South African elections are quickly becoming the “silly season”.

The term, first used in 1861, refers to the northern summer period when the UK parliament was in recess and there was not much politics to report on.

Newspapers filled their print space with “slow news season silly stories”.

We have an election 51 days from today and we are yet to see important issues being debated across the major media channels.

The May 2024 election has been described as the most important election since the dawn of our democracy and yet it feels like a slow news season.

While politicians are making speeches filled with some highly contentious content, it appears to be ignored or dismissed by the media instead of being analysed and debated.

One gets a sense that mainstream media houses are acting like MCs at a wedding instead of as journalists in a time that might become our greatest political crisis.

The Patriotic Alliance’s Gayton McKenzie, speaking at a recent BizNews event, stated that there is no genocide in Gaza. While we all gasp, he continues on.

The EFF’s Julius Malema said his party is willing to go into a coalition with the ANC on condition that Floyd Shivambu becomes Finance Minister.

While Mr Shivambu holds a Master’s degree with distinction in Political Studies and might become a very competent finance minister, his views on monetary policy and VBS require significant debate.

When reality dawns on May 30, 2024, and discussions begin on whether the ANC will go into a coalition with the EFF or the DA, the voters should have a very informed view on this matter, which hopefully they would have developed before May 29.

All of us who have been around for the last six general elections will recall the absolute storm that erupted around the world when President Nelson Mandela appointed Trevor Manuel as his finance minister in 1996.

At that point, Manuel held a tertiary diploma in civil and structural engineering. He went on to become a very highly regarded and successful finance head and one of the longest-serving finance ministers in the world.

The DA’s John Steenhuisen gave a speech at the party’s Paarl Manifesto launch this past weekend that, if one closed one’s eyes, reminded one of the apartheid era’s John Vorster in full-throttle anti-communist mode.

[ICYMI] "Why are they coming to the Western Cape? If they get that right, it's gonna be the biggest bank heist you've ever seen." - DA leader John Steenhuisen criticises new political parties gunning for the Western Cape. #Newzroom405 pic.twitter.com/Gn6MefpSlE
— Newzroom Afrika (@Newzroom405) April 6, 2024

Vorster, in a party speech in Heilbron in August 1968, stated that “it has become very clear to me that if the National Party suffers a setback, South Africa will be harmed irrevocably, and that must not happen under any circumstances”.

He and his successor PW Botha weaved their “die kommuniste wil ons land hê” (the communists want our country) regularly into their stump speeches.

Steenhuisen’s words, filled with the “other parties want the Western Cape” message, urged his audience to visualise the end of life, water, and everything else they currently have if other parties challenged and won the Western Cape from the DA.

And here I thought that was the point of an election. For some people who continue to live in abject poverty in informal settlements in a province that claims to be one of the best-managed provinces in the country, and with winter approaching, this might be a tempting idea.

When your poverty, despite all the success data published by the provincial government, is at the same level as the poverty of your compatriots in other provinces, you might be tempted to see if another party can offer you a better future.

If your shack is regularly destroyed by winter weather and your children have remained cold and hungry, you don’t care if your city has won multiple clean audit awards.

For those seeking political office, show your voters where poverty has changed under your leadership by showing the people and places where poverty has been eradicated. Don’t point to sterile budget allocations.

* Lorenzo A. Davids.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.

Cape Argus

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An election of half-truths and silly stories