Category: elections

Wednesday ephemera

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Several bits of small stuff to share, so here it all is.
Knock yourselves out*.

Things are going all right

After yesterday’s post, this:

That’s quite a movement, ironically suddenly making illegal “small boat” immigration across the English Channel a whole lot harder.

Home Affairs is a mixed bag

Two tweets, just a few pixels apart on my laptop screen:

and:

And yes, I’ve experienced both ends of this spectrum.
Delightfully astonishing at the one end, but oh so frustrating at the other.

SA Mpox outbreak causes first death

Indeed:

Nothing to panic about here, but certainly one just to keep an eye on…

Explore your adventurous side

A recent advert on the web:

Ah yes. The silver self-defence spike. A true Camping and Outdoor Essential. And… does it really say “Thank you for choosing [manufacturer]” on the lanyard? That’s amazing.

I despair

A local page I follow on Facebook got hacked and started posting all sorts of weird stuff, including (but not limited to) a lot of AI generated content resembling American cities. In fact, the only local thing it posted was this range of images depicting (allegedly, at least) Cape Town, some lions in the Kruger, and some KhoiSan rock art in an ancient cave.

The worst bit was the comments though, with people from Cape Town fawning over the picture of their city. And this, despite all those new mountains, the sun setting on the wrong side, and that frankly weird extension bit coming out of Green Point.
Compare and contrast…

Also, while we’re on the subject, that is clearly not KhoiSan rock art, and WTF has happened to those lions? Our jobs are safe from AI for a while yet. But whether our lives are safe from idiot commenters on Facebook… well… that’s another story.

Winter in the vineyards

In more genuine pictures of Cape Town…
We took a walk around Groot Constantia a few days ago, and it was lovely.

Go and see more of the yellowing vines and lush, green grass on Instagram. And drop a follow if you haven’t already. Thanks.

* simply a turn of phrase, not an instruction.

Another German map

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You’ll probably want to go and look at this post to see why this is “another” German map.

But, this is another German map, this time detailing the results of the recent European Parliament elections in that country.

That’s the Centre-Right CDU/CSU in grey and the Far-Right AfD in blue. And you’ll note that the country is – once again – divided up right down its historic East/West border. The weird bit here being that the ex-Communist Bloc East is voting for a far-right party that supports Russian president Vladimir Putin, who is all for reliving those halcyon days when the USSR and Eastern Europe was all powerful.

Well, in the USSR and Eastern Europe, anyway.

Still, the Western side is holding onto parties with far less extreme policies.
So I guess things could be worse.

See what I mean?

Ouch.

“This results are rigged.”

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Amidst the demands for a re-vote following the bizarre claims from the MK Party that the recent elections were rigged – a move many experts believe is not to actually based in any fact, but more to undermine the authority of the IEC – there was this:

And he offered the following screenshots as proof. One for the Western Cape:

And one for KZN:

I must admit, when I first read his allegations, I was a bit dubious. But the evidence is absolutely there.

How on earth can a bigger number be a smaller percentage? Something dodgy is clearly going on.

Jeez. Tiktok maths.
These people walk among us.
And look the way they voted.

Election Experts

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It seems that South Africa is full of political experts. Who knew?
What a country, though. Who could forget when it was full of microbiologists and vaccinologists not so long ago? And then, just after that, specialists on the history and geopolitical situation in the ex-Soviet Republics and then the same for the Middle East.

That’s the sort of pivoting and agility management that you only find in this remarkable population.

Who knows to what we will turn our collective hands tomorrow?

Right now, it’s spin doctoring of the highest order:


Explaining why this party’s 0.3% is actually a better result than that party’s 22.3%.
How that party winning this area doesn’t actually count for anything, because [stereotypical voter demographic] was always going to vote that way.
Calling for the head of a party they don’t even care about, while studiously ignoring the fact that they outperformed everyone’s wildest predictions.
Just making everyone aware that it’s someone else’s fault that the 68% of the population that support your single policy party’s single policy mysteriously morphed into 0.21% on election day.

Still, all this mental manoeuvering does at least distract us from the rather unpleasant thought of an ANC coalition with the EFF (ANC-lite) or MK (ANC-heavy), running what’s left of the country (into the ground).

And it’s also not leaving much space for wondering where local political phoenix has-been Patricia de Lille is going to emerge this time around. But then again, who cares?

Last ditch

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If the whole “Tax cuts for pensioners” and “Bring back National Service” policies suggested by outgoing UK PM Rishi Sunak were (rightly) ridiculed as being pre-election desperation tactics, then what on earth are we to make of this?

At least Sunak’s promises were a month and bit away, even if they were clearly the last ditch attempts of a dying government to try and win a few more votes. This one above was announced literally 3½ hours before election day.

Next level stuff.

That’s the 4th major bill Ramaphosa has signed into law in the last 2 weeks. And while I’m not saying that those bills are necessarily good or bad (OK, I’m saying that the NHI bill is an absolute disaster, but still), it’s pretty sickening that after 30 years in power – 6 of them with him in the Big Chair – we’re suddenly seeing actual work being done, simply because the ANC is about to lose their overall majority, and – linked, but also not the same – they ANC is desperate for votes.

If these things were so right (not the NHI bill) and will be so beneficial for the country (again… not so much the NHI one), then why weren’t they signed into law weeks, months or even years ago?

It almost makes you think that the ruling party is simply desperate for voters to see them actually doing some actual work.

Weird.