Vote for delivery, not promises
· Citizen
Mpumalanga residents have faced water shortages. In Viljoenskroon, Free State, scarcity has become familiar. Johannesburg suburbs have not been spared.
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People plan days around taps that may run dry, store water where they can and learn to live with disruption that should never have become routine. Our adjustment is being mistaken for acceptance.
We have only recently emerged from load shedding, while some communities continue to experience load reduction. The electricity crisis taught households to organise life around darkness.
Now, water insecurity asks people to organise life around the possibility of having nothing to drink, cook with, wash in or flush away. These are not minor inconveniences. Water is a basic human right and reliable services are among the most fundamental responsibilities of government.
In parts of the Eastern Cape, children still face the indignity of pit toilets and dangerous river crossings on their way to school.
It would be convenient to blame the ANC and the party must answer for its record wherever it has held power.
But accountability cannot end with party slogans. Coalition governments must also answer for what happens under their watch.
Shared power cannot mean shared excuses, nor can political partners spend their time negotiating positions while residents negotiate for water.
What, exactly, is being discussed in those caucuses? Who is demanding deadlines, publishing plans and insisting that failed service delivery has consequences?
The ballot box is where citizens can make their anger count. Protests and public complaints matter, but election day offers a direct opportunity to reward delivery and reject failure.
Voters should ask every party what it will do, how it will pay for it, when the results will arrive and who will be held responsible if promises are broken.
A party’s history, branding or coalition arithmetic cannot replace a credible plan. A vote is not a lifetime contract; political mandates must be earned again and again.
Anger must not become apathy. When people stop expecting better, politicians can mistake exhaustion for permission to continue as before. South Africans must register their anger at the polls.
Water in the taps, electricity that works and safe schools are not campaign favours. They are the minimum. If leaders cannot deliver the basics, voters must be prepared to deliver the ruling.