I will be honest with you. Going into this election, I am overwhelmed.

There are more than 600 parties and independent candidates contesting.

There are posters on every pole. And in many parts of Joburg, people are going into Wednesday’s vote without water.

So when I had a few minutes with former president Kgalema Motlanthe at the Inclusive Growth Forum in the Drakensberg, I asked him the question many of you have been asking me: how do you decide?

His answer was refreshingly simple. Forget the big ideological debates and foreign policy. Local government elections are about your lived experience.

“It’s the road. It’s the refuse collection. Are the rates not unaffordable?”

He has been around for every election since 1994, so I asked him what he would say to young people who don’t want to vote at all.

His point is that not voting doesn’t protect you from the outcome. Other people will still elect the councillors who decide how your area is serviced. Unless you have a borehole, private security and high walls, those decisions will reach you anyway.

Kgalema Motlanthe on voting: “It’s about the…