YOUR TIME IS UP, EMPERORS, YOU ARE THE WEAKEST (NAKED) LINKS!

This is an opinion-infused exposé on the dreary, drawn-out saga of South African government gwarra gwarra and the half-baked rehearsals of petty politicians, as expressed by a profoundly gatvol, straight-shooting South African woman, on behalf of ALL her fellow rainbow citizens.

Like so many of my fellow South Africans, I also voted yesterday.  I arrived at the venue at 20:15 and by 21:35, I left there with a smile and a pretty faint purple-ish smudge on my left thumb from the last bit of ink left in the pen.  Although my indirect experience throughout the day was filled with frustration and anger, my actual direct experience at the venue was fulfilling and pleasant.

Although they reside in areas all over the city now, most of my adult offspring and their respective significant others are still registered at the same voting venue as my beloved Assie and myself.  Three of them arrived at the venue at 07:00 and they were directed to queue in the first of two queues assigned to voters with surnames starting in A-L.  By 08:30 they had made little progress in moving forward toward the voting booth area and my youngest, Jess, had to abandon ship in order to get to work in time for 09:00.  Her request for special assistance with voting due to her fairly high risk 18-week-pregnancy, was disdainfully dismissed by an official who “could not even see her baby bump”.  Annie and Marno remained in the queue, patiently waiting for their turn to vote which finally happened just before 10:00.  Marno was voter number 57 (out of the A-L group) as he stepped up to the plate.  It was at this point where the frustration part of my day started.  I did the basic math and it did not paint a pretty picture!  Out of half of the registered voters on the roll for our particular venue, only 57 could vote in the first three hours.  I rounded the voter number to 60 in order to simplify the math and I came up with a basic prediction model.  Extrapolating the known data onto the basic model, the voting success rate of queueA-L was determined to be 20 successful votes per hour and that would allow a maximum of 280 people to successfully vote over the allocated 14 hour period.  I took to both the municipal and neighbourhood information WhatsApp groups of our ward to raise my concern, backing it up with facts and math only.  No emotion.  Just short of an hour later, the Councillor replied with a declaration that the IEC quadrupled the voting booths at our venue and I adjusted the prediction model based on the new information.  Although the new information was unverified at that time, I posted the new maximum number of successful votes as 1,120 on both WhatsApp groups.  I also posted two requests (on both groups) for confirmation of successful implementation of all the extra voting booths (in order to quadruple the voting capacity) as committed to by the IEC.  Around noon, a group member posted that queueA-L still only had two voting booths.  This was the only reply I received, and it confirmed, at least in part, that the IEC failed to deliver on their commitment.  People were left to wait in queues for multiple hours, waiting for the opportunity to vote, and from the posted messages, it was becoming clear that their frustration levels were increasing.  More concerning however, was the deafening silence of the Councillor and/or his committee members.  They were blissfully ignorant towards not only the growing frustration of the people they profess to serve, but also towards the facts and math which substantiated the frustration.    By late afternoon, another group member alerted the group to invaluable information.  There are only two printed name registers and two tablets available for the entire venue, thus a single name register and tablet for each queue.

