Dear Comrade President His Excellency Bra Cyril Ramaphosa.
It is with great offence – by no means directed at you, Mr President, more than the sourgrapes who would dare speak ill of our Commander in Chief – that I labour at this missive. Thanks to their incorrigible slander I’ve been chain-smoking through the ganja plot all morning, occassionally murmuring incoherent babble like “damn journos,” to the cat, who in turn looks like he’s saying, “yea, sure, damn them all.”
If we’re to summarise these pundits’s words, Mr President, they’re saying; surely you’re up the creek without a paddle when a pedestrian announcement of an upcoming election date generates more interest than anything you, the President, or any of your Cabinet – including an important budget speech by your finance guy – have said over the last couple of years. Not your fault entirely, say I, Comrade your Excellency. Blame it on the exchequer man. How could he not know that in a country where the lumpen proles – squirming under unemployment, blackouts and crime – wouldn’t take too kindly to the irritant of sin taxes?

If anything, grog has become their opium to the agony that the country is a regressing tinpot, edging ever closer to whatever makes our brothers north of Beit Bridge risk tooth and limb crossing crocodile-infested rivers to get here. Why not let them drink and be merry so as to forget that there are longstanding scores to be settled come 29 May? If anything, Honourable Godongwana could’ve turned a blind eye in this regard. Left the libations untouched, except maybe the single malts.
The comrades are notorious quaffers of the old Johnnie Blue so it would no doubt have won you some favour amongst the grassroots. Payback time for those free generators our MPs were gifted while the rest of us were making do with candles during loadshedding as well as their eye-watering pay hikes at a time when many were picketing for ‘a living wage.’
A free pre-election tipple, if you will, ‘on us, the National Democratic Revolution (NDR), cheers…ag, I meant amandla!’ because Godongwane’s budget didn’t have many bones to toss at the voting fodder. But then again, you’re known as the master of the long game even though the elections are only three months off and hundreds are clamouring for your job. For now, though, the Minister must take a backseat. Far more stressful matters at hand, Bra Cyril.

Word on the street is that your party, the ANC, can kiss a victory upward of 50% goodbye. For a two-thirds majority I’m afraid you’ll have to pull a Mnangwaga; rig the whole thing and beat within any inch of their life the first person who complains. Also, they say, you may soon have to bury the hatchet with Juju, take him on a shopping spree in Dubai then ply the EFF leader with liquor before he’s figured out that this is just your way of trying to court him back home to Luthuli House.
Besides, what do these pundits know anyway? Around 2019, the days when their opinions enrobed you in Messianic vestments as you traversed the country preaching the gospel of the New Dawn, they were eager disciples. Wherever you went, they followed, muttering ‘amen’ to your every word and heaping praise onto your doctrine of ‘renewal’. Not sure the exaltations were justified, though, given that your sermons were just from the same old party scriptures, just a different evangelist.

Still, you were the Son of Mzansi personified, anointed to deliver us from the bondage of nine wasted years. To put men to work, children in school, and – as though having ripped a page from Christ proper – even chastising those who were desecrating the state coffers. Your Excellency, back then if you’d instructed any of your comrades to turn the other cheek at Helen Zille’s tweets (Xs), even the #FearFokol Fikile Mbalula would’ve let Godzille klap him twice. The solemn images of Julius Malema and his footsoldiers silently sat listening to your maiden State of the Nation sermon was the stuff of divine miracles.
Then, barely two years into the revival, COVID happened with all the accessorial looting, after which would come your testimony before Judge Zondo’s state capture commission. Suddenly, with raised eyebrows there were murmurs amongst the common folk about the president having sold us snake oil. Much like those downtown pamphlets that promise instant remedy to unrequited love and erectile dysfunction. The cheek! Comparing The Honourable President to some backdoor charlatan. Sadly, by then the horse had bolted, ran all the way up to Phala Phala and into Arthur Fraser’s office.

That’s when the faithful pundits said, ‘enough,’ turned Pontius Pilate, duly washing their hands clean and admitting that perhaps you were nothing quite like the long-haired Nazarene. From there, the scumbags went full-on Judas, disavowing your leadership and penning ghastly pieces, ostensibly for their thirty pieces of silver. We’d like to think the bribes came from white monopoly capital, but given how you and the manne from Stellenbosch appear to share a palate for the finer things, our next best guess is the Radical Economic Transformation rabble.
Speaking of which, ex-guerillas that they are, they’ve seemingly mostly gone to ground. Jimmy Manyi, we’ve heard, has pawned the party golfers for an EFF beret and turned his back on both you and uBaba JZ. Carl Niehaus has used his notoriously deceptive tongue to similar ends. The Red Brigade is starting to look like an orphanage of former children of the NDR. Tintswalos everywhere! This would explain Godzille and Co’s sleepless nights – an EFF/ANC coalition to them might be much like State Capture sans the Indian flavour.

