In early 2024 the small-time ex political science student in me was looking forward to a year that would so drastically change the country’s political landscape as to breath fresh life into it. Indeed that turned out to be the case albeit not in the manner I’d envisioned. Leading up to the election, uncharacteristic, vibrant candidates crept up onto the ballot sheet. One did not know what to really make of them except to conclude they were bound by that often vexing political objective: getting as close to the levers of power as possible. Perhaps, I thought, amongst them we’d finally find our very own Obama – or a resurrection of Mandela – a man so charismatic that when he speaks even the pubs turn off the jukebox to listen.
I saw a young politician who articulated himself like an Oxbridge graduate. There was a reputable former editor taking lots of bucks from a very wealthy white woman; militant xenophobes who shocked the bejesus out of foreign nationals; a coterie of parties under the moniker of the Mooshot Pact; a flamboyant ex ‘bandiet’ consorting with tattooed gangsters in the Western Cape; a pastoral figure who was unceremoniously sacked by a big party back in 2019 and an entrepreneur of hair products hellbent on putting everyone who commits murder to the noose. The latter even granted this lowly publication an interview during the heated campaign trail.
It looked fresh, respite from the norm, hence my excitement – and nerves – levels were cranked up a notch. But barely a day after the election, disappeared the youngster, so too the editor. The ex-con gladly slipped into the maw of the new government of national unity (GNU) this as the Mooshot guys disintegrated, some going their separate ways others figuring that perhaps their best hopes of survival also lay in the GNU. And the xenophobes vanished, hopefully not to take out their frustrations on the foreign spaza traders in Gauteng.
In their place were mainly the usual suspects, the old hands of the Mzansi political scene. A bruised ANC that saw its numbers significantly dropped and was now faced with the decision to either let bygones be bygones with their archrival, the DA, or to say sorry to their former president whose miraculous comeback saw him leading the country’s third biggest party, the MKP.
Seems the latter would happen only over president Cyril Ramaphosa’s dead body. The president must’ve have long learnt that if you give uBaba half a chance, you’ll only regret it when you’ve been decapitated and it’s too late to take it back. Hence, even before the voting, secret talks between the ANC – which publicly proclaimed its invincibility but clearly harboured misgivings behind closed doors – and DA had been taking place. Faced with several bedfellows – some of whom were making staggering, if not unmeetable demands – , the ANC would bite the bullet, taking the DA’s hand and whatever other smaller parties would follow them into the uncertainty.
That might’ve been the moment that decided the fate of the Red Brigade. Their leader, Julius Malema, we hear, was presenting ‘take it or leave it’ sort of deals on the table whilst some of his underlings would’ve been happy to form part of the GNU and enjoy the perks that come with being the top guys at the table. They would’ve have looked at PA leader Gayton Mckenzie and drooled that this-minute-ago upstart was now a Cabinet Minister and as a consequence bitterly resented their CIC’s stubbornness. Thus, those with credentials thought it prudent to go elsewhere, leaving those without many options to suck it up under Juju’s dictatorial whip.
Depending on where you were sitting it was all either a big miracle or anticlimactic but at least for the most part, the majority seems grateful that there were no burning tyres or blood on the streets. Expectedly, the marriage would garner massive criticism. Some were labeling the union as a soiree into Apartheid 2.0. Others spat on the name of Ramaphosa, a capitalist sellout who sold the country for Stellenbosch wine, they taunted.
One would’ve thought that if the Buffalo wanted to sell out, a few head of Ankole cattle or $100 bills surreptitiously delivered in fine furniture would’ve more likely clinched the deal than the drink of the gods. Top-shelf merlot has always been a kink most associated with a certain bigwig of the SA Communist Party. But then again stranger things have happened. One once very prominent stalwart was known to behave like an estate agent, expecting nothing but a 10% kickback in government deals he facilitated.
Before the election, though, that man would have us believe that he was still very much in it, that his comeback was inevitable. Post-election his fate appears sealed. He’s all but been obliterated from the radar, a move that one suspects was likely facilitated by none other than the ANC Secretary General, Fikile Mbalula, apparently still a very influential figure in the Free State province.
The gravepine has it that ex editor Songezo Zibi, hair guru Herman Mashaba, the clergyman Mmusi Maimane and the indefatigable Auntie Pat are in talks to band together, a move that comes, in my frugal opinion, a little too late. That had been one of my personal curiosities pre-May: why don’t all these guys just sit down over some brandy, iron out their differences (which I didn’t believe were many, if any at all) and go it together. They seemed to have ignored an old SA platitude, something to do with how much stronger we are united in our diversity. Now they have come to disprove even that Liverpool FC axiom, as they walk alone, quite literally as some are reduced to just one lonely seat in Parliament. Now how would they hope to take on the big boys with just a handful of seats?
Like its predecessor from 1994, the GNU finds itself beset with its own problems. More character orientated with a smidgen of policy disagreement but in the main, the gripes that seem to attract public attention are those that are racial (or perceived to be so) at heart. In a country of our kind of racial history, those were inevitable, especially when the top leadership of both the ANC and DA are products of those times. You’d remember that the National Party even pulled out of the first GNU, a move that saw them become the official opposition.
Apart from the public spatters though, there has been no indication of either party demanding a divorce. These arguments are starting to look more like domestic squabbles, insults back and forth, but the couple going to bed together albeit sometimes with their backs turned to each other. With the ANC’s insistence on State-driven development and a DA going down the laissez faire route of free markets; the tone deafness of employing a known racist as chief of staff; the inability to make concessions when pushing through certain acts (Bela in particular) amongst others, means there’ll be plenty more of the bickering where that came from.
Months after the honeymoon, nobody has punched anybody in the face, though. No assassination attempts. DA Federal Chairperson is still not showing anybody any quarter, no doubt a lesson straight from a Tony Leon political handbook. The new party leader John Steenhuisen appears to have taken to his ministerial post with a flourish, big grins, cool suits and all. In their parliamentary exchanges one even picks up on whiffs of a budding bromance.
It’s all good to see. The sort of organic unity Madiba would’ve been proud of although he might have in the same breath agonised about how the party he so dearly loved had regenerated so miserably. The only losers in the equation are probably the proletariat. Some six months into the unity and not much has changed in everyday South Africa. Hopefully after the festive season break, the powers that be will return with a proper manual to get the people working and the country moving forward. In the tone of Morgan Freeman’s narration in The Shawshank Redemption: I hope.