Filthy rich and dirt poor in no rush to make their mark

Fewer than 100 people had voted by 8.30am yesterday in North West's Madibeng municipality - a place where the poor protest violently about poor water quality and the rich attach filters to every tap.

Madibeng, centred on Brits, is a playground for many of Gauteng's super rich, who own large homes along canals in secure estates adjacent to Hartebeespoort Dam.

The poor in Oukasie and Damonsville complain that they have only one clinic, no tarred access roads and no streetlights.

The DA has made significant inroads among township residents.

Lucky Ramatlhape, 38, and six of his friends, wearing DA T-shirts and chanting "Thatha DA, thatha" sit about 20m away from a house plastered with ANC posters. They are fewer than 100m from the Botlhabelo High School voting station. Mocked by some, others join them in song.

"We want changes in our lives, I'm tired of the ANC's empty promises . I love the DA, I dream the DA, I live and eat the DA.

"It's true we will win these elections, especially in ward 21," said Ramatlhape, who is unemployed

Fuming DA candidate Willie Strauss stood outside the Damonsville Clinic voting station at 6am, claiming that he was up until 2am putting up his posters only to find them replaced by ANC ones later in the morning.

In Oukasie, unemployed Thandeka Tiltwa, 44, stood at the front of a queue snaking around Botlhabelo High's corridors, saying that, though she was upset by the ANC's broken service delivery promises, she would vote for the party because "I grew up with it and hearing of it".

The middle-class, mostly white, residents of nearby Elandsrand listed similar issues: clean water and properly maintained roads.

Len Woest, 42, said: "Change has taken place already and we can't do anything about it, but what most of the people want is service because we pay for it."

Christo Geldenhuys, from the plush Pecanwood estate, said some of his neighbours refused to pay their rates because service delivery was so bad, though he was not among them.

"Fortunately for us, things work well because we live in a private estate," he said.