Our elections should be enough for us to derive the pleasure and pride of being South Africans.

It is clear that ours is a fundamental democracy, highly rooted in a strong constitution which is by no means under any sort of threat.

The electioneering process was very robust, vibrant and in some instances practically thorny.

Political parties did much to lure votes their way. Vast resources and even new methods of reaching out to voters were employed, as manifested in different campaigns and manifestos.

At the same time, some parties used very myopic, petty and divisive strategies, which will obviously result in their snail's pace, or even successful suicides.

Complacency and overdependence on dubious and questionable media coverage and political "analysis" will no doubt be the reason why failure will hit some of our candidates from wonderland.

There is some hope that some small parties like the UDM have realised that South Africans do not prefer individualised loud speakers to business-minded formations. If they cannot merge they must ship out.

The IEC should be thanked and congratulated for the enormous work well done. It is obvious that some of the hopefuls will pursue tricks to put the blame on the voting system and processes, but results will no doubt show them their rightful places.

Kagiso Sedumedi, Pretoria