A GNU Dawn for a New Government After ANC Loses Its 30-Year Majority
2024 is a reconfiguration of South African democracy born in 1994
It was a chilly Wednesday when I cast my vote on May 29. Also, a day of mixed emotions as I recalled how excited my late husband and I were when we cast our votes in the first post-apartheid democratic elections on April 27, 1994.
I wished he could have held on long enough to witness the results thirty years later. Here I was, now a widow, voting at the polling station set up on the grounds of the local clinic. He used to wait for hours here to consult a doctor or collect his medication.
A teary moment as I sat in the queue for the over sixties, and wondered if he’d ever sat on the same chair I was occupying. I didn’t want to cry in public, so raised my eyes to the blue Highveld winter sky, calling on him to be with me in spirit. He came, and tranquility washed over me.
Half an hour later, I cast my vote.
Neither of us voted in the 2019 elections as it wouldn’t change anything — the ANC ((African National Congress) would still hold the monopoly on governing our country.
This time was different. All the polls forecast the ANC would come in below 50% and I wanted to be one major reason.
