With the April 22 election looming, the biggest question on many South Africans’ minds must be, “To lump for the tried and tested opposition, or to follow the spark of something new?” I’ve made up my mind, but I can’t shake the feeling that I should be trying something different, tasting something fresh, giving someone else a chance. I’m referring to Cope, of course, and while my reasoning will prevail – that any newly-formed party needs at least a five-year term to consolidate itself and prove its staying power – I’m sure that I’ll leave the voting booth still wondering whether I should have been more adventurous. And that’s exciting…

So, there are more options this time round. There’s the opportunity, even, to go secessionist and vote Cape Party. Saif Islam interviews one of the party’s parliamentary candidates in his piece “Cape independence before the Second Coming”, and remarkably, these guys are serious. Yet, as Lesley Connolly reports in her article “SA starts to grow up”, the most significant difference between this election and the previous three is not the options available on the ballot paper, but that we now have voters going to the polls largely unaffected on an emotional level by the country’s past, and looking for change.

Cheers,

Duncan