Don’t be voting cattle. Think before you make that cross!
South Africans should think carefully before they cast their ballots on May 7, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu warned on Wednesday.
“Don’t be voting cattle. Think before you make that cross,” Tutu said at a media briefing about his thoughts on the 20 years of democracy celebrations at St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town.
Tutu said while he did not actively support the “Sidikiwe Vukani! Vote No” campaign, initiated by former intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils and former health deputy minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, the move was “shaking things up”.
The campaign – which is aimed at getting struggle activists and others not to vote for the ANC, or at least spoil their vote – showed that there were people concerned about the direction the country was taking, Tutu said.
Tutu maintained his negative stance towards the ANC, saying he no longer supported the party’s leadership as he did when he first voted on April 27 1994.
“I have sought to support a party that would be as close as possible to the sorts of things we would love to see. On the whole the ANC was that,” he said.
“Have you noticed the past tense,” he added.
Asked whether he still believed South Africans would one day pray for the downfall of the ANC – a statement he made when the government failed to grant the Dalai Lama a visa in 2011 – Tutu said he still held this view.
“I hope that I might be a little more generous… that’s not really true,” he joked.
Tutu said there were many things the country should be grateful to the ANC for.
He singled out the increase in the numbers of South Africans with clean running water, electricity and social grants.
The fact that under President Jacob Zuma the country had the world’s largest HIV/Aids treatment programme, was a feather in the ruling party’s cap.
“Maar ons moet die waarheid praat,” he said.
“We have to say there are things the world would not have thought our people would do.”
