With the final voter registration weekend getting off to a slow start in the smaller voting stations of Cape Town’s southern suburbs, residents, some of them first time voters, said voting to them is important if they are to determine the future they want.
This as the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) opened its door for the last time this weekend ahead of the national general elections in May.
Yolande Du Plessis, who was manning the St Augustine RC Primary School in Wynberg, voting station in Wynberg, said by 9am, only four voters – two who went in to check their registration details, while the other two went in to register – had come in.
Saeed Davids, a first time voter, said he felt it was important for him to vote because it was up to him to determine his own future.
“I think it is important to vote because we have a choice to choose our future and our future is important to us and we can choose for a better future for the people of South Africa,” he said.
Another voter, a senior citizen, said it was rather interesting to come back to a school that he went to in the 1950s to register to vote. He said at the age of 71, he was no longer voting for his future, but for the future of his children and his grandchildren.
Jessica Hudson-Reed, a Kirstenbosch resident, who went in to check her voter registration details at the Stone Cottages in the area, said her reason for wanting to vote in May is to choose her preferred political leaders in order to determine the direction that the country will take.
“I think it is important to vote because we have to have our say, if we don’t, we can’t complain about things that aren’t going our way. We want to make an informed decision about who we want to lead our country based on what we believe our country should be doing and where we should be going,” she said.
In Constantia, Pricilla Goeieman, a domestic worker, said it was also her first time voting this year. She said she felt like politicians always ask citizens to vote but it adds meaning if they live up to their promises.
“They must make a [positive] change on the streets. If you make a promise to someone, you must live up to it,” she said. – SAnews.gov.za
