This Time, My Vote for the ANC is Emphatic

By Nelisiwe Ndlovu

As a practical person, I am very proud to see how our country has grown. Here we are, with several opposition parties all vying to be our chosen representative in national and provincial government. Because of my job, I have always avoided being open about my political affiliations. However, despite my job, I have expressed my dismay over the years when I felt that the ANC was deteriorating as far as being a leader of society is concerned.

But these elections are different.

I am excited to see quality opposition parties, and I will never say let us condemn the opposition for any reason – our democracy needs opposition parties. The one clear thing is that I am voting for the African National Congress. Not because I have known and loved this party since Mandela’s poster was in our living room in 1995; I am voting for the ANC in spite of what it allowed to happen to national treasures like Thuli Madonsela when she was heckled for doing her job well. I am voting for the ANC in spite of its many failings; too many disappointments to mention.

Many would say it is foolish to vote for the ANC; loads have left the ship to join little breakaways whose loudest utterance is that they do not stand with the ANC. I am voting ANC because not only has it shed the unsightly skin of personality politics, it has allowed itself to be vulnerable to scrutiny and abandonment by openly declaring its failings and seeking to correct them.

The ANC has displayed the one characteristic needed to evolve: the process of culling bad mutations and spreading good mutations may have left it slightly weaker now, but it has also given me a reason to encourage my children to form a bond with the party of their grandparents – the ANC will survive beyond our lifetime. Not as an opportunistic party that was founded on vengeance, spite, or basic survival, but a party that sought to change society and succeeded.

A party whose successes far outweigh its failures. A political party that represents not only the tragedies and triumphs of our past but the power we have in our hands only if we unite and focus on carrying our society forward. A party for Africa and the marginalized.

I am voting ANC!