When I went to cast my vote at the Baphumelele Crèche in Site B, Khayelitsha, on Wednesday afternoon, I knew right then that change was coming to the Mother City. I swear I would have thought that I was in a wrong place. There were no long queues; in fact, there was no queue at all. This was the opposite of what I experienced in 2004, when I came here to vote for the first time. Then I remember being in a queue for more than three hours. Now, I was barely there for 20 minutes.
I dreaded this day because I had anticipated being there for hours, but I wasn’t and I was quite disappointed. ”Where are the people?” I asked a group of ladies sitting outside checking my details on the voters’ register.
”Oh don’t worry, they’re coming,” one middle-aged woman answered. But I wasn’t convinced. It was something to four, there was no one in sight and the voting station closed at 7pm.
The African National Congress is out of power and the spirit of the people here in Khayelitsha, except for the ones who didn’t vote or voted for a different party, has reached an all-time low. I was listening to one of our community radio stations after it was announced that the Democratic Alliance was leading in Cape Town and the residents were shocked and angry.
One caller blamed the youth for not participating in the elections. ”I didn’t see any of them at the polling stations,” he said, ”but they’re the ones benefiting from the child grants that the government of the ANC is giving them to feed their children.”
Truth be told, people didn’t come out to vote. Out of 2 301 371 registered voters, only 1 266 281 voted. And this might have caused the ANC to lose its grip in the Western Cape. To many people in the township, especially the older generation, it’s now back to ”Pharaoh” — a term used to describe the old government.
People like 50-year-old Nodume Lurafu — who see the ANC as the Messiah that freed blacks from the clutches of the evil, past regime — swear that it’s now doom for the township-dwellers. ”I’m frightened,” she said. ”How can I trust people that have oppressed us for so many, many years? The old pass laws will come back. And we’re going to be driven back to the homelands in the Eastern Cape, just wait and see.”
But her daughter, 28-year-old Ntombozuko, has a different take. Just like her mother and many people in the trains and taxis, she blames the ANC councillors for the low turnout.
”People were simply not motivated to vote, either because of non–deliverance or a lack of commitment by the councillors,” she says.
Unlike her mother, Ntombozuko thinks the DA will fulfil its promises. ”If they want us to vote for them in the next elections, they will surely treat us well so that we don’t forget them,” she said.
Like everyone else, all that unemployed Ntombozuko wants for herself, her three kids and Khayelitsha, is safety, proper housing and new job opportunities.
For those who didn’t vote, my mother included, it really doesn’t matter who leads the city. My mother says her life didn’t improve when the ANC was in power, so it doesn’t matter to her who rules Cape Town. She doesn’t expect any change soon.
For myself, I’m waiting eagerly to see if change is going to come and what Helen Zille, if she does become mayor, will do for me. Right now, though, what Helen can do for herself is to talk to the people at grassroots level. The people I spoke to don’t even know who she is.