From boots on the ground, to potholes being suddenly filled could only mean one thing: the political silly season has been revved up to high gear. Pretty soon the knocks will come rapping on the door and it won’t be Jehovah’s Witnesses but Fighters, Cadres, sometimes an obscure figure you’ve never even heard of. The usual modus operandi is upon us: the standard kissing of babies, blankets for the elderly, lots of promises of new jobs. Don’t forget the jargon: manifesto, programme of action, all teeming with paradoxes but really with no extinguished paragon – at least so far into many of the campaigns – to articulate them well enough as to be credible to all the masses. We are not psychic, we just know the drill. For decades this is the same script the populace has grown accustomed to.
So if it’s not broken, why fix it, right? Well, because for the first time in three decades the numbers are no longer what they used to be. Nobody’