Conspicuously absent on the posters of the parties contesting next week's election are Web site addresses. This is surprising in an era where print adverts for complex products usually act as pointers to more detailed information on the Internet.

Exactly. On route to Cape Town from Still Bay this morning, I must have driven over about three posters lying about in the road. And I don't recall seeing a web address on any that were still withstanding the might of the Cape Doctor, although admittingly I wasn't paying much attention to that ( I'll keep an eye out next time).

One could debate that their most successful public reach isn't via the web, given only 10% of our population are internet users. And despite their shortcomings, the campaign posters are really very influential where branding's concerned. But the web remains the only place I'd go to find out more about a party that interests me. Posters excluded, I haven't been subjected to any other forms of marketing, so what are my options?

And that's the reason I have never voted, I'm ashamed to admit. Not once. The only way I can tell the ID apart from the other parties, is that their leader has breasts and they're branded orange! Their website is really informative, but again they're an exception.

I also raised a question about security after effortlessly gaining access to the DA's content manager and site content. Their website Administrator e-mailed me the following today, which I thought I'd share:

Just a quick note to say thanks for not mucking up the site - I'm sure it was tempting, and I'm also sure some of the less mature hack-freaks out there would have gleefully wreaked havoc – not a good time for it, especially with the elections looming.

Thanks also for bringing the lapse of security to light. We've since fixed the problem and hopefully you’ll find it harder to hack next time round! Given your expertise with websites, we'd appreciate your remarks on ours?

Niki, no problem. But if you're after further advice please enquire about my daily rate - this "hack freak" doesn't come free.

Just to clarify - as a web developer, looking for faults, creative or technical, is just something I do and always have. If I see something I don't like, I write about it. In a constructive light. Usually. The web as a communication medium is still very immature and this is my way of contributing to it's growth. You may see it as a hack attempt, I see it as a duty of habit.

Back to the ANC. Something else I do (ok, so maybe this is slightly hackish of me, but always with good intention) is add a directory path or two to the end of a URL, just to see what's available. Simple URI guesswork, folks. Anyone can do it.

After receiving Niki's e-mail and confirming their security patch, I stumbled on over to the ANC's website again. I tried this with them last week and got somewhere, but received an error and so I stopped there. This time around it worked, and I gained access to their site content. No login required. I'm not sure if the data is used on the site - the datestamps read 2003 - but either way this just emphasizes further what a mess they're in.

I notified them and hopefully they'll take action.

South Africa has a vibrant multiparty political system, with 16 parties represented in parliament, and 120 parties registered with the IEC - 86 at national level and 34 at municipal level. The ANC is the majority party in the National Assembly and controls eight of the country's nine provinces. Following the ANC rated by number of seats in the National Assembly, the major opposition parties include: DA, IFP, UDM and ID.

Their websites are all really awful, particularly that of the IEC itself which completely falls apart in Firefox. In IE and Opera, it's (aesthetically) decent enough although lacking in many other areas.

The African National Congress' website is a mess. It's clearly been added to over the years without any consideration for IA and design consistency. And that yellow - cringe.

Democratic Alliance is a little better, although their security is shocking. After noticing their URI cruft - www.da.org.za/DA/Site/Eng/DEFAULT.asp - I took a chance and replaced everything from "Site" onwards with "admin". It worked. I then proceeded to login to their Content Manager using the very first username/password pair that came to mind...! (developers think alike). I didn't change anything of course, but given the ease with which I could have, they deserve to have their content tortured.

UPDATE: They've patched the security hole. For the record, the username/password pair I used was: test/test.

Inkatha Freedom Party is built with frames. 'Nuff said.

Independent Democrats: "SITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION, Please call back shortly".

And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, take a look at United Democratic Movement. It's as if their only goal was to take all the negatives of the other sites and combine them into one. And apparently the ANC is starting to implode. Haha.

Politics, ugh!