Category: politics

Emil is unhappy

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Ask anyone anywhere in South Africa what the biggest scourge in this nation is and they will probably answer “crime” or “Jacob Zuma”. Ask them what is the biggest scourge on the roads and they will probably answer “crime”, “Jacob Zuma” or “taxis”.
Taxis are a law unto themselves in this country, breaking rules, endangering lives and making the ride to the amusement park a lot more of an adrenaline rush that the roller coaster once you actually get there.

So reviled is the minibus taxi – and so happy to disregard any rule of law – that Helen “Twee Hoede” Zille, mayor of Cape Town, has threatened to call in the Army to make them behave.
Meanwhile, civil rights group AfriForum have suggested that citizens take photos of “lawless taxis”:

AfriForum created an e-mail address, taxi@afriforum.co.za, to which the public may send the pictures, as well as details of the event, after which AfriForum’s legal team will formulate a complaint on behalf of the public for submission to the SA Police Service.

Alternatively, if you don’t want the bother of emailing a picture in, you could always just put it on your blog with a brief description of the driver.

emil
Don’t hold back: tell us what you really think, Emil!

For you non-Afrikaans speakers out there: “Easy stereotyping – The driver of this taxi is a [censored].”

Better out than in, Emil. Thanks for your honesty. Aaaaaaand relax!

2 parties drop out

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It was with great sadness that I read on the news24.com election site that two of the parties which were to have fought in the upcoming elections on April 22nd had dropped out of the race to finish way behind the ANC.

Not too many tears were shed regarding the loss of the Hlanganani Sakhe Isizwe party – they didn’t pay their R180,000 and were kicked out by the IEC. Not that I have anything against the Hlanganani Sakhe Isizwe party, it’s just that when I’m at a braai discussing the election, I’ve usually had too many beers to accurately say their name.

Far more disappointing was the loss of the SA Determined Volunteers Party from the list of competing parties.

Those guys weren’t being paid for what they did. They were volunteers. And not just any volunteers – they were determined volunteers – and I know for a fact that they had a lot of prospective candidates lined up on their shortlist.
Previous to drawing up that shortlist, they had a longer list, but they rejected many of the names on there because they just weren’t determined enough.
Removing those less determined volunteers had the effect of concentrating the determination of the remaining volunteers until they were the most resolute, decisive, steadfast, unhesitating, purposeful, earnest, firm, unflinching, obstinate, persevering, resolute, resolved, single-minded, unfaltering, decided, strong-willed, stubborn,  unwavering, dogged, intent and tenacious bunch of volunteers this side of Pietermaritzburg.

Sadly, such well-meaning determination doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand with any sort of organisation and the SA Determined Volunteers Party forgot to submit their registration for the elections.

Bummer.

More on that expat vote thing

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Thanks to Persona non grata, (who of course is always more than grata here on 6000 miles…) for his comment on the Trevor Mallach fake letter post, which – after some top class detective work*, I have discovered came from here.

LONDON. South African expatriates living in Britain and the US say that they are unlikely to vote in April 22’s general election as they are too busy queuing at soup kitchens and catching rats to bulk up their gruel. However some expats have demanded the right to vote, hoping to stuff their shoes with ballot papers and gather up enough pencils to burn for warmth.

The issue of whether or not expatriates should be allowed to vote in the forthcoming election has been a political hot potato in South Africa, with the ANC opposing the move as it fears a strong expatriate turnout on April 22 could see its majority slip from 76 percent to 75.9 percent.

However the Democratic Alliance and the Freedom Front Plus remain adamant that expatriates should be allowed to vote abroad, and are hoping for a major boost from this demographic.
4.4 million of South Africa’s 4.5 million whites currently live in four flats in Shepherd’s Bush in London, and both opposition parties are hoping to rouse at least a few dozen out of their traditional apathy come April 22.

But for expatriates, trapped in a crushing cycle of debt, joblessness and stale Jaffa Cakes, voting is not as easy as it sounds.

Worsie van Tonder, a 26-year-old electrical engineer currently working as a coffee-bean titillator at Costa, says he is unlikely to vote even if allowed to.
“If you’re out of the shop for more than twelve minutes a month they fire you,” he explained. “I just don’t know when I’d get the chance. And these beans need titillating.”