One guy who just won’t go away, though, is uBaba, your predecessor whom you dumped in 2018, on Valentine’s Day nogals. Seemingly he has not handled the breakup very well. Not sure what the poets say of a man scorned but judging by uBaba’s antics, it looks just as hellish as it would if, let’s say, you were Helen Zille trying to get rid of Mmusi Maimane back in 2019. Chaos. Harsh words and blood everywhere. But then again uBaba is hardly the sort of guy who likes playing second fiddle so perhaps you’ll give him enough rope to hang himself.
They’ve hardly contested their maiden national election, but already his Umkhonto weSizwe party is riddled by the sort of power struggles that saw your erudite pipe-smoking president, Bra Zizi aka Honourable Former President Thabo Mbeki, served his ‘don’t come Monday’ back in 2008.
Dirty game these politics but at least, you, being an OG, are versed in the playbook. They come at you with the CR17 campaign records, you go to the courts and have them sealed. When they sniff around the cadre deployment committee that you chaired, aha! no minutes to be found during your stint. Foreign currency stashed at Phala Phala. Guess what? The Public Protector agrees; it wasn’t you. Mr President, you must’ve made for an electrifying midfielder the way you so aptly dribble out of tight corners. In township diski – football – I’m sure you must have commanded a special name…Aceeeee! No, no … not that one.
Rumour has it, that outside of an alleged roughing up by an ANC Youth League member in Welkom, Bra Yster’s African Congress for Transformation is out guns blazing in the Free State. Ten percent for anyone who would join his cause. Gallons of free milk from the Vrede Dairy farm. Now there’s a seasoned campaigner right there. Minister Godongwana would do well to understand that much like the promise of a plate of food to fill up your rallies, Comrade President, giving something in exchange for a vote is much like the dubious ‘cooldrink’ motorists pay every waking days to traffic officers.
Take your election manifesto gig this Saturday (24 February). Busloads of supporters from all over the country filled the 56 000 seater Moses Mabhida Stadium to capacity. Party loyalists I hear you say, but for someone from a dusty village I’ll tell you that a free bus ride to Durban, with a free meal awaiting would even have someone who’s never heard of Pieter Groenewald singing De la Rey alongside the Freedom Front Plus inside the NG Kerk in Oranje.
But no, Honourable Godongwana would much rather play it beaurocratic. Not entirely a bad idea if you consider the sophisticated jargon of commerce he employs and the education levels of his listeners. The only words I can remember from him are, “a bottle of spirits, including whiskey bafethu (dudes), gin and vodka increases by … R5.53 salimala (basically, we’re screwed).” Then, true to the trappings of the people’s revolution, the Minister hinted that to drink whiskey is to be BEE, certainly no business of the everyday skollie. Aaah what a trooper. Some said this was a tinge Orwellian; Napoleon and his fellow pigs sat dining at Jones’s table as the other animals look on starving through the window. But that’s only because most of them think Animal Farm is another name for Phala Phala, Mr President. Idiots.
So, these pundits – I repeat: damn them! – have been quick out the starting blocks, some giving Mister Godongwana the thumbs up, others putting a red pen to his essay. But here at eParkeni we just think the Minister, although he fluffed some of the terminology, was, well, not quite a Trevor Manual but then again, it’s common knowledge that the 1994 cadre was hungrier and wanted it more, but now it’s just time to eat.
Well, Your Excellency, think I’ve delayed you long enough when you’ve got uBaba in KZN, Bra Ace in Free State and a slew of Model-C types who sound more like amateur rappers than seasoned politicians breathing down your neck. Nothing to be alarmed about, Sir, in fact, think of it this way: no matter the ballot results, unlike those career turncoats who’ve been sucking up since Madiba walked out of prison, you’ll still have your billions. Your livestock will be waiting for you at ‘that’ famous farm; Ankole steaks and vintage wine, fifty percent majority or not. Yours is quite literally the best seat in the house, Your Excellency, and my cat agrees.
PS: If you could relay a little yarn to Minister Godongwana. My 80+ year old neighbour, although immensely grateful for the R100 old age grant increase, her first reaction was, and I’ll paraphrase, “clearly it’s been a while since this man went inside a grocery store.”
Well PM this is so enjoyable to read Fresh airs in the changes of climate? I trust you can meawhile until toverview budget can kick in next week, be justly awarded and supported by others who can come to the party of true compatriots? Best wishes, MaederOz from toverview.