I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about this, but I guess that the cat is well and truly out of the bag now. I thought that the bricks I’d included and several feet of the Swartrivier would have kept the cat fairly permanently in the bag, but the pesky thing seems to have escaped and is now telling everyone about my secret… about my previously secret plans.
So. Time to come clean. I’m not really a microbiologist, fighting the scourge of tuberculosis in South Africa. I’m actually a secret agent for the British Ministry of Defence, fighting the scourge of the anti-ANC counter-revolutionary, third force(s) in South Africa.
I’m not trying to keep the SA population healthy, I’m simply trying to keep them under the governance of Jacob Zuma and the African National Congress.
And now everyone knows about it.
Bugger.
To be fair, for years, it was not really a problem at all. All the hard work was done by other people pre-1994, and then by the big Man(dela) for the years thereafter. Minimal ruling party propage was required.
It was easy money.
Even when Nelson handed the reins over to Thabo, everything was still going fine. Sure, there were about three hundred thousand problems, but we were starting from a very high base level and even those weren’t nearly enough to unsettle, let alone unseat, the mighty ANC.
No. The problems only began when Thabs was usurped by Zuma in 2009. Things started to go south rather rapidly – and I don’t just mean concerned senior members of the British armed forces visiting my office. When JZ-junior, Julius Malema, was booted unceremoniously from the ruling party, alarm bells started ringing. When he set up his own political party and started actually doing things with it, those alarms became deafening, and I was unwillingly raised from my several years long slumber in order to prop up the ailing SA government.
I’ll be honest, it hasn’t gone very well.
But look, it’s not all my fault. I’ve been trying my hardest. The clear first targets were those that were themselves targeting the ANC. But how? Any obvious intervention would be… well… obvious.
Cleverly, I made them metaphorically shoot themselves in their metaphorical feet. After all, who would vote out the ANC when the alternatives were so decidedly unappealing? Yeah, suicidal self-sabotage was the obvious choice.
I warmed up with the easy ones. Mamphela Ramphele and Agang – once a promising option – were quickly disposed of after I suggested that snogging the leader of the opposition “would look great in the papers” (it did) and “would ensure their political future” (ha! not so much!). The rest, much like Agang, is history.
But bigger fish lay ahead and needed tackling. Thus, it was me that hinted to Helen Zille that she should join Twitter. “It will be a great way to instantly engage with those disenfranchised, floating voters,” I told her. “You’ll help them make up their minds in no time.”
And she did:
Again and again:
It was a tough job, my work had to ensure that while the DA had no chance at national government, they safely held Cape Town – I can like to like my potholes mended and my traffic lights working.
If it was easy to hobble Helen, the EFF were a whole different kettle of fish. Younger, louder and in touch with the voting public, their populist firebrand approach was their trump card, but I soon worked out that their love of repeatedly shouting at things could be used against them.
Yes, it was my idea that they repeatedly shouted at Jacob Zuma and his people in Parliament.
And then, once that had made successfully made absolutely no difference to the status quo, I got them to repeatedly shout at him again.
And again and again.
They love it, the media loves it, their voters love it. And it’s massively effective… at keeping the ANC in power.
Job done.
The only fly in my ANC-anointing ointment is Jacob Zuma. While I’ve been organising own goals for his opponents, he’s been scoring repeatedly at the wrong end, and it seems that there’s not much I – or anyone else – can do about it.
I think I may be out of a job soon because of him. Still – much like the local economy – at least I’m going down in flames; the good news is that in the few months I probably have left, I am being paid in Pounds Sterling.