“Vote Zille on both ballots”: The Common Sense breaks newspapering’s oldest rule

This article was first published by The Common Sense.Newspapers don’t tell readers how to vote. That’s the rule. The Common Sense has torn it up, and with gusto. In this editorial ahead of Johannesburg’s 4 November election, it urges every reader in the city to vote for Helen Zille on both ballots. It points to a raw moment on its YouTube channel, when Zille broke down describing malnourished children in drug-ravaged homes. She’s now in her seventies, faces death threats, and is fighting what the paper calls her final campaign. By the paper’s own numbers she’s still short, but a swing of 100,000 votes could change that. Could this endorsement help tip it?.From The Common Sense.There is a convention that newspapers should not tell their readers who to vote for. In part because this newspaper is trying to up-end that world, and in part because it intends to live up to its name, it is delighted to break that convention.Go out on November the fourth and take all your friends and associates with you and if you live in Johannesburg go and vote for Helen Zille on both ballots. This is the best thing you can do to secure your future, save South Africa, secure a better future for all the country’s people, and do right by one of the most heroic figures South Africa has ever produced.Last week The Common Sense’s Gabriel Makin spoke to Zille at length on this newspaper’s YouTube channel. At 28 minutes in, Helen broke down about the horrors of stunted and malnourished children she has witnessed in drug-addled homes in poor communities across the city. A grandmother herself, she spoke of how elderly people across the city try to save their grandchildren from such devastating circumstances – but that there is no help.This has been Helen’s entire life. The fake news campaigns run about her in much of the media of the past decade are one of the most disgusting frauds ever perpetrated against South Africa’s people. It was all lies. Complete lies. None of it was true. A racist who did not want black leaders? Fake – just straight up fake news. Now deep in her seventies, she has come to Johannesburg, where she faces great physical danger and the daily threat of assassination, to do it all again. She was told, “Helen they are going to try and kill you” – but she did not care. She lives modestly, has no wealth. Just care.We, you, all of us owe it to her, to the country and the city to turn up on 4 November and show that you know now who she is and what she has done. This will be her final campaign and drawing that X will, regardless of whether it gets her over the line, simply be the proper thing to have done for someone who has given her whole life for you. It does not matter if you are African National Congress or Democratic Alliance, black or white, left or right, rich or poor – the question of drawing that X supersedes all of that now, and you will not have the opportunity to vote for such a woman again..Read more:.Once a scathing critic of the DA, 'lefty prof' Adam Habib is backing Helen Zille for Joburg.Today The Common Sense has published the latest political data on the November election and the race for Johannesburg. Helen and her party are still short of what is needed but a swing of just 100 000 votes may put her over the line..This article was first published by The Common Sense and is republished with permission..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.

“Vote Zille on both ballots”: The Common Sense breaks newspapering’s oldest rule

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