The author of this column says that South Africa should derive lesson of how to move forward from this 29 May 2024 elections exercise. Pictures: Brendan Magaar/African News Agency(ANA)
The 29 May General Government Elections will surely be a lesson for all South Africans. Are ready to learn it?
As I prepare to cast my vote today, I am fortunate to on a personal level, remember such a momentous occasion which happened in this country 30 years ago.
I was still a toddler then. My mum did not want to leave me behind.
She took me along. Little did she know that she was creating for me a memory that will forever be vivid in my mind.
In 2017, she succumbed to cancer in this very month of May. She was also laid to rest on this month.
Many reminisce about this day for many reasons, political and otherwise.
I would like to think that I do it for a rather patriotic reason.
I submit that the significance of the 1994 elections did not only lie in the fact that all South Africans got to exercise the hard earned right to elect a government of their choice together.
While that will forever be special for all the citizens of this country, there is more.
The importance of that day was most definitely not on who won at what level.
That will only be important to parties and their supporters.
On that day, which we will forever cherish, I believe that as a country, there was a lesson for all to learn.
That day presented us all a lesson which we had to use to build South Africa into a better country in the best way.
As we vote again today, the question is, did we all learn the lesson we had to learn in the previous elections and are we ready to learn the lesson we have to learn from the 2024 elections?
Whether we did learn the lesson we were supposed to learn, is reflected by the level of growth and development we have achieved 30 years later.
It is reflected by the amount of progress made at national level all the way down to our humble households.
Did we learn how to solve and eliminate the then social ills that plagued this nation?
Are we now facing new problems that we hope will be resolved because even those we previously had were properly dealt with?
When we look at the children born in 1994 today, do their lives reflect the fact that South Africa did learn the lesson that would ultimately better this young life?
The state of our communities, the level of service delivery and the welfare of our community members, should have taught us a thing or two as we head into this election.
They should have armed us with everything we needed to create another lesson for our fellow South Africans as we step into our future.
The end of this year's elections should be the beginning of our study.
We should go beyond the fact that voters have trusted this party or individual with their country's or province's hopes, ideals and fortunes.
We should interrogate the results. We will have to crunch this data that will be our combined votes.
If we want to derive impact from this voting exercise, we have to be smart and analyse this votes data.
We should ask what does it tell us about the needs and wants of young Miss X or Mr Y in their particular community.
How are those different from those of young Mrs Z in a different community but more importantly, how can they all be properly accommodated?
There are also lessons for the many political party leaders or individuals who have tried to convince members of the public to prefer their party, their leader, their manifesto and all documents and deliver their votes to them.
But if the voter dislikes all that this party or independent offered and opts to vote in this or that way(or not vote at all) surely there is a lesson for all parties and individuals there.
The members of the public, who will see the leader or independent they preferred or loathed, emerging victorious, will also have their own lessons to learn.
The significance of our voting today does not begin or end today? It will live on in the lessons we will derive from the results, how we form the government and how that government ultimately works with the broader public to make this country better and worse.
Earlier, I mentioned that some people like my mother who voted in 1994 are now late. But the effort they put in voting on that historic moment still counts.
South Africans vote today having lost many people during Covid-19, the 2021 riots in KwaZulu-Natal and parts of Gauteng as well as the floods that hit KZN, the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and other parts of the country. On a daily basis, South Africans lose their lives due to illness, crime, accidents and other unfortunate ways. Most of these people died with hopes and efforts to contribute to the country’s best ideals.
If we want them to rest in peace, then we have to learn the lesson that comes from this election. If we want to rest well when our own days come to an end, we should learn the lesson.
Well, if need be, we should learn how we must learn the lessons that will enable us to rise up and build a South Africa we are all proud and happy of.
*Given Majola is a multimedia reporter at Business Report. He writes in his personal capacity.
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