Nkosikhulule Nyembezi
For the first time in my life, I am genuinely unsure how to vote in these elections. But I will vote for many good reasons.
I am officially an undecided voter: a massive jelly of doubt quivering unsteadily from side to side. This state is somewhat embarrassing, given that firstly, it is primarily my responsibility to have an opinion, and secondly that I have spent the last six months traipsing to the reading of 21 manifestos cover to cover, crisscrossing the country conducting voter education and conflict resolution training, interviewing candidates and voters to discover trends.
Which is why the Kagiso Trust, the KwaZulu-Natal Christian Council, the KwaZulu-Natal Religious Leaders Forum, the Election Monitoring Network and others will deploy election observers and conflict mediators nationwide to ensure free and fair elections.
We have come to the end of election campaigns that feel long and stale, the final stretch of a controversial debate that has been brewing in this country for years. Two camps have positions fixed by the necessity to preserve their incumbency on the one side or the determination to take over from the incumbent on the other.
Yet in the middle stands a group of people, 12% or more of the electorate, who, according to various informal estimates, are still undecided either because they cannot identify with any of the contesting political parties or independent candidates or because their initially chosen party has dropped out of the contest or, for some other reason.
If you are one of those 12%, or if you know one of them and want to make a last bid to persuade them towards voting, there is one closing argument to which both sides agree: these elections carry one of the most significant political decisions of our lifetimes – and we must vote instead of abstaining.
The real surprise is not that so many voters are undecided. It is that so many have managed to make their minds up against the odds. There are 15 parties whose names include “African”, 10 with “Congress”, and 10 with “Movement”. There is much the same in the duplication of election promises.
I see how exasperating it is for those whose future lies in the hands of undecided voters. The temptation for the majority who know precisely how they will vote – and I have always been one of them – is to bellow and bully as I once did in 2014: “The rest of us are sick of pretending to care about you, saying nice things to you, and doing your damn laundry when it comes to deciding on who should be our freely elected representatives for the next five fears. It is about time you decide and make that mark.”
But in 2024, I cannot repeat those words as it is condescending and arrogant to assume that the undecided do not know or understand the same things others do; there is nothing morally superior about clinging to personal certainty in choosing early on in the election cycle which party to vote for and self-righteously haranguing people still trying to think through the consequences of their actions.
Millions of other eligible voters seem to be flapping around in the same miserable circles. Undecided, realise that you are not alone.
As floating voters, we are not all holding out until the last minute for better bribes. We noticed how much these elections matter, especially given the unprecedented number of candidates and court cases on election disputes. Because they matter, we want to be closer to the election day when we decide.
Being undecided is different from saying, “I do not know; I have not thought about it”. As undecided voters, our choice is between head and heart. We are not dithering. We are Solomons in these elections, carefully weighing the choices on which politician to entrust with our vote for a better life for all.
Many of us know what we want but struggle to find it on offer – or are agonising over how best to get it in legislatures where an unpalatable tactical vote might be needed. Some of us know what we want but struggle to believe a rather B-list generation of party leaders can deliver it, even in a potential coalition set-up when some parties have not declared their positions on the prospective coalition governments.
Some of us were tribalists once, but we have seen our chosen tribe drift away from us, and we are torn over how to respond. Undecided has often meant unrepresented, unconvinced, unenthused and more besides, but it is not synonymous with unthinking or unprincipled.
Yet, in some ways, I enjoyed being undecided, as it allowed me to evaluate all candidates critically. If scrutiny is part of democracy, that can only be good.
While there have been years of work leading up to this moment, the shallow levels of accountability have dampened the spirit. The loud and brutal debates have meant many people deal with their lives, and pressures have switched off from what often seems like political noise. So, if you need more space to consider the arguments, find answers to some questions, and get clarity on some aspects of the election, you can do so right up to the point when you receive your ballot papers.
Parties have been unusually explicit about some things – reintroducing the death penalty or chasing African migrants out of our communities, for example, to the point of painting themselves into dangerous corners –and maddeningly vague about others, creating great vacuums into which anyone can shove a half-baked scare story about what might happen. Reading the poster slogans and campaign messages has become an exercise in deconstructing everything left unsaid. To add to the confusion, the rise of new political parties plus the implosion of some have redrawn the map in some places, creating multiple marginals and complex jigsaw puzzles where we can no longer assume that the most vocal candidate is the best choice to kick an incumbent out.
While I have yet to find clarity on many substantive policy issues, I have found something unexpectedly moving about the people coming out to examine their consciences and those of others in political debates. People have been listening intently, scribbling notes, talking it over on the walk home, and doing their civic duty, as nerdy as that sounds. If these are the typical profiles of undecided voters in these elections, then frankly, as a tribe, I feel pretty comfortable with them.
Given all this time for pondering and not being destroyed by smears and scare stories, let us navigate to the right place at the ballot end.
* Nyembezi is a policy analyst, researcher and human rights activist
Cape Times