Election Day!

Today is a very exciting day in South Africa... in addition to being our first free day since we arrived, it is Election Day here.  South Africans are voting for National and Provincial (State) offices. There are a couple big differences with the U.S. elections and South African elections... here is a list of some of the things I have learned/observed:

-Election Day is a public holiday here.  Many of the Rotarians that I have met have been excited about Election Day not only to vote but as a day off too.  Having the whole day off to vote seems to elevate the importance of voting and make it something that people look forward to.  I would be totally supportive of efforts in the U.S. to make Election Day a public holiday as a way to increase voter turnout and raise awareness of the importance of voting.  What are everyone else's thoughts on this??

-I had the opportunity to drive by a couple of polling places and they were packed!  I took some photos of the lines (or "queues" as they are called here) and hope to post them later on.  One building had a seriously long line that was snaking out the door and down the sidewalk. 

-When South Africans vote, they receive 2 ballots - one for National and one for Provincial - on these ballots, there is only one item to check off, which is what party you are voting for.  In South Africa, citizens cast their votes for political parties, rather than for individuals.  From there, the parties decide who their leaders will be.

-The big issue in this election seems to be how well the ANC (African National Congress), which has been in power since Nelson Mandela was elected in 1994, will fare.  In previous elections, the ANC received 65%+ of the vote and South Africa was for the most part, a one-party country.  Currently, ANC is facing its first major opposition from 2 parties: COPE (Congress of the People), which is a group of ANC people that split off in opposition and the DA (Democratic Alliance).  It takes 2/3 majority to amend the SA Constitution, so a big item is whether or not ANC will retain enough support to have such a majority.

-Capetown is different from the rest of South Africa in that it is a stronghold for the DA Party - the City's Mayor is the leader of the DA Party.  So far, most of the people I have met are DA supporters, but I think this is a function of where I am staying and the people I am staying with.

Another exciting thing about today is that I will attend my first cricket game this evening!  I love sports and was really hoping to take in some sports in South Africa - I have been super lucky in that the Rotarians have bent over backwards to accomodate this request. 

The cricket being played tonight is a quick form of cricket popular in India - this is different than the traditional type of cricket, which takes 5 days for a game to be played!  Tonight's game in the quick Indian style is around 3 hours or so. 

The teams playing aren't South African - they are part of the Indian Premier League (IPL), which moved their games to South Africa because of concerns over weather and election violence in India.  Even though the teams aren't local, the South Africans I have met seem to be very excited to attend the cricket games.

This is turning out to be a very long blog post, so I will try to write more later or tomorrow to describe my cricket experience!