Dic 05 2013 The votes from the toilet

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  South Africa is built for the poorest outdoor communal toilets, unprotected, that degrade the dignity of persons. Many clubs Police, riots in the streets, dozens of covers of newspapers and elections. La democracia y la de hand tank

(I make a break in the story of my recent trip to Mozambique in my blog to explain some interesting things I think Wednesday's elections in South Africa)

In South Africa's dignity is measured over the toilet and the memory is blurred in the polls. Living a municipal election here has been the beloved of the beholder in a not so distant mirror. Democracy conceived as exclusive party to which all are invited is a recent exercise by the two countries have passed, Spain and South Africa, who have had to wait nearly twenty-first century to start the twentieth century.

The South African campaign took an unexpected battleground, the toilet. The construction by the administrations of the two major parties (ANC and DA) in outdoor public baths where the most miserable vent, minimum without any wall to preserve the dignity of the user, rose from a year ago a controversy that became riots widespread in the streets. All the great media dust, in which a judge eventually banning outdoor toilets (literally imagine a cup with a tank without any protection), ended with the president Jacob Zuma saying he was unaware of this fact and was "devastated". Surprising statement of who should get more in the homes of many of his countrymen to verify that the urinals hanging shelves.

But, all this media noise, all these covers and people coming out on television and newspapers have suffered an attack of collective amnesia about going to the polls. Nothing has changed in those places where the bathrooms were also banks in which to see life pass. Regained the same there. Why?

My father died of 20 who shot dead a police informer in the days of apartheid in District Six

Perhaps in these stories that we do not seem so far from the Spanish is part of the answer. Emmanuel is a Cape Town mestizo tells me: "It's a shame the government and the president. Zuma wants to marry again and while all these people live in cramped misery (the time spent in front of a township). Why then vote for the ANC? (is a party member). "My blood is ANC. My father died of 20 who shot dead a police informer in the days of apartheid in District Six. He belonged to the ANC. I ended up killing the guy who killed my father and I ended up in jail a few years, up for amnesty. I'm ANC, my father was ANC, it's in my blood ". But not like what they do?, tell. "I do not like this president, but I can not offend the ideas that my father died ", answer me.

Janine is a white woman working as a hairdresser in the most careful of Cape Town. Cultural level is medium and pleasant conversation. "Hopefully the DA win, I remember all my friends who have to go to vote tomorrow, tell me. Why?, asked. "Because you can not win the ANC, would be terrible for us ", answered in the same low tone which produce almost all the political conversations with white people in South Africa. "The DA is a center-left party?, tell. "Do not know", she tells me smiling.