Never mind what your party says, what does it do?

I WON'T be voting this week. This really burns me, as I learnt early that the vote was a precious thing, and I’ve exercised it religiously. But there’s a family thing I have to do. I tried to get a special vote, but apparently you must know about any crises at least a month in advance in order to apply, and you can only get a special vote for a day or so prior to polling date. So there goes my chance to exercise my democratic right.

Ah well! At least it relieves me of the burden of deciding which party gets my strategic vote. I am not impressed by those with any serious prospects of winning or making headway, so I’d have ended up voting for some smaller party with vaguely promising policies.

Last week an article in the New York Times spoke about the disconnect between politics and food policies, one of the realest issues around, and I thought how thoroughly this applies to us in South Africa. Go and look at the Food Price Barometer on the PACSA website and you’ll discover that the real food inflation rate, year on year for June, is 14.08% - which makes the Chemical Energy Paper Printing Wood and Allied Workers Union's (CEPPWAWU) demand for a 9% increase sound a lot more reasonable than the employers would have you think. South Africans are going hungry as a result.

So why is food not top of the policy list? In the last two years, our country has been scoured by a vicious drought. Crops have been seriously affected – the wheat harvest was down by 18% last I saw, and maize by almost a third. Instead of just accepting price rises blindly, voters should be asking questions about food security in South Africa – and what their political party of choice has to say about it.

And in practical terms, to boot, not just sweeping statements about supporting subsistence farmers and the like. Like the commercial farmer I heard asking, at a meeting a couple of years ago, about what is being done to build infrastructure (silos, train lines and so on) in non-traditional areas where farming staple crops is now becoming more viable?

How are we encouraging a shift in what is farmed as well as where? What contingency plans do we have for years when there’s either drought or extreme weather seriously affecting harvests? (Check the eThekwini/Durban flood pictures last week – layer those images over fields of sugar cane or mealies in your imagination, and you’ll have a good idea of how too much water can be as bad as too little!)

Water should be top of mind

Water is another issue. We live in a semi-arid country; water should be top of mind at all times. Does your party propose regulations requiring that all new-build residences and office/industrial construction projects have rainwater harvesting systems? (It beats me why we didn’t do this at the same time as putting up solar water geysers in townships– surely a little extra money could have been found for tanks alongside homes, even if only, for hygiene’s sake, to be used for loo-flushing and veggie gardening? Which, by the way, should also be getting support from politicos – veggie gardens fed by grey water could fill many empty bellies.)

What policies does your party support around urban water conservation? It kills me that every new townhouse development comes with paved parking areas – even when, as so many close to my home do, they sit on what were once reeded areas alongside water courses and seeps. We need water to seep back into the soil and replenish the water table, not flood heavily across paved land. Gravelled parking areas would enable that. As would greater respect for the lay of the land and natural water flows.

Sanitation – ye gods and little fishes, one of the most important issues of urban life! Public health ‘transitions’ happen at various times across the world – one such took place in Europe in the 19^th century, and it related to sanitation and hygiene. Mortality dropped because clean water and sanitation began to be provided.

Yet in 21^st century South Africa, I’ve seen raw sewage running across streets not far from where I live – for weeks. Ninety-eight percent of our rivers are apparently at risk because of contamination with faecal matter (human excrement), according to a Water Affairs report. What does your political party say about that?

And finally, the dreaded Women’s Month looms, when we’ll hear all sorts of pretty stuff about how wonderful women are, advertisers will ask us to ‘give her the day off on Women’s Day’, a few speeches will be made about violence against women… I often think the leaders of the Women’s March 60 years ago would be rolling their eyes to see what’s become of Women’s Month.

Never mind what your party says, what does it do? Do you see women leaders alongside the party head, given equal opportunity to speak and provide input? Do you see the party head welcoming back into the fold a man facing a case of sexual harassment? How men within the party behave towards women – and expect them to behave towards them – says a lot about the genuineness of any nice words they mouth.