the corner office

Cape Town seems to be the place where the real politics is happening, in the run-up to Wednesday's elections. Power failures providing fodder for spittle-flying anti-ANC rhetoric, forgot-to-register court shenanigans with the ACDP, and real personalities in the mayoral race (except for the ANC, where The Mystery Mayorial Candidate will jump out of the victory cake at the celebrations if they actually win). It's fun stuff, it makes for Good TV.

Joburg, on the other hand, seems rather stale. Ultimately it's all a bit disconnected, and I don't think many people around here are that involved in the local politics. Driving down Pendoring/Weltevreden road, there're posters for a DA candidate named Van Zijl (iirc), and an ANC candidate named Twala (iirc, again) (correction: drove past, I had her name wrong). Which just goes to show, I have no bloomin' idea who these people are and I'm barely sure if I'm remembering their names correctly (correction: I wasn't). I don't even know if they're candidates for my ward or one of the wards next door to us.

The only other memorable posters down Pendoring are Uncle Tony staring longingly into the distance, dreaming of a Bright New Tomorrow where black people vote for him, and Oom Pietie Mulder trying to look as impressively conservative but good-naturedly earnest as you can get.

If I had to vote purely on how dynamic and capable people looked in their posters, I'd vote for Ms Twala.

But I won't. It really just comes down to old-fashioned opposition politics, and because of that, the ANC doesn't get my vote, and the DA does. They haven't done much to earn it, but since they're not the people calling the shots, I hope they'll at least make life difficult for the people who do.

It is nice to see, though, that people are standing up and giving the ANC what-for in places where the ANC has really failed to deliver.