It's a Dirty Game, is Politics (Shannon Pifko)

It is too easy to blame the ANC (African National Congress) for corruption, etc. or to blame the DA (Democratic Alliance) for being a white party (and therefore racist), or Cope (Congress of the People) for being disorganised and a watered down version of the ANC. And these are calls that are being made from all sides of the political landscape. Discussions between both party officials, and especially, party supporters, easily get off-track and end up in name calling. A wander around any number of online chat rooms and blog comment lists show how personal and deeply emotional the debate can get. Any semblance of civilised discussion, a comparison of competing policies and promotion of achievements gets lost in a pile of acrimony, finger-pointing and finally boasting and comparing certain parts of the male anatomy.

It seems that policy gets lost very quickly when power touches it. Even quicker when emotion is stacked up alongside the policy. It stands no chance then. It is quite sad that the breadth of policy and conscience is reduced to a simple binary selection – should I vote for this party or that? And that choice is emotional.