Congratulations to the Special Votes Party and the Spoilt Votes Party. Both did exceptionally well in this election. As did the No Votes Party - remember, no moaning or complaints from your quarters for the next 5 years!
Congratulations to the African National Congress. This was certainly a landslide victory. Here’s hoping that the fact that you got more than the 66% required to allow you to amend the constitution, that you won’t. I’m quite fond of it as it is.
Congratulations to the Independent Democrats. Not bad for a brand new party Nice strapline: “More voice for your vote”.
Congratulations to all South Africans for getting through another democratic election without any incidents of note - free and fair for sure!
For sensible election coverage and explanations, please visit COMMENTARY.
Someone is going to receive a parcel containing the following
truly South African products:
Tex chocolate bar
A miniature bottle of Amarula
(contains alcohol)
A can of
Goldcrest Cape Gooseberries
in syrup
A packet of Freshpack Rooibos tea
Peppermint Crisp
All you need to do is leave a message in the comments below.
On 20 April 2004:
I will randomly draw a response,
contact the person via the email address left in the comments,
get a snailmail address from that person,
forward the package.
Friday, 9 April 2004
APRIL IN SOUTH AFRICA:
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4 PUBLIC HOLIDAYS
Well, the 9th and 12th are easy to explain: Easter weekend.
The 14th has been declared a public holiday because on Wednesday South Africans will vote to elect a new president and government. This will be the third democratic election held in South Africa.
The 27th is Freedom Day and commemorates South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994.
Now, back to the 14th:
The prediction is that the African National Congress (ANC) will take about two thirds of the votes on Wednesday.
My question is this: What made them choose the 14th as voting day?
You see, if people take leave from work on the 13th (as I will be doing), it will give them a nice 6-day break from the office. With a 6-day break from the office, most people will travel to holiday destinations (as I won’t be doing) and will be out of their voting districts on the 14th.
If they are not in their voting districts, where they are registered as voters, they will not be able to vote in the provincial election, but will be able to vote in the national election - if they.bothered to fill out the correct forms and got the right documents.
But then, when on holiday, would one bother to stand in queues and wait for hours to vote? Specially when the next day is a working day and one needs to make one’s way back home on busy national roads?
Why is the ANC government scared of the worker’s vote? Why tempt the employed population with a long weekend while the unemployed stay at home to vote?
What was the significance behind choosing the 14th as voting day?
But then, what do I know about all this kind of political stuff? Excuse me while I just couch around for the next 6 days.
ANC 68,6%; DA 9,2%; IFP 4,5%; NNP 3,2%; UDM 1,5%; ACDP 1,2%; Independent Democrats 1%. Other parties will collectively win 2,6%, but each will score less than 1%.
In June 2002 (ack! there is chaos going on in those archives), when I started Farrago, there weren’t many. In fact, the only other South African blog I could find pack then was PageCount - now known as out2lunch (a must-read).
Now there are many. Some are listed in my blogroll. The ones at Blogwise which caught my attention were:
2.Properties for sale in South Africa, the properties are mainly in Amanzimtoti (which means Sweet Water) on the South African East Coast. I wonder whether this helps with sales .... ? As a matter of interest, R1 000 000.00 (one million South African Rand) is equal to approximately US dollar 153 846.00 or Pound Sterling 86 206.00.
