South Africa

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Make like a banana and split (your vote)

Make like a banana and split (your vote)
An election official checks a voter's identity document as South Africans queue to cast their vote as the polls open in Johannesburg, South Africa, 22 April 2009. EPA/JON HRUSA

What am I to do as a voter? I don’t like what the ANC has become, but I think Cyril Ramaphosa is our best hope for the future. I tend to side with the DA, but I also find it offensive. So the time has come to vote strategically and split my vote, not spoil it. By Beyers de Vos.

There are a few fundamental truths about this election that can’t be denied.

  • The ANC will win the national vote. It will govern;

  • The ANC will win every provincial vote, bar one;

  • The Zuma faction within the ANC still has power; and

  • The DA will win in the Western Cape.

I am a political pragmatist – which means that I believe we need to vote in the best way we can, given the set of political realities with which we are faced. I see no reason to vote emotionally or with any kind of historical bias. Protest votes don’t interest me. I abhor radicalism, and populism is the worst kind of democracy. I don’t believe in voting for a third party that will end up being inconsequential. I don’t believe in spoiling your ballot, and no citizen interested in participating in their democracy should stay away from the ballot box on election day.

When we vote, the questions we need to ask are: how can we vote in a way that sends a clear message to those people who will end up wielding actual power? How can we vote in the most effective way possible given the choices we face?

In the 2019 election, I think the answer lies in the unique power we have when we vote: the power to vote twice – on a national ballot and a provisional ballot.

I have been eligible to vote since 2009, when I was 19 years old. I have since voted in every election, national and local, as both a resident of Tshwane and of Cape Town. I have never split my vote – the fact you are handed two ballot papers and need to make the same X twice has always been more of an annoyance, as opposed to an actual option that deserves full consideration. If you support a party, you support a party, and why would you divide that support?

I’m a centrist, a capitalist and – more or less – born into a democratic South Africa. As a voter, my choice has always seemed clear: the ANC or the DA. This choice has always been defined by the following considerations:

1. Ideologically, the ANC and the DA are very similar. On some issues, like land distribution, economic policies (including affirmative action) and education, I come down on the side of the ANC. On other issues, like press freedom and foreign policy, I side with the DA. But I am also aware that I am a white, privileged person, who has a job, to whom most of the issues I just listed are a matter of policy debate rather than a lived reality; therefore, my choice has always been more about the balance of power than about efficacy of a single policy.

2. The ANC is corrupt; this corruption has crippled our economy. They have no moral authority left, and I do not trust them to truly empower those people who desperately need it.

3. The DA is a bad party – they are institutionally racist, and they can’t admit this, let alone reckon with it. They have half-policies; and they can’t begin to explain how they plan to enact the policies they do have. For years their whole argument has been that they can do exactly what the ANC does, but do it better. They are more efficient, they tell us. Less corrupt. More honest. A fact they have yet to prove to this voter. And by the way, this isn’t a logical or persuasive argument – lots of things they are aren’t the ANC. They are pretentious. They are defensive, reactionary, and uninspiring. They pander to voting blocs they think they can win; this pandering is elitist.

4. I believe in strong opposition. It is vital for a healthy democracy to have a strong opposition. The stronger the opposition, the stronger the democracy.

My votes over the last 10 years have swung between these four rather frustrating facts. A choice, each time, that I have dreaded. Always a lesser-of-two-evils choice.

This year, however, there is another, very powerful consideration:

The ANC is going to win. And if they are going to win, we need Cyril Ramaphosa to be strong, to be powerful. I truly believe the ANC’s best chance – and therefore South Africa’s best hope – is Ramaphosa. Do I understand that he was part of the Zuma government – yes, I do. Could he have spoken up, or acted sooner? Perhaps, in order to gain the moral high ground. But it doesn’t help to be stranded on the moral high ground if you cannot effect change, if you have no power. Now, finally, he does have that power. He can clean the ANC. He can reverse Zuma’s damage. For him to be able to do this, he needs two things: two terms as president and a clear mandate from voters. His power needs to be assured, unchallenged.

The Zuma faction is still there, still powerful; any excuse to get rid of Ramaphosa and install someone from their own faction, and they will use it. A weak showing for the ANC in this election – weaker than any showing Zuma made – and we will have given them that excuse. And then we will have truly driven off the cliff. It is in the best interest of the ANC, and the country, for Ramaphosa to be as strong as he can be. For this to happen, his mandate from the electorate needs to be unequivocal – we believe in your way of doing things, in your version of the ANC.

I believe the ANC can recover. But I also believe the ANC needs to be punished for years of corruption, for years of neglect, for years of squandered goodwill.

At the same time, I don’t want to vote for the DA; I don’t like them. They need to be punished at the polls, need to be forced to confront their very real problems. (If anyone – literally anyone – could establish a better, less oblique opposition, that would be super.) But they are the best opposition we have at the moment. A check, albeit a frustrating one, on power.

So how do you let both the ANC and the DA know that they need to be better; to do better? How do you punish both the ANC and the DA? How do you make sure the opposition remains strong, but that Cyril Ramaphosa secures his presidency?

You split your vote.

To secure a strong opposition, give them your provincial vote. I wouldn’t hate it, for example, if the IFP won KwaZulu-Natal, or if the EFF took Limpopo, or the DA won Gauteng.

At the same time, you show your discontent with the ANC: punish them in the provinces, and the message will be clear – we trust Ramaphosa, but we don’t trust the ANC. We can put faith in the executive, but not in corrupt structures or petty factionalism that stem from provincial power struggles. But in order to give Ramaphosa the mandate he needs to truly root out corruption in the government, give the ANC your national vote. A weak, disempowered Ramaphosa will lead to a renewed surge by the Zuma faction – and in that direction lies true disaster. At the same time, you deprive the DA (or other opposition of your choice) of what they really want – a bigger national presence.

Strengthen the opposition, while letting them know they aren’t a viable national option. Send a message to the ANC that they need to root out corruption. And give Ramaphosa the mandate he needs to facilitate real change.

For this reason, I will for once not be choosing between the better-of-two-evils, but voting for both of them. Scary stuff, but hopefully effective. DM

Beyers de Vos is a novelist and editor who lives in Cape Town. He was prose editor for the literary journal New Contrast, and holds a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Cape Town. Talion (Wrok in Afrikaans) is his first novel. He is 29 years old.

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