Category: politics

Day 431 – Hard to disagree

Posted on

I’m no fan of any political party here in SA. Maybe not even anywhere else either.
But I’m in SA and so I’m concentrating more on the political parties here. For those of you not in the know, here’s a quick run down of the top 6 parties here:

The ANC is broken, horribly corrupt and is failing the country.
The DA is full of itself, despite continually lurching from one PR disaster to another.
The EFF is loudmouthed, flipflopping populist extremism in a red boiler suit.
The IFP has no bearing on anything (and therefore no relevance) outside KwaZulu-Natal.
The FF+ is the diametric opposite of (and therefore ironically also exactly the same as) the EFF.
And the ACDP is basically full of Donald Trump wannabes without the orange tan and the dodgy wig.

It’s not a pretty line up.

But enough of the prologue. On with the story.

It’s become ever so trendy on social media lately to shoot down anything that the DA says. If you refer to my quick – yet surprisingly accurate – guide above, you’ll note that the DA is adept at shooting themselves in their collective feet, so fairly often, this criticism is tautologically warranted and deserved, but equally, quite a lot of the time, it’s just trolling by people trying to look cool.

But they do look ever so cool when they do it. I, for one, always admire their actions.

Last night, we had another address from the President regarding the current coronavirus situation. We’re well into the start of our third wave now, and our vaccination rollout is some way behind where we’d like it to (or where it should) be. Oh, and the Health Minister – ostensibly leading our fight against Covid – is embroiled in a corruption scandal:

To be fair, we don’t have anywhere to go to save ourselves from the third wave. We simply can’t afford another hard lockdown, and we’ve become blasé about precautions to protect each other from the virus, because there’s been no peak in the virus for a while, because there’s zero respect for those making the rules, because the rules are too lax, and because there’s zero enforcement.

But last night’s address was particularly pathetic: “Social events are driving Covid infections.” Well, sure they are – just like last time – but see above. And look again at the new restrictions you’ve put on them: 100 people indoors, 250 outdoors. Ridiculous numbers. That’s not going to help.

An extra hour added to the curfew.
Why? To look like you’re doing something? No. It looks like you’ve got no clue, no plan, no idea where to go, and you’re just chucking out some extra rule because you can. How will it make any difference? It won’t.

A reminder to wear masks in public (but see above).

Apparently, things are going well with the vaccination programme, but The West stole all the vaccines.

Oh, and on the Mkhize corruption allegations?

Nothing. Nada. Dololo. Zilch.

And so, when a DA MP tweeted this after the event:

And despite desperately wanting to be one of the cool cats, I find it very hard to disagree with what he says.

It’s not a great time to be in SA right now.

Day 426 – Vaccine links

Posted on

South Africa’s rollout of the Coronavirus vaccine is well underway, or perhaps more accurately punctuated, it’s… well… underway.

It’s been fraught with problems from well before the outset, namely that we didn’t buy any vaccines, and then when the vaccines that we didn’t order didn’t arrive, we blamed “the West”. But several (or more) other places in Africa and our third world peers around the globe seem to be having very little issue with securing their vaccines, despite “the West”. And while I’m not denying that things could have been a bit more sharey, it’s really just a convenient scapegoat for their incompetence.

Two major issues with the trickleout are the lack of eligible people registering to get vaccinated, and the plethora of ineligible people who are getting vaccinated.

The first of these problems comes about because when you ask over-60s to register online, you overlook the fact that they don’t have access to devices and/or data (the Western Cape is making an effort to change this), and even if they do have those things to hand, they tend to be more technologically-challenged than many other age groups. So we’re looking at around 25% of the cohort who have signed up. That’s not enough. And that’s just signing up, not being invited to get the vaccine, and (also importantly) not necessarily being able to get to where they need to be to get the vaccination, even if they do get invited. That’s really not enough. Thankfully, there are stories of help being on hand, but they are few and far between (this is literally the only one I have heard of, so actually “there is story” would be more accurate).

Even then, we still don’t have enough vaccine to go around: either homegrown or from elsewhere.
And no-one is saying when either problem might be resolved.

So, the system isn’t working. And then to add insult to injury (and this being South Africa), there are those who aren’t following the rules, slipping in and getting their vaccinations early.

The man in charge of the government’s Electronic Vaccination Data System (EVDS), Dr Nicolas Crisp, sounds gatvol.
From having to spend time haggling with a Twitter user who was telling others how to use a link in a medical aid registration system to hack the EVDS and get in line for a vaccine if you’re younger than 60, to having to shut down the healthcare worker site because youngsters were using it to get access to vaccines, it has already been a rough week. And it’s only Tuesday.

