Dear Editor
Today, the Democratic Alliance (DA) premiered the first of its television advertisements for Election 2024, which will bolster the party’s election campaign with an exciting broadcast ad that will reach voters across South Africa on a number of popular television stations. The full advertisement can be viewed here
The message of our first TV election ad is simple: it reminds South Africans of the power of their vote, and the responsibility to use that power to bring about the change millions of our citizens so desperately want. In this election, the DA is poised to Rescue South Africa, but many people forget the provinces and municipalities we have already rescued, often securing a majority or a new coalition government with the tiniest of margins.
This is a journey we have already travelled with millions of South African voters who have put the power of their vote to tremendously good use by placing their trust in the DA. This journey bears testament to the power of the citizens’ vote, down to the very last ballot paper cast.
While the DA has a history of good, clean, accountable governance in South Africa, many people forget the story of how the party grew, advanced, and slowly won governments over the past two decades. In 2006, the DA won the City of Cape Town with just 1 vote. And in 2021, the DA won uMngeni with just 44 votes.
Both of these municipalities are now shining examples of governance excellence in South Africa, alongside the likes of DA-run Midvaal in Gauteng, and DA-run Kouga in the Eastern Cape – both the best-run municipalities in their respective provinces. Last year’s Rugby World Cup, where the Springboks achieved a record victory for South Africa, the difference between winning and losing came down to just 1 point.
The lesson that we have learned, and the message that we are bringing to South Africans in our first election advertisement is thus very simple: your vote counts. South Africans who are fed up with the state of our country under the ANC should not let their despair make them believe that their vote has lost power. If anything, now more than ever, our votes are the single most powerful tool we have to Rescue South Africa.
Even by the smallest of margins, even down to the final point, when the time is up and the votes are tallied, our chance for change comes down to the very last point. Your vote could mean the difference between an ANC-MK-EFF Doomsday Coalition, or a coalition of hope with the DA as its strong anchor tenant. Change is possible, but we have to take up our democratic right and exercise our power to go out and vote for it. And it will come down to the very last vote.
There is so much for South Africans to be excited about as we take to the polls on the 29th of May. As the ANC loses its majority for the first time in 30 years, the opportunity for a new government of hope and change is finally within sight. Where the DA has won governments and changed the lives of residents for the better, our outright majorities and coalitions of hope have all come down to just a few votes. So in this election, the stakes are far too high for any South African to stay home, and citizens must remember that every single vote will count.
Regards
John Steenhuisen MP
Leader of the Democratic Alliance
Dewdrop Doll
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.
Lskeee
At the end of the school year and a mother asked his son if the exam questions were difficult. And he answers her saying “They weren’t bad at all,” it was the answers that gave me all the trouble.