Elsa-Chante Smit, 23, is a classically trained pet therapist but is currently paying her heating bills by working as an exotic dancer at Little Caesar’s Skin Bar in Glasgow. She echoes Van Tonder’s sentiments, although she says she’s lucky just to have a job.
“A lot of South Africans in the UK, you see them roaming around in the streets like zombies. Slack jaws, moaning as they walk, Springbok jerseys all dirty and ragged, Springbok beanies all unraveling, Springbok scarves dragging in the slush behind them.

“The local kids throw them with rocks. Dogs rip off their jean-pants. It’s horrible.”

Brad Brad-Bradley, who decided to take a gap year in London with his friend and wrestling partner Chad Chadley-Chadford after they graduated from Michaelhouse with distinctions in suppressed masculine rage, said he would not be voting on April 22 as he would be at the South African embassy applying for economic refugee status.
“Bru, we’re so stoked about going home and that, but we sold our Bok puffer jackets and Bok jerseys so we’d totally freeze to death before we made it to Heathrow,” he explained.

He said getting on a South African Airways flight was easy as one only needed to offer the cabin crew some hard drugs.
“The problem is that me and Chad ate our drugs last night, with the last of the rat. It was so cold, and our teeth are starting to get loose in our gums, and he had this brick of skunk, so we fried it in diesel oil and shredded the last of the rat-leg into it.

“It tasted lank k*k but what can you do in these times?”

Of course, it’s obviously made up. The flats are in Putney, not Shepherd’s Bush.

* Cut & Paste a bit of it into google. Hit Enter key.

Sentence review

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Remember this?

The story of the Labour peer and the waitress?
Both of whom used mobile phones to send text messages while driving.
Both of whom killed innocent individuals by ploughing into the back of their stationary vehicles.

One of whom was given 21 months in prison, the other 12 weeks.

It all seemed a bit unfair, so I was hugely delighted to see the headline on the BBC News Website:

Phone crash sentence under review

In big writing, just like that.

But, guess which one the Solicitor General thinks may be “unduly lenient“…

Two Hats in Hat Swap Shock!

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Cape Town Mayor and Leader of the DA, Helen “Two Hats” Zille has been nominated as the DA’s candidate for the Premier of the Western Cape in the forthcoming election.

Speaking with sycophantic radio presenter John Maytham yesterday evening, Zille described the move as being “strategic” and expressed her wish for the DA to work “from the ground up” to “set an example of how good governance can work”.

She said if it could run both Cape Town and the Western Cape, voters across South Africa would realise that service delivery is better in regions where the DA is in power.

“It is a project of national significance. We want to run the city and the province in co-operative governance and demonstrate what it possible under those circumstances,” she said, adding that as mayor she was frustrated by stone-walling on the part of the ANC powers in the province.

This struggle between the ANC controlled Provincial Government and the DA controlled City of Cape Town Municipality has long been cited as the reason for delays in service delivery – most especially housing – and for the objective bystander (that’s me) acts as a shining example of all that is wrong with politics. That is, while the individuals elected to serve the people bicker and attempt to score cheap political points from one another, nothing actually gets done on the ground.
This lack of service delivery is obviously because of the Province, according to the DA and obviously because of the City, according to the ANC. It’s playground politics at its very worst.

Zille’s record as Mayor of Cape Town is undoubtedly impressive. However one must remember that the DA remains a political party and be mindful of spin when looking at her claims of success, which she rolled out one after another in yesterday’s M&G article “The DA Saved Cape Town“.
And even if her numbers stand up to scrutiny (and I have neither the time nor the inclination to scrutinise Helen Zille’s vital statistics) then there is still a lot of work to be done by the DA to overturn the ANC’s Provincial rule. More likely, as Linda Ensorstates in today’s Business Day is the DA holding no overall majority and looking to form a coalition with the ID or Cope: something Zille described as “always complex”.

Whether a coalition (such as the one which the DA have used to run Cape Town for the past three years) represents true democracy is open to debate. But it will be interesting to see how many of those barriers to service delivery are removed should the DA control Province and City. And how many more are “discovered” between Province and National Government. Cynics might suggest that the problem will merely be moved upward and onto a larger scale – something that would hinder service delivery to even greater numbers of needy citizens.