I feel for him, but a more robust (some would call it “adequate”) system wouldn’t have had this sort of issue. Who could have foreseen South Africans bending the rules by… *gasp*… clicking a checkbox on a website?
There was a big fuss over “an influencer” jumping the queue a couple of weeks ago, ostensibly claiming that he was a healthcare worker (checkbox), when actually – as mentioned above – he doesn’t have a real job. But it continues, with a well-known local safari guide openly admitting to cheating the system to get his vaccination yesterday. And then sharing in his IG story that he had arranged to go back and get a second dose earlier than planned so that he can go on holiday to Iceland. And to be fair, a ‘togging trip to Reykjavík does seem like a genuine reason for someone to get the jab instead of it going to a vulnerable 90 year old just as the third wave hits SA. I mean, obviously.

But: balance. We need to note that he didn’t get the vaccine for him. He got it for his family and for his clients. Altruism on point. It’s surely just a slip of tongue then when he mentions that he wanted to get the J&J vaccine “because then I could only get one jab and I’m done: easier for travel”, because that wouldn’t affect his family and clients, would it? And this was all about them.

Yeah. I think he’s a bit of a wanker. But no matter how important he considers himself, he’s just another drop in the ocean when it comes to those manipulating the system. And those individuals are just a tiny part of the mess, but they are also symptomatic of yet another dysfunctional nightmare being served to us by our kleptocratic, incompetent government. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I can’t see myself being vaccinated (here in SA) before the end of this year.

And that means no holiday in Iceland for me this winter.

Day 406 – More SA politics fun

Posted on

SA politics is rarely dull. Some people might say that this is a good thing, and represents a young, vibrant democracy, constantly evaluating and questioning itself. And yes, that would be a good thing, but it does seem to be mainly widespread corruption and intra-party mud slinging which is taking the centre stage, while actually serving the country (which really, really needs serving), falls by the wayside.

The most recent infighting is within the governing party, the ANC, who are happily fiddling while Rome has no decent housing, a disastrous education system, zero unemployment prospects, an upcoming third wave of Covid-19 (now closer than ever) and plenty of crumbling infrastructure.
Still, while we’re concentrating on their petty squabbles, we’re not talking about all that other stuff, are we?

And I don’t use the term “petty squabbles” lightly, because while the consequences of their collective actions might be very serious indeed, it’s hard not to crack a faint grin at their playground posturing.

The latest episode (coming a whole day after the previous episode) concerns ANC Secretary General Elias “Ace” Magashule. He’s likely bent as a 12 Rand note, having been charged with fraud, corruption and money-laundering. Taking decisive (cough) action, (some of) the rest of the ANC leadership gave him 30 days to step aside from his post for the duration of his trial. That 30 days has just expired and Ace is still there. And so the President suspended him.

And Ace then suspended the President. “Lol”.

Cyril is having none of it. And rightly so, it seems, because while Ace says that Cyril has no right to suspend him, Cyril does have (the majority of) the NEC on his side. Ace has… well… himself. And constitutionally (that’s the ANC Constitution, not the National one), he doesn’t even have himself, because he’s been suspended.
Ace has as much power to suspend the President as my beagle has.

Lots of enthusiasm, lots of noise, zero understanding of how the actual political system works.

Loves free treats.

And so the ANC fragmentation merry-go-round continues, with some heavyweights and branches coming out in support of Magashule, more of them defending Ramaphosa, and local political commentators wasting no time at all in invoking Godwin’s Law.

All of this chaos must be like manna from heaven for the opposition, right?

Well, sure, if they were able to utilise it to strengthen their position. Sadly (I say sadly because a decent, strong opposition is hugely important to any country, and not because of any personal political affiliation), they are so incompetent that they’re actually going down in the polls despite the complete and utter fuckshow happening up top.
And why? Because of crap leadership and… gosh… political infighting within the party.

It all comes down to the cult of personality over actual ability to do the job they are elected and mandated to do. In a recent small scale study, an orange TV host was elected President of a powerful North American country, despite having no demonstrable political ability at all. The world watched on.

It did not end well.

I’m not saying that we’re quite at that level of disaster yet, but until we get leaders who are more concerned with leading the country than their own parties and personal position and wealth, we’re going nowhere except backwards.

It’s very frustrating, hugely costly and thoroughly depressing.

Day 398 – Broken Clock

Posted on

I’m no fan of the our local rag the Cape Times, but even though it misses the mark on most everything, even a broken clock is right twice a day (unless it’s a digital clock, in which case, probably not).

The Cape Times is not a digital clock though, and it was probably right with its headline for Freedom Day yesterday.

I didn’t read the article. I didn’t need to.

I’m not claiming that any other government anywhere else is necessarily any better, but I would argue that any other government anywhere else never had the hope and positivity that came before the 1994 elections here. The opportunity for a proper fresh start.

That’s all long gone now, of course.