Phillimon Makula (28)

Phillimon Makula (28) sells his assorted sweets on Kirk Street, outside Limpopo Mall on 17 April 2019. Photo: Nkateko Mabasa

Phillimon Makula plans to vote for the ANC on 8 May 2019, if he can find time to leave his stall on Kerk Street outside the Limpopo Mall. Although election day has been declared a public holiday, Makula can’t afford to lose the day’s profits. He earns at most R800 a month by selling the different types of sweets laid out on his table.

In front of the table, he displays a row of growing plants with just enough space to allow pedestrians to pass. He is prouder of his plant business than his sweets, but it isn’t doing that well. Every day he spends R21 for a taxi from Ga-Mamabolo just south of Polokwane where he lives with his wife, who works as a teller at Shoprite, and their two children.

Although he is still young, and would normally be tagged as an EFF member in Julius Malema’s home turf in Polokwane, he says he will stick with the ANC as he has an RDP house because of the party, and there is water and electricity where he lives. He says he “can’t vote for the EFF” because he has never seen them do anything in his area.

“They just talk but nothing is provided,” said Makula.

Hlengiwe Miya (32)

Hlengiwe Miya (32), walking to the gym from work on Marshall Street in Polokwane CDB on 17 April 2019. Photo: Nkateko Mabasa

For Hlengiwe Miya a vote for the ANC is something she’s not willing to do. In 2014 she started voting for “anything” besides the ANC. She doesn’t remember who she voted for, she just chose “any party” in the voting booth.

She felt “angry” at the “collective problems” she has with the ANC and also feels “manipulated” when the party uses her “history as a black person” to want to make her vote for them.

“I felt like they were trying to make the decision for me,” said Miya.

She says she is older now and wiser, and won’t be making the same mistake again. This year she plans to give the “EFF government” a chance.

“If people don’t do right, regardless of their history, I will not vote for them,” said Miya.

She has been living in Limpopo for a year now, working as a pupil advocate with the Polokwane Law Society after moving from Durban. She says she likes the weather in Limpopo and plans to settle there once she has finished her articles and if she gets a job.

As a young person, she likes the “radical approach” of the EFF and thinks the DA “does not have a clear direction”.

Hilda Ramahuma (32)

Hilda Ramahuma (32) waiting outside SARS office on Host City 2010 street in Polokwane on 17 April 2010. Photo: Nkateko Mabasa

Hilda Ramahuma says she is sometimes “uncomfortable” with the anger that the EFF leaders show. Even though she is a branch member at Lephalale, west of Polokwane, she thinks that party members are “impatient” and do not know how to “communicate” because they are “fighters”.

She has come to the city to get a tax clearance from the SARS office on Host City 2010 Street before a job interview. She has been unemployed for four months now after she resigned from her previous job in financial management due to unfair labour practices.

Ramahuma says she in court “right now”, and that she is able to fight for herself. She says she can “acknowledge” that there are other people who are powerless at their jobs who the “fighters” can help.

But at the same time, she admires the ANC’s “good leadership skills” and the “patient” way they handled the Land Expropriation Bill in Parliament. Ramahuma believes that President Cyril Ramaphosa is being wrongly blamed for corruption and lack of service delivery.

“The people who are being pointed at now for all these bad things happening, it’s because of other people’s mistakes,” said Ramahuma.

Even though she has some grievances with the EFF, she still likes that the party is for young people and that they are “loud” when tackling suffering, unlike the ANC who are “quiet”.

“In the EFF, you become an icon while you are still alive. And at the ANC they keep silent and recommend you to become an icon when you are dead,” said Ramahuma.

Josia Ramoni (23)

Josiah Ramoni walking through the streets of Juju Valley in Seshego, a township in Polokwane on 17 April 2019. Photo: Nkateko Mabasa

Josia Ramoni wants to know more about the EFF. He says the ANC is the only party he has seen in the community he grew up in, Bochum in Polokwane. He has visited his uncle in Juju Valley, an informal settlement founded in 2017 where the EFF called for land occupations.

At his home, Ramoni lives in a “cramped space” at his parents’ house, with his four older brothers and his sister with her child. Only one of his brothers has a job, as a petrol attendant. His salary supports the family along with his sister’s child grant.

Ramoni matriculated in 2017 at Ralekwalana High School but did not have money to enroll for a pilot’s course in an international programme. He says the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) told him that they do not fund studies outside of the country.

Since then he has been volunteering to teach primary school kids how to play marimba. Back in 2014, a friend of Ramoni’s taught him how to play and started a field band. He recalls how they would get many invitations to perform in many places but he had to quit because he didn’t like the infighting in the band.

Whichever party gets elected, Ramoni says he would like help with a bursary to become a pilot or to go to music school. DM