Toilet Elections

Latest Campaigning

Today is the 18 of May 2011. It is the local government elections day. These elections are the same as the previous one, yet the campaigning is different.

 These elections are characterised as the toilet elections. This follows an incident reported on the SABC news. The report contained information and images of toilets that had no roof or walls.

These toilets were installed in the Western Cape which is under the rule of the Democratic Alliance(DA). The African National Congress (ANC) took it upon themselves and took the DA to court for violating human rights.

Then later on the ANC came under fire after it was discovered that they had done the same thing in Bloemfontein. They had installed open toilets as well.

The whole campaigning process was based on service delivery with sanitation as the main selling point. The media were exposing sanitation conditions around the country.

Besides the open toilets there was an issue with the bucket system. The bucket system is  not good for both the users and the people working on it. Their working conditions are not favourable.

The workers have to wake very early to pick up the buckets. The smell from these buckets is also not good for them and for the last part they have to wash these buckets. While in the process of washing these buckets they are in the risk of catching germs leading to diseases.

I am almost positive that the people queuing in voting stations are not only there for the improvement of sanitation services, but for the increase of speed in service delivery.