Tag: ANC

More election confusion

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After yesterday’s election confusion over whether or not the ANC “can” win Cape Town in next month’s Municipal Elections, that same party have made great inroads in not winning the Tlokwe (Potchefstroom) Municipality by regrettably (or not, possibly) failing to register candidates in seven wards there:

A member of the ANC’s provincial executive committee (PEC) in North West, who asked not to be named, told the M&G that provincial secretary Kabelo Mataboge was to blame for not registering candidates with the Independent Electoral Commission.
As the provincial secretary Mataboge is responsible for ensuring that all registrations are conducted according to the letter of the law and on time.
He allegedly sent a messenger to the IEC offices in Potchefstroom to register ANC candidates on the last day of registration.
It is alleged that Mataboge gave the messenger all the forms that needed to be submitted but that he signed six of them without the names of the candidates being specified. This was despite the fact that the list of candidates had been finalised by provincial leaders.

Oops.

The ANC’s North West provincial working committee was due to meet on April 20 and party sources said it would look into the possibility of disciplining Mataboge. “He’s likely to face several charges related to bringing the party into disrepute. It’s a serious charge,” the source said.

Sadly, this never happened in the UK. We could have been spared a lot of Labour if it had.

One thing I do like about this story is the name Tlokwe. So much prettier than the “original” Afrikaans name.
Am I allowed to say that?

Election confusion

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With the municipal elections just 4 weeks away, the ANC have launched a new tactic to confuse the local electorate into voting (presumably) for them. A couple of weeks ago, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe admitted that the party had no chance of winning the Cape Town Municipality from the incumbent DA:


At first, I thought that this was either reverse psychology or actually a strange moment of honesty from a politician. Although, I have to say that Motlanthe has always struck me as being a fairly honest sort of bloke, which is pretty unusual for someone in that profession.

Anyway, apparently he was wrong because 2 weeks on, the “ANC can win Cape Town” according to his boss – and indeed everybody’s boss – Jacob Zuma:

Bewildered? Of course you are. So allow me to explain.

Actually, I can’t.

Quite how two leading members of the same political party can publicly differ so much over a simple issue is beyond me. And of course, they’re both correct. Mathematically, the ANC can win Cape Town; realistically (barring any bombshells in the next couple of weeks), they probably can’t. Does anyone actually need to be told this? Probably not.

Are potential voters likely to be swayed by this sort of apparent difference of opinion? Probably only as much as they are by the overblown promises of either of the main parties in the election race.

Meanwhile, if any local political organisation can come up with a plan to stop my neighbours dogs barking at 5 o’clock every single sodding morning, then they can have my vote instantly and without question, whether they think they can win in Cape Town or not.

Just another ANCYL press release

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I swear, you can’t make this sort of thing up. But someone does.
This one goes out to all those overseas people who will think that it was me that made it up.

First came this, from ANCYL President Julius Malema at the pre-opening party of the ZAR nightclub in Cape Town:

Helen Zille will not close ZAR at 2am, like she does to other clubs in Cape Town. The ANC owns ZAR and we will party until the morning.

Then came the rebuke from ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe here:

The ANC would like to state categorically that it has no interest in running a nightclub or in endorsing its owners. The ANC is not into nightclubs or partying, it is a revolutionary movement.
We reiterate our condemnation of serving sushi on a woman’s body, as this act is anti-ANC and anti-revolutionary. This act is defamatory, insensitive and undermining of woman’s integrity.

How many other political parties worldwide have had to distance themselves from the practice of running nightclubs and serving raw fish on a woman’s body? They may have back-tracked on tuition fees, but I don’t think the Tories or the LibDems ever have.
Look, to be honest, Saddam Hussein was a pretty nasty bloke if those stories are to be believed, but at no point did his Ba’ath party ever have to tell us that they’d checked their party manual and they weren’t able to condone snacks being eaten from a half-naked model’s belly button.
It’s these sort of things that keep politics interesting in SA.

But it gets better, because then the ANCYL released this re-rebuke and slight retraction in reply to the earlier rebuke from Mantashe.

And it’s this one which for me contains one of the best lines in any press release ever:

We further do not agree with serving of any kind of food on human bodies and have in expressed this sentiment publicly in the past. This should however not undermine and rubbish that successful, young black entrepreneurs are breaking new ground and engaging in efforts that will lead to greater social relations across racial lines.

Brilliant. See how they’ve gone beyond sushi to include any kind of food? See how they’ve gone beyond women to include any kind of human? Sure – they’ll still happily scoff prawn sashimi off the head of a well-trained Jack Russell terrier, but they’re not going to even so much as touch a vol-au-vent that’s been on some bloke’s knee.