Despite tagging the Councillor in all of my posts and directing specific questions to him in some posts, he failed to respond.  When I finally resorted to a private conversation with him, his replies to my first messages were either incomplete or patronizingly condescending, and eventually, he failed to communicate at all.  Yes, he complained to the IEC about the incompetence, and yes, he relayed the relevant information to the people.  However, he failed to take up the responsibility to follow up on the complaint he made with the IEC on behalf of the people he serves, and essentially, address their concerns.  From the available evidence, it appeared as if he was satisfied with simply making the complaint with the IEC, shifting all the blame to them and then retreating into a bubble of plausible deniability about the process of executing solutions and the outcome thereof.  This also served to highlight an emerging pattern of behaviour I have noticed over time on the WhatsApp groups and with politics in general.  The majority of political leaders in our beautiful nation resort to extreme forms of blame shifting, to the point where they absolve themselves of all responsibility and instigate a torrential eruption of raw emotion from crowds of people.  They then use these emotions to manipulate the crowds to follow them, not because they are good leaders, but rather because they are great magicians.  They do not desire to lead, their only desire is that people follow them blindly.  They master the ability to put up a spectacular show of deceit, and thereby, distract the people from the actual truth.  The cold, hard truth that they are functionally impotent leaders.  A little like the naked emperor.  Even before yesterday, I found myself in a profound inner turmoil about where to cast my vote.  With the increasing frustration about the questionable conditions under which voters are expected to pledge their allegiance to whomever they consider to be worthy leaders to govern our country, I also felt the inner turmoil starting to dissipate.  It was almost as if I had rapidly developed the ability to view all the applicable emperors in 4K UHD and by 20:15 I knew exactly where to cast my vote.  Most certainly NOT for the emperors with see-through slogans such as WE WILL STOP LOADSHEDDING or ONLY WE CAN SAVE SOUTH AFRICA.  Yes, the IEC messed up by not doing the simple math and then prepare accordingly.  A few simple items would have made a significant difference in the voting experience at our station, and I have no doubt that it was applicable to mostly all troubled voting stations.  Perhaps some of the naked emperors could have ditched the KFC and T-shirts and refrain from underestimating the intelligence of their voters by pitching at the voting stations with printers, paper and tablets to speed up the ridiculously inept ancient process for the IEC officials who were, essentially, subjected to sink or swim with mostly mid 20th century technology in the 21st century.  Mr Councilllor, you blamed the reason for slow progress on the presence of many voters who are not actually listed on the roll register.  Simple tailored software installed on mobile devices issued to a few energetic youngsters who take a few seconds to scan all ID’s which then integrates with the control panel of the kokipen crew, would go a long way to solve many of yesterday’s issues.  Let’s just cut the crap for a moment.  Saving South Africa and ending loadshedding are Herculean, heavyweight tasks.  Solving the problems which prevent voters from having a pleasant voting experience, fit for the 21st century, is featherweight, easy-as-pie tasks.  Dear Emperor, not a single one of you were able to perform the latter.  I do not believe that any of you currently have what it takes to perform the former.  Perhaps you should learn to master glue, before moving onto fire.  Most of you never had my vote and one of you lost my vote yesterday.  Stop the lies and deceit.  Take some time and regroup.  None of us need multiple reasons why we SHOULD NOT vote for your opposition, we really only need one credible reason why we SHOULD vote for you.  All of you failed at doing so.

Unlike my offspring, upon our arrival, Assie and I had to join the M-Z queue and it was about double as long as the A-L queue.  Jess came with us, and before we separated to join our respective queues, we engaged with a wonderful young IEC official.  This young man listened intently while I explained the need to avoid unnecessary risks to Jess’ pregnancy and then he committed to assist her to vote as soon as possible.  He fulfilled his commitment with obvious integrity and soon after we joined our queue, purple-thumbed Jess fetched our car key so she could wait for us in the comfort of a warm car.  The same young man assisted us later on when our names didn’t appear on the list and, in a jiffy, he managed to find it on the tablet.  I was able to thank him for both of his acts of kindness.  His bright beaming smile at the very end of what must have been a gruelling 14-hour shift, reminded me about my passion and love for our tenacious and diverse rainbow nation.  In the queue I strike up a chat with a young woman in front of us.  She is wearing a mask, because she came down with flu-like sniffles and she would not want to infect others.  Remarkably confident, she is a research professional with a master’s degree in chemistry.  I connect with her and she reciprocates my interest in her.  Ahead of us in the queue, I notice a couple with their two adorable children, a toddler and preschooler each dressed up in winter woolies with matching beanies and boots fitted with colourful motion-detection lights on the rims of the soles.  They each have a mobile phone in hand and between the impressive skill with which they operate those mobile phones and the cuteness they radiate, they manage to intentionally charm the Nana in me.  They look happy and secure and I have no doubt that their doting parents love each other deeply.  Behind us, I noticed another couple joining the queue.  She has both hands cupping the bottom of what looks to be a baby bump and she looks either worried or in pain.  I walk over to them and strike up another conversation.  She had just been discharged from hospital after giving birth to their baby boy via C-section and was indeed worried about the possible health risk posed by prolonged standing in the cold.  I suggested that they request assistance from an official for the same treatment Jess was offered earlier so that she, too, can wait for her husband in the comfort of a warm car.  I found myself overwhelmed by the warmth of love for all of these people, each with their own story and stuggles.  We are united in our desire to vote for a worthy government.  The friendly young IEC official, the bright chemistry professional, the adorable cuties and their parents, the new parents - all of us deserve to have the government of our beautiful country in the hands of responsible leaders with integrity. 

I finally get my opportunity to cast my vote and I step up to the voting booth to draw my three crosses.  I vote for a party with a well versed manifesto containing level-headed approaches to real Mzansi problems and a humble, sober commitment to addressing them.  I will admit that I did not read the entire manifesto, but I am able to get behind that which I was able to read.  As chief and visionary of an IT company with all the necessary God-given talent and skill to provide brilliant, tailored information solutions, I believe that we are well positioned to assist a responsible government in securing a competitive global advantage in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and beyond.  While I draw my crosses, I pray for a Divine recalibration of the bullshit radars of all South Africans and for the opportunity to take hands with the honorable people in our next government, so that we can finally all roll up our sleeves and build the nation we all deserve!