Cabinet backs Table Mountain vote
1 November 2011
With less than 10 days to go, the Cabinet has urged South Africans to cast their votes to help get Table Mountain, one of only two African nominees in the New 7 Wonders of Nature competition, permanently into the history books (and onto the travel itinerary of millions).
Table Mountain is one of 28 finalists in the New 7 Wonders of Nature competition, in which the world's top natural sites are being whittled down to seven winners in an exercise in global democracy that is expected to draw over a billion participants.
The final, two-year round of voting to choose the New 7 Wonders of Nature ends with the final official declaration of the seven winners on 11 November (11.11.11).
Briefing journalists in Pretoria last week following the Cabinet's fortnightly meeting, government spokesman Jimmy Manyi encouraged South Africans to cast their vote for the country's flat-topped wonder.
The Cabinet also congratulated Cape Town after it beat competition from Dublin and Bilbao to be named as the World Design Capital for 2014 at the International Design Alliance Congress in Taipei, Taiwan last Wednesday
The title will see Cape Town host a number of prestigious design-related events and conferences organised by the World Design Capital initiative and the local committee in 2014.
How to vote for Table Mountain
- Online: cast your vote via the internet here
- By SMS: SMS "TABLE" to 34874. Each SMS costs R2, and you can vote as often as you like.
- Via MXit: download MXit to your mobile phone (http://m.mxit.com). Go to "Tradepost" and access "MXit Reach". Click on "My Culture". Add "Vote4Table Mountain" as a contact and then vote as many times as you like.
- By phone: dial 0044 20 334 709 01 and then insert the code 7725 (Table Mountain's voting code). Once you hear the "thank you" message, you have voted and may hang up.
'God did something special here' - Tutu
Nobel Peace Prize winners Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and former president FW de Klerk have both pledged their support for Table Mountain in the race to be named one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature.
Tutu has urged South Africans to "help us take our rightful place among the New 7 Wonders of Nature," adding: "I really can understand how, when God created all that there is, He said, 'I think I've got to do something special here'. And so God produced this fantastic gateway in the South – Table Mountain - our mountain, what a wonder!"
Mandela's 'mountain of hope'
Another Nobel Peace Prize winner, Nelson Mandela, once called Table Mountain a "mountain of hope".
At the opening of the Table Mountain National Park in 1998, Mandela, then President of South Africa, said: "During the many years of incarceration on Robben Island we often looked across Table Bay at the magnificent silhouette of Table Mountain. To us on Robben Island, Table Mountain was a beacon of hope. It represented the mainland to which we knew we would one day return.
"To the people of South Africa, the Table Mountain Range represents a great deal more than the rocky remains of millennia of sediment," Mandela said. "It is of immense ecological, cultural, religious and economic significance not only to the Western Cape Region, but also to the rest of the country."
SAinfo reporter and BuaNews
