endorsed by the party, and not on their merits
It’s as if the political parties expect us voters to put our crosses next to ward candidates just because they have been endorsed by the party, and not on their merits.
But what if you have no trust in the political parties and their national leaders?
Another mildly amusing trend with this election has been the roping in of retired, semi-retired and almost forgotten political figures to help their old political homes garner votes.
This week, the ANC had its former president Thabo Mbeki, its former deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe and its one-time rising star and presidential prospect Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka out on the road urging voters to give the troubled governing party another chance.
Historically, the ANC has always rolled out its veterans for a campaign or two to help, especially in constituencies where the veterans were once popular and in which the party was now losing support. These, however, tended to be low key.
What we saw last week was on a different scale and suggested that Luthuli House was pulling out all the stops to have the Ramaphosa leadership — facing a renewed assault from the president’s predecessor, Jacob Zuma, and his confederates — publicly endorsed by pre-state capture-era leaders as being on the right track.
Would this endorsement lead to the ANC doing better than it did at the polls in 2016? The verdict will be in after November 1.
But the ANC is not the only party looking to the past for help.
Although Steenhuisen has been the face of the DA’s campaign, the party has also used its former leader and federal council chair Helen Zille in radio adverts and other campaigns.
This is probably in acknowledgment of the fact that Zille remains hugely popular with the party’s core constituencies and that, in some areas, she has a much greater pull than the current leader.
And then there is the IFP, which went the unusual, but sensible from its perspective, route of having its founding president, Inkosi Mangosuthu Buthelezi — and not current leader Velenkosini Hlabisa — as the face voters can trust.
Hlabisa has insisted that this was his decision and his way of paying homage to the IFP founder. But the move can also be seen as an admission by the party’s leadership that, on their own, they can’t pull the kind of figures Buthelezi used to command.
The question that arises from this trend is: if major parties do not believe that they can do well at the polls without the assistance of their past leaders, what does that tell us about the current crop at the helm of these parties?
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