Like father like son... except when it comes to voting for this Mthatha duo

09 May 2019 - 07:00 By BONGANI MTHETHWA
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Dumisani Ntloko, a first year student and vendor at Walter Sisulu University in Mthatha.
Dumisani Ntloko, a first year student and vendor at Walter Sisulu University in Mthatha.
Image: THULI DLAMINI

It was not a case of like father like son for an Eastern Cape dad and his offspring on election day on Wednesday as they made their marks for different parties.

This despite them both being first-year students at the Walter Sisulu University’s Mthatha campus.

The 47-year-old Dumisani Ntloko from Nqamakwe in the Amatole district municipality voted for Mosiuoa Lekota’s Congress of the People (Cope) while his son, Lindani, 23, voted for the Julius Malema-led Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).

The father and son are both first-year students in education at WSU, with Dumisani majoring in humanities while Lindani is specialising in maths and science.

TimesLIVE caught up with Dumisani on campus on Wednesday. He was busy selling items such as sweets, cigarettes and boiled eggs. He also has a scale for students to check their body weight for only R2, and most of his customers are female students.

He scored from roaring trade on election day, earning R220 just before 4pm compared to his usual R150.

“I’m here at varsity with my son but he is a member of the EFF while I am a member of Cope,” he said.

Dumisani was happy about voting for Cope, and was hopeful that things would change for the better after this year’s elections. 

“Our hope is that everything should go well in this country after the elections. I voted Cope because it’s an organisation that I joined while I was still at home before I became a student. I was introduced to Cope by Mbasa Ntongana, who hails from the Amatole district municipality [and] who introduced me to politics,” he said.

Meanwhile, the mood was vibrant on campus at WSU as students from ANC, EFF and PAC sang and taunted each other.

Axola Skobhana, 22, a bachelor of education student said he voted for the EFF because he believes that it will address the injustices they have experienced before.

“The EFF is the only organisation that has proved that it can provide for the people of South Africa. I decided to vote EFF because I want change in South Africa. Currently, everyday in this institution we’re facing the challenges of registration in the beginning of the year where students are financially excluded and turned away because they don’t have the money to register. We believe that an EFF government will be able to address such challenges,” he said.

He also believes that the EFF has grown exponentially and will dislodge the DA as the official opposition after the elections.

“The victory for the EFF is certain and we are going to dislodge the DA as the official opposition because the EFF has grown significantly now,” he said.

Khanyisa Nomda, 24, a bachelor of administration honours student from Flagstaff, said she voted for the Pan Africanist Congress because she believed in their ideology of liberating Africans in the political, economic and cultural spheres.

She was unfazed by years of infighting within the party over the leadership which resulted in four factions and dented the party’s hope of making any inroads among the electorate and believed it could still deliver on the land issue.

“It’s no secret that it’s the PAC that first championed the issue of land in this country. Yes, infighting within the party has overwhelmed everything that the PAC stood for but the struggle continues,” she said.

Thuthuzela Maqakatha, 35, a nurse at a private hospital in Mthatha, voted for Vuyolwethu Zungula’s African Transformation Movement because she believes that it is the only organisation that has brought hope for change.

“In the past I wasted my vote on parties such as the ANC and UDM but I have not seen any change since 1994. I have high hopes that the ATM is not going to look at which party a person voted for before they could get a job. And tenders will not go to certain individuals because as things stand tenders are only benefiting a few people and we can’t be rich because we are not getting,” she said.

Lifelong ANC supporter Phineas Sakara voted in SA’s national and provincial elections on May 8 2019. "I'll vote until I die," he said. Though life during the apartheid era was tough, he said his faith in the ANC was cemented by the freedom he now enjoyed.


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