I’ve been looking at some facts and figures online (when I can, thanks to this infernal, eternal, often diurnal loadshedding) and have made an amazing discovery.
Published a couple of days ago, this slide, presumably from a presentation about the horrific state of our dirty, broken national power grid:
…in which you might well note Tutuka Power Station stuck in bottom place (Kusile isn’t properly commissioned yet) with a somewhat ropey Energy Availability Factor of 34.34%, and this document, released on twitter yesterday evening:
…in which Eskom announces the arrest of several individuals for alleged theft of R100 million worth of fuel oil PER MONTH from [checks notes…] er… Tutuka Power Station.
I mean, amongst a plethora of other questions, “How the hell did no-one notice?” has to be right up there. Or is this merely a drop in the metaphorical Mpumalanga fuel oil ocean? How much fuel oil do you get (or not get, I guess) for R100m each month?
I’m no expert in these sort of things, but could there… could there possibly… be any sort of connection between these two pieces of information?
I was over on Robben Island last week, on a trip well-documented on this blog. Robben Island doesn’t have many residents: it does vary depending on what’s going on on the island , but probably fewer than 120 on an average day. That doesn’t mean that their voting right should be forgotten though, and indeed, they can vote on the island – which is part of Cape Town’s Ward 54 – at the John Craig Hall (it’s named after one of the harbour engineers).
While we were staying over, some election posters appeared outside. There must have been about 25 of them down the road from the prisons into the village. All for one party. So nice to see a happy face.
(I’ve chosen to leave those unused 9.2inch WW2 shells – now used as road bollards – in shot. Seemed appropriate.)
Otherwise, it seemed like the island had been passed over in terms of the election. Which was quite nice, actually. No-one needs more election news. Ever.
Anyway, with 92% of the votes counted at the time of writing, the DA have held onto the city, with over 60% of the vote:
But look at that: a cursory glance will show you that the EFF recorded the most votes at just 2 (two) voting stations across the entire metropole: at UWC – those pesky young firebrands! – and… wow… John Craig Hall on Robben Island!
With just 31 votes in their favour (vs 19 for the ANC, 5 for the DA, 2 each for the ACDP and the VF+ and a whole 1 for the LAND party) (and none for Patricia de Lol)…
…it might have cost almost a poster per cross in the box, and is totally overwhelmed by the 92% voting for the DA in Camp’s Bay et al. but the result is there for all to see.
Robben Island is red.
From this, we can conclude that advertising clearly does work, and the Ad Wizardry of putting up 25 posters on a chunk of rock 6km from civilisation… was probably (possibly) almost certainly worth the effort.
Elections aren’t actually a zero sum game. I mean, in numbers, they might appear so, but when translated into actual meaning, obviously things can change drastically. Because as soon as any one of those numbers dips below 50%, it’s game on for coalitions and kingmakers in these marriages of inconvenience. And that’s when things get stupidly complicated and fall apart in SA. And it’s always service delivery that suffers.
Now you might think that I’m being a bit pessimistic about how this is going to go – Danish Ambassador Tobias Elling Rehfeld certainly does:
But aside from finding that common platform of priorities – and sticking with it – there’s the big question of egos. [TW: gross generalisations approaching] Here’s a hypothesis: in the Danish model, politicians get into politics to make a difference to the people of their ward and country. Sadly, around here, it’s more about self-enrichment, personal power and standing, and inflating one’s own ego. We’ve seen it time and time again: look at Malema wanting more than the ANC and then repeatedly flip-flopping on every issue whichever way makes him popular; look at de Lille flitting from one party to another, taking credit for the good bits, refusing the responsibility for the bad ones; look at the Mongameli Bobani and the NMB debacle; look at Tshwane a few years back. Disastrous.
Why wouldn’t it happen in these new-found situations as well? After all, as TER goes on to say:
But while that would certainly benefit the actual electorate, that’s not what the politicians in question want. Quite the opposite.
Joburg is a particular mess. The last projected results I saw left even the most probable (or potentially stable) coalitions sitting on about 45% each. I’ll be delighted if I’m wrong, but I fear that it spells out 5 years of bickering, infighting and lack of service delivery for the city as one or other side tries to balance up 12 x 0.5%s to get over the line. Fugly.
Nationwide, the appalling turnout and the bitty results do show an overall dissatisfaction and disenchantment with the larger parties and the current system. But given that the three largest parties still look likely to get to somewhere around 80% overall, it’s unlikely that anyone is going to listen to that message. So it’s up to the smaller parties to tell us just how amazingly they’ve done, while not wielding any actual power, while the big dogs explain away their losses and disappointment with spin and smoke and mirrors.
Or just outright denial.
Lol.
Oh. And someone will blame white people. Somehow.
The only really good bit about yesterday was the utterly disastrous hilarious crash and burn of the Cape Party. Again. They were still belligerently chucking out hyperbole and mixed idioms yesterday during the voting:
For the record, there was no sleet or snow. A few heavy rain showers is all. And surely the water surrounding the allegedly sinking ship (whatever that represents) might actually be a good place to be of the ship is actually going down and the rest of the world is ablaze. Take a lifebelt. And don’t pretend that you care about “the future of our children” when you go around supporting anti-vax protests.
Bunch of…
Whatever their plan was, it didn’t work. Who could have thought that appropriating and subtly altering the word “Brexit” with all its resounding economical successes and feelgood news stories into “Capexit” would have such a devastating effect upon their (minimal) potential election success?
It is, as you may have gathered from the title above, Municipal Election day in South Africa. A great day to avoid social media. (OK, that’s every day but especially so today.)
Gotta love politics.
But today marks another opportunity to choose the least worst party to run things in your locality for the next 5 years. I say “least worst”, because the best performing municipality in the entire country (and it was Cape Agulhas, nogal!!) scored just 65/100 on a local news site’s ranking system. Nationally, the average score was 45.
Room for improvement? Definitely. But who’s going to be able to do it?
Well, love them or hate them (and remembering that we don’t use social media as any sort of barometer for anything around politics, kids), there’s clear evidence that the DA run municipalities better than other parties run municipalities. 8 of the top 10 and 15 of the top 20 here are controlled by the DA, and that for a party that only runs 25 of the county’s 278 municipalities.
Are they perfect? Far from it. Would they make a good national governing party? I’m not convinced. Are they the best party for running municipalities? Yes. Yes, they are. Clearly.
I’m not a DA member. I’m not even allowed to vote. I’m only allowed to pay my taxes. Then other people get to decide what happens to them. I’d just like them used well.
Too much to ask? Too much to ask.
The fact is that what is – somewhat obviously – the best choice to run your local municipality can only score 65% for doing just that, is a sad indictment on just how poor out political choices are at the moment.
Still, you should do YOUR research and you should vote for whomever you believe will run YOUR ward best (or least worst), and not be swayed by promises that can’t be kept by municipal councils – even if that party sweeps to a landslide victory in your ward – you’re not going to end lockdown or enable Western Cape secession. Look out for promises that they know they’ll never have to keep.
Oh, and obviously avoid anything or anyone who has anything to do with Patricia de Lille. That’s just common sense.
