LETTER FROM THE DM168 EDITOR
Zuma’s curious new loyalty shows how far into the bizarre SA politics has fallen
These ANC RET breakaways and the mushrooming of more than 200 political parties ahead of this year’s elections make our ballot paper into not so much a marketplace of considered political choices but a frenetic bazaar of the bizarre.
Dear DM168 readers,
Our team returned to their computer screens on 8 January and it already feels as if the holidays are but a distant dream. While I was on the road to Gariep on 16 December, the news broke about Jacob Zuma’s support for the newly formed uMkhonto Wesizwe party, leading to a flood of debate on all media platforms and a rumour mill on steroids.
At 81 – with a president’s salary of more than R3-million a year, plus perks like security detail, housing allowances and flights – Zuma has nothing to lose.
The absurdity of a highly compromised former president of the ANC, which has governed South Africa since the dawn of democracy in 1994, turning against the same party, of which he is still a member, says a lot about how 30 years of power have corrupted the cadres of a movement that once boasted intellectual giants like Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Albert Luthuli.
All politicians are flawed, as are all of us, but what separates the flawed humans who have commandeered the collapse of our country and economy is their pervasive venality, greed and patronage of friends and family to the detriment of the poor the ANC originally professed to serve.
Zuma plays the victim card like a fiddle, so it makes sense that the ANC has not yet announced it will suspend him, as it did former secretary-general Ace Magashule and former ANC Youth League leader, now EFF leader, Julius Malema.
Malema has built, by far, the most successful breakaway party from the ANC, growing its share of votes in the National Assembly from 6.35% in 2014 to 10.79% in 2019. Bantu Holomisa’s UDM, which dropped from 3.4% in 1999 to 0.45% in 2019, and Mosiuoa “Terror” Lekota’s Cope, which dropped from 7.42% in 2009 to 0.27% in 2019, are virtually on life support. The jury is out on whether Magashule’s African Congress for Transformation will garner any electoral support.
But already there is talk of Ace and Zuma collaborating to unseat the ANC – a coalition of disgruntled patriarchs of the patronage network that has turned so many municipal, provincial and national government departments into piggy banks for comrade tenderpreneurs, destroying service delivery capability.
These ANC RET breakaways and the mushrooming of more than 200 political parties ahead of this year’s elections make our ballot paper into not so much a marketplace of considered political choices but a frenetic bazaar of the bizarre, doomed and desperate.
So many of these fly-by-night new parties are about individuals who have lost access to the feeding trough, or who want access to it, and are not about rebuilding our country in the wake of the Zuma and ANC wrecking ball.
I hope that more credible new parties led by refreshing leaders like Songezo Zibi and the impressive young team of community-based activists and professionals at Rise Mzansi, and the pragmatic and truly servant leadership-focused members of the more established parties, including the ANC, DA, IFP, FF Plus, ActionSA and the EFF, will put aside the divisive rhetoric and loyalty to individual, sectoral, ethnic, race and business interests to truly focus on fixing our South Africa.
We need a democratic dialogue in which diverse voices – not just the politically and economically privileged – are heard to build a South Africa that truly works for all.
We at Daily Maverick will try our best to accurately report on all our platforms, including DM168, on the smorgasbord of political offerings and dig deep to distinguish those that offer a future for all from those that are in it for themselves.
In our lead story in DM168 this week, Chris Makhaye, our KZN political correspondent, spoke to many people on the ground to unravel what’s going on behind Zuma and this mysterious uMkhonto Wesizwe party he is supporting – and how it will affect the political landscape in KZN, one of the key battleground provinces in the election.
I know there are many out there who prefer not to know about politics, but I believe that knowing more about everyone vying for votes will help you to make the most informed choice on the ballot.
Write to me at [email protected] and let me know your thoughts, as always, so I can share them on our letters page.
Yours in defence of truth and democracy,
Heather
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R29.
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It seems that most of these 200 parties are more about rhe egos of its founders than about what should matter most. Politicians are notoriously egocentric and do not understand the concept of South Africa first, so let us put aside our differences and build a society that we can be proud of. The Afrikaners understood this concept very well with the motto, loosely translated as: “Shoulder to the wheel”, when they rebuilt the destuction of the Anglo-Boer War in collobaration with their conquerors.
The Afrikaners are traditional and committed people, I have worked with them for years.
They sacrificed a life of unfair privilege to give a referendum to an all inclusive nation which the ANC has shamefully tramped upon it’s foundation truth be told
You say EFF is a truly pragmatic servant focused party. Really Heather. The only servant they serve is Julius Malema. Are you coseing up to the EFF now?
They didnt say the EFF is a pragmatic servant focused party. They were talking about the subset of members of the parties who are. The EFF might have 1 or 2.
Propose to go on holiday again and look for your moral compass
“…many of these fly-by-night new parties are about individuals who have lost access to the feeding trough, or who want access to it…”
A more succinct description of these fly-by-nighters would be hard to find.
However, no element of the EFF comes close to a ‘pragmatic and truly servant leadership-focused’ ethos and the ANC, well the less said the better! For me, Julius resembles an individual the world saw in Germany in the 30’s. Thank God we don’t have a portion of the population that can be isolated, corralled and painted as scapegoats for the nation’s misfortunes otherwise things have the potential to turn south indeed…
That is my humble opinion.
There is a ‘portion of the population that can be isolated, corralled and painted as scapegoats for the nation’s misfortunes.’ My fear is that the more desperate those seeking access to the feeding trough become, the more likely they will be to split our battered rainbow nation along the most obvious of divisions
There is a ‘portion of the population that can be isolated, corralled and painted as scapegoats for the nation’s misfortunes.’ My fear is that the more desperate those seeking access to the feeding trough become, the more likely they will be to split our battered rainbow nation along the most obvious of divisions
Fully agree
Time for ANC to come clean, drop the RET faction, and create a new corruption-free middle to lead South Africa into a prosperous future for our children post 2024.
Problem is it’s not only the RET faction that is corrupt to the core – pretty much everyone in the ANC is corrupt or uses patronage to move up the ladder. The ANC is just a massive Ponzi scheme. Nothing more, nothing less.