South Africans not ready for change.

The 7^th of May 2014 marked the firth democratic elections in South Africa; there was a lot of drama and scandal surrounding these elections. New political parties were formed; there was intense campaigning from most of the parties. But these elections also evoked a lot of tension in most townships in the country.

There were various protests for service delivery in most townships, places like Freedom Park, Bekkesdal in the west rand and some areas in the Western Cape. Most residents vowed that they would not vote in the May 7^th elections until their demands were looked into and something was done about service delivery. In most of these areas nothing was done about the service delivery protests but came the 7^th of May residents went to the voting stations and according to the results they put the same government that does not attend to their service delivery into power again.

The premier of Gauteng Nomvula Mokanyane made a statement saying that the ANC does not need Bekkesdals dirty votes, but the ANC got majority votes in this area. This just shows that we south Africans are either not ready for change or we are scared of change. The Nkandla gate proved to all South Africans how the ruling party missuses tax payer’s money. In the very same province, the home of Nkandla and yet the ANC got 64.52% what does this say about the politics of So

uth Africa and the voters. Are we blinded by the so-called RDPS, the social grants to actually see that the current government could do more than what they are doing now with tax payer’s money?

Many might argue that they are voting for a party and not for individuals but let us keep in mind that these individuals make part of the party. No matter how we put it, a party would not be there without the same individuals that say things such as we do not need your dirty vote. But yet again we go and vote for this party. The no vote campaign was launched so that people could vote for small parties or rather spoil their vote if one is undecided who to vote for. This campaign was put into place to make provision for people who were not sure who to vote for, and to also make provision for change and vote for small parties.

According to the electoral commission there were 251 960 spoilt votes, and this could have secured between five and six seats in parliament. As much as the ruling party crashed this campaign, it seems to have reached its goal. The results are out and as a citizen of this country I can just hope that in the next term things will be done in a much, transparent and corruption free manner.