Lessons from the 2014 South African Elections

The South African elections have come and are gone. Of-course the final results have not yet come out but already it seems clear that the election went in favour of ANC followed by DA and third place being the new kid on the block the Julius Malema's EFF.

Today I want to focus a little on the South Africa elections and draw some vital lessons which i hope our own ZEC, the Parliament, Government and political parties could emulate and make Zimbabwe a better place to belong to, especially during election times.

Political Tolerance
The South Africa law making system recently made it lawful for someone to turn up in a polling station clad in his/her party regalia and vote. It was so interesting to see very long queues of people waiting for their turn and all in different political regalia just chatting and enjoying the moment. Once again South Africa comes out a political rainbow nation.

It is my hope that maybe one day in Zimbabwe we shall see such amounts of political maturity being exhibited. I know some may argue that we have not yet reach that level of democracy, but it is my opinion that sometimes we may need to legislate it and then we reach it rather than first want to reach it and then legislate it.

The IEC ROCs

I was also pleased to note that the South African Independent Electoral Commission had created state of the art well equipped Results Operation Centres (ROC) in every province and a national ROC centre.

Pleasing to note was that in these ROCs the agents were free to enter clad in their political regalia and there was access to computers and internet for the journalists and the agents. The step of providing IT equipment for journalists and agents just goes to show how serious south Africa is in being transparent with its electoral system.

In the ROCs I was pleased with the idea of the Leader Board where results as they come were projected on a giant screen for everyone and anyone there to see.

Some of us, who are based here in Zimbabwe, were able to view the results on the internet leader board where they were updated regularly and were delayed by 15 minutes.

Results Verification System
The South Africa Results posting and verification system is also something to be commended and emulated. The system of sending results to the provincial ROC was based on the internet where the results slip was scanned and sent to the system then those manning the system would verify and post them on the Leader Board. Anyone who was in the ROC and wanted to verify the results had access to the scanned copy.

All Voters are equal
The conduct of the leaders of the political parties was also very commendable. It was humbling to observe Julius Malema (leader of EFF), Mamphela Ramphele (leader of Agang SA) and even Helen Zille (leader of DA) joining the queues together with the electorate to vote. I hope our own politicians should take a leaf from that and stop being VIPs in polling stations like what we have seen in the past where someone comes to the polling station late and just jumps the queue to vote merely because he is a candidate or is leader of a political party.

The EFF Factor
I wouldn't have done justice to the discussion of the South Africa Elections if I haven't spoken of the election surprise kid the Economic Freedom Fighters with their leader Julius Malema. The results of the elections so-far show that the EFF is likely to finish the election race as number three and may end at slightly below 10%. I think Zimbabwean opposition parties need to learn something from Julius Malema and his EFF. What made them come out as such huge favourites ahead of other opposition parties that have been in existence and have contested elections before such as COPE, IFP, UDM, NFP and others? Once answers to this question are thoroughly and objectively sought, the Zimbabwean opposition parties are likely to do better next time