Johannesburg - Imagine an Afrikaner “tannie” at a polling station on the slopes of the Dwarsberge in the Groot Marico, North West, putting on make-up, complete in the black-and-green of the ANC Women’s League.
At another polling station in the Limpopo town of Modimolle, a uniformed member of the SAPS, immaculate in his blue uniform and bullet-proof vest, shuffles around, feeling the texture of the brand new DA T-shirt beneath his uniform.
He is part of thousands deployed to guard against the potential for violent flare-ups at polling stations.
Imagine too, less than 30 kilometres south of Modimolle, in Bela Bela, another cop patrolling a polling station in the volatile township.
From time to time the Bela Bela cop mumbles something into the police-issue two-way radio, but also proudly puts a T-shirt of Julius Malema's militant Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) underneath his SAPS uniform.
Welcome to South Africa, the constitutional democracy on the southern tip of the African continent - also known as Mzansi - the land where the most unlikely of characters hoist their political colours to the mast.
In her fifties, “Tannie” Memory Heroldt has travelled a long journey from being a pink-cheeked Groot Marico primary school “meisie” to becoming a long-serving member of the ANC Women’s League.
The Afrikaner folk of Groot Marico began sensing something was wrong - to borrow a metaphor from legendary local author Herman Charles Bosman - when in her adulthood Heroldt proudly called herself Mmago Lerato, meaning the mother of Lerato, in the local Setswana dialect.
It was around this time that Heroldt migrated westwards of the small town of Groot Marico and got employed in the North West provincial sports, arts and culture department.
In the Mafikeng capital she rose to prominence through her impeccable command of the Setswana language, until she landed bang into the arms of the ANC.
“Yes, I am still a member of the ANC, although I do not aspire to a leadership position,” Heroldt said in a recent interview.
If Heroldt is representative of the rapidly deracialising national political profile, then Modimolle town SAPS member Patrick Setseta is also living proof of a country changing beyond recognition, politically that is. His journey dates back to recent months when he was a security officer, somehow landing on the ballot paper as a DA candidate, and then he was drafted into the SAPS.
“The captain I report to at SAPS in Modimolle warned me to choose between politics and the police force after he saw DA posters with my face in the township. I chose the more stable career in the SAPS, although my heart is still in the DA,” he said.
Subsequent to the latter, rather reluctant choice, Setseta had to remove the pre-local government elections posters bearing his face from township lamp-posts, which he said pained him deeply because of his love for the DA.
He then had a heart-to-heart mobile engagement with Limpopo DA leader, Desire van der Walt, who suggested Setseta’s name would remain on the ballot paper.
The dilemma - and the potential post-elections breaking story - is that for reasons related to IEC registration deadlines and otherwise, the DA could not remove Setseta’s name from the ballot paper.
In Bela Bela, SAPS Warrant Officer Strike Maema said while he is often seen in the red colours of Julius Malema’s “fighters” at weekends, he remained loyal to his calling as a police officer. He said he was hoisting his EFF colours to the mast in support of his ward candidate and wife, Mpule. Maema said he did raise his neighbours and colleagues' eyebrows whenever he put on his red overalls and a matching wide-brimmed hat.
Sunday Independent