Of course, the only issue with that blanket ban on foodstuffs being served on human platters is that apparently, successful, young black entrepreneurs were kind of relying on the whole eating sushi from half-naked (and presumably white) models in order to improve social relations across racial lines.

Now they’re going to have to, y’know, talk to them and stuff – and this without the “you’ve got bits of maki roll on your bikini top, pet” icebreaker. Can’t the elders in the ANC see how this is going to set back social relations across racial lines for years to come?

The party’s stance on the serving of sushi from women’s bodies to successful, young black entrepreneurs and the effect that it may have on greater social relations across racial lines must, must be top priority at the next ANC Conference.

The future of our country depends upon it, Comrade.

Cape to be stripped of power?

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Seriaas?

Seriaas.

Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Sicelo Shiceka has warned the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape provincial government that they will be stripped of their powers if they fail to deliver basic services to poor residents soon.

Of course, the Western Cape is the only Province not to be under ANC control. And the City of Cape Town is the only major municipality not to be under ANC control. But surely these aren’t the only areas which are suffering with a lack of service delivery?
Take the recent protests in Standerton, Balfour (and here), Thokoza and Diepsloot, none of which are in the Western Cape and therefore all of which find themselves under ANC control.

When questioned about this apparent dichotomy in approach to what are basically the same problems and issues, Minister Shiceka was annoyed at the suggestion of any hypocrisy:

Let there be no doubt, if any ANC municipalities are shown to be failing, then they will be taken to task by the ANC. If there is no improvement, we will transfer their powers to the ANC.
And then, if necessary, to the ANC.

So that all sounds fair enough.
Although I think that Helen Zille, Supreme Emperor of the Western Cape, may beg to differ.

Tony Leon on Concubinegate

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Former DA leader Tony Leon spoke out today on the Concubinegate affair (that’s my name for it, anyway), in which current DA leader and Emperor of the Western Cape, Helen Zille had a pop at Jacob Zuma’s habits of sleeping around. Whatever “sleeping around” actually means. Floyd?

It’s an excellent analysis of the situation, drawing on his years as leader of the opposition and utilising common sense and logic instead of the knee-jerk, personal tactics of his successor.

I think Bill Clinton got it right when, in appointing his first administration in 1992, he announced: “I want a cabinet that looks like America.” The fact that the Western Cape provincial government doesn’t look like SA, or on the face of it is overloaded with testosterone, doesn’t mean it won’t deliver or won’t be vigilant on feminist issues. But it handed a sword to the party’s opponents, who were delighted to plunge it in with vigour. And politics is often more about symbols than substance.

And while Leon is somewhat critical of Zille, he balances it out with the facts which we never really got to hear in her defence – that the ANCYL’s response was at worse, offensive and infantile (which we knew) and at best, somewhat hypocritical, given the make-up of some of their Provincial cabinets across the country.

When I led the opposition, I made a book- ful of mistakes when it came to an overheated response or an incautious one-liner. And I know how a single phrase in a letter or speech can be wrenched from context, or can obliterate the most thorough defence.

Zille’s reference to Zuma’s personal history was factually correct but tactically questionable. It struck a discordant note in the upwelling mood music which flowed from the president’s inauguration and the wave of optimism it generated.

It seems almost strange to be citing a voice of reason in this whole sorry affair, where mud-slinging, slanderous comments have been the order of the day. But it’s a lesson to us all that sometimes it’s worth stepping back from the heat of an argument and actually THINKING before speaking, rather than just throwing some stupid statement out into the public domain.

While I can understand the ANC’s glee at the gift of the all-male Western Cape cabinet – and their further delight at Zille’s foolish response to their jibes – the people I don’t understand are the angered DA voters in the Western Cape.

Zille’s defence has always been that she didn’t have enough experienced women to appoint to her Provincial cabinet, simply because not enough experienced women were on the DA Provincial lists (something which should surely never have been allowed to happen in the first place). But those lists were freely available to the public in the run up to the election, published in all the newspapers and on the internet. Anyone who had bothered to read the lists would have been aware that this situation was going to arise given the DA’s widely (and rather accurately) predicted ~50% performance in the Provincial elections.
Thus, if you voted DA in the Western Cape and now have a problem with the demographics of the Provincial cabinet – well, it’s actually your fault. Just because you didn’t do your homework in the days before April 22nd is no reason to cry foul now.

So please stop moaning and pretending you wished you’d voted ANC. You’d do well to take a leaf out of Tony’s book and THINK before you speak out (or maybe even before you vote in future).
Otherwise, you really do risk making a fool out of yourself. Or is it too late already?