LETTER FROM DM168 EDITOR
The race is on for the top six in the ANC, and the outcome will affect us all
The ruling party will elect its new leadership in just three months' time. We better all take notice, in the buildup, of whose names are being put into the hat.
Dear readers,
Whether we are bored with the Luthuli House intrigues or not, what goes on in the African National Congress cannot be ignored or dismissed. Just like their apartheid era predecessor, the National Party, which governed South Africa from 1948 to 1994, supported by the minority whites-only electorate, the ANC has consistently been voted into power by the majority of South Africans.
White South Africans benefited royally from their loyalty to the Broederbond-backed apartheid security state and from voting for leaders of the NP to rule the country with an iron fist. Their children had the best education available at the time for free, jobs were reserved for them, and so were houses and suburbs, and access to ownership of the 87% of the land grabbed from black South Africans who previously farmed and lived there.
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Arguably the most terrible and horrendous sacrifice white NP voters had to make was the risk of losing their sons in the brutal Border War – a war which damaged families as loved ones were lost and it ripped the souls of white SADF soldiers who had to see and do unspeakable acts in battles which few understood, other than the fear of swart gevaar and rooi gevaar.
Are black South Africans just as loyal to the party they perceive to be their liberators – even if they have been disappointed at every turn by broken promises and pathetic mismanagement of state services from health to policing and education – as much as white South Africans were devoted to the NP? Could the ANC rule for 46 years just like the NP did? Recent polls by Ipsos suggest not. Ipsos found that if an election were held tomorrow, the ANC would get 42%, the DA 11%, the EFF 9% and Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA 3% of the votes at a national level. But as my colleague Tim Cohen pointed out, South Africa is abominably served by pollsters who seem to be way off the mark for every election.
The thing is, since the dawn of an inclusive democracy in which everyone over the age of 18 could vote, South Africans have placed their trust in the party of liberation way ahead of the nearest competition, the FW De Klerk-led National Party in 1994, the Tony Leon-led Democratic Party in 1999 and in subsequent years, the Democratic Alliance under the leadership of Helen Zille and Mmusi Maimane. The next national election will tell us the fate of the DA under its new incumbent, John Steenhuisen (of ex-wife “roadkill” fame), but the fact remains that no one, not even the Brownshirts-emulating, fiery red overall EFF brigade, comes close to wooing the majority of voters from the ANC.
Why am I going on about this? Well the ANC’s national electoral conference in which the party elects its new leadership is happening in December. Daily Maverick political writer Queenin Masuabi has the inside track on who is gunning for the Top Six leadership positions and how the members will go about voting in the people who will most likely be in charge of governing our country after the next election in 2024. Love them or loathe them, what happens to the ANC in December will affect all of us who live here.
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Yours in defence of truth,
Heather
Heather Robertson is Daily Maverick 168 editor. The newspaper is available countrywide for R25.
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It makes no difference who the cadres elect.
All are useless incompetent corrupt thieves by definition.
That is what a cadre is.
So true Patrick.
Helen: when you claim whites got their stuff (education, houses, jobs) through taking from blacks, you lose half the audience. Most whites took nothing, were given nothing and worked damned hard for what they have. As to the election, hopefully (1) the decent honest part of ANC takes back its branches (2) ActionSA gets its backside in gear and competes everywhere. After 2024 the current ANC will not have a majority but neither will ActionSA + DA. Sadly I predict that then it is ANC + EFF in charge. Young people of all races will be buying one-way tickets if that happens and nobody will blame them.
I wanted to be polite and write an essay. But clearly you are too dyed in the wool for that, so I’ll simply address the DM… guys your peer review system doesn’t work, because Johan Buys is clearly spewing falsehoods. Perhaps an in-depth bit of investigative journalism could explore whether I’m talking utter twaddle or he is.
I have read this sentence a few times and can’t believe it got published “Just like their apartheid era predecessor, the National Party, which governed South Africa from 1948 to 1994, supported by the minority whites-only electorate, the ANC has consistently been voted into power by the majority of South Africans.”. Disentangle it and it says that the National Party government was voted into power by the majority of South Africans. Really? In which parallel universe did that happen?
Yeah, read it that way as well. Not the best grammar from the editor. Would make more sense if is was “unlike”, except the writer seems to be pointing to repeated voting behaviour rather than which portion of the citizenry voted, so I am confused.
“… Steenhuisen: “(… ex-wife ‘roadkill’fame)”. Are all politicians labelled by their faux pas (and far, far worse)? Examples: Fin. Min. Enoch Godongwana (hotel room sex abuse allegation infamy); Cyril Ramaphosa (dollars stashed in furniture infamy); Julius Malema (take your pick!!!). Insiders will recall innumerable examples. Is DM bending over backwards to avoid anticipated blowback from the usual suspects that DM is “too critical” or “only critical” of Black politicians? Heather Robertson should know better – and so should the Editor – that this does not indicate “balanced” reporting.
Insiders depend on DM for fact-based, evidence-driven, independent reporting. We have enough tabloid rags & propaganda-driven publications passing for “journalism” in this country.
The DM survey on R.W. Johnson’s fulminating at the gills at the comment Steenhuisen is alleged to have made in that podcast, is incorrectly worded. The context in which Steenhuisen made his comment, the question he was responding to, his actual words, are all simplistically conflated & condensed into an inaccurate paraphrase that seeks to manipulate responses to coincide with populist twitter chatter. The survey results will be skewed accordingly. Add links (as done in DM reporting generally) to the original podcast. Add figurative definition 0f “roadkill”. Let comment be informed & terminology used accurately defined. Stop feeding a pseudo fire.
I am female, not White & not a member of the DA.
Very high stakes for this thoroughly abused country and exceptionally bad news! If NDZ becomes president, it means that the despicable RET faction led by the obnoxious Zuma will have won and they will be pulling the strings. NDZ will pardon Zuma and all the high profile thieves and state capturers. They will bring the country to its knees once again through a repeat of gross theft and corruption, and again hollow out the NPA, SIU, SARS etc. This time they will be far more secretive and intolerant. They will introduce measures like the Secrecy Bill etc to stamp out opposition and information eg the media, NGO’s etc. It is one huge negative and backward leap back for this country ie back to square 1! One might as well switch the lights off as it will be curtains for SA. Unless the majority of the citizens, who are profoundly decent, stand up to reclaim their country back from the putrid ANC that it has become.
The most visible candidates in ANC elections are not the most viable candidates. The KZN Provincial Conference is a lesson to this maxim in the ANC. The media, political analysts and plumbers made a lot about the public announcements of the various regions of KZN about who will emerge as the Chairperson of that Province and where would be its leaders. The name of Nomusa Dube – Ncube and others were bandied by the media to challenge Zikalala. The KZN Conference which was the best Conference of all the Provincial Conferences, had one name for the Provincial Chairperson that of Sihle Zikalala and the first person who was raised from the floor was Nomusa Dube – Ncube and her name could not meet the threshold. After correcting those handling the process the name of Siboniso Duma was raised from the floor and not only met the required threshold to feature on the ballot, he hit Zikala for a six! He is not even a PEC member. What counts are the under currents in the Provinces in particular the branches. For instance, in Gauteng it was known that Lesufi had only eight people in the PEC and the rest belonged to Maile and Mashatile and the outcome of the PEC was never in doubt! The issue is where Gauteng branches stand. In all Provinces except KZN, we have court cases regarding the conferences and despite Lesufi calling for unity, there is a court case filed against Ekurhuleni and Gauteng. The comments of Msibi carried in IOL and Pretoria News of 7 September cannot be gnored also!
Isn’t bizarre that a party as incompetent and corrupt as the ANC is still in existence, and the party of majority choice? They have wrecked the country and all its institutions, but the masses still vote for them. Perhaps BECAUSE they are de facto criminals, and the majority feel their future lunch tickets depend on siding with the champion thieves?