STEVEN FRIEDMAN: Voters who repeatedly elect politicians who ignore them are alive and well in the suburbs
The government often gets away with not serving us because some voters repeatedly vote for people who do nothing to serve them, and use the past to excuse their failings. Ever since this country became a democracy, people in the suburbs have made this claim about voters in townships and shack settlements — which is ironic, because the voters who really fill the description these days live in the suburbs. Last week, as the latest power outage in our suburb (we had seven in six weeks last year) reached its 14th hour, and, as usual, City Power had offered not a word on progress, a resident contacted our ward councillor, who, as always in these situations, offered a not very informative public relations reply which gave no inkling when power would be back. Some active citizenship seemed to be needed — I called the councillor. I expected little since he had twice fobbed off my requests to do his job. While he is apparently celebrated for drawing attention to himself on Twitter, represent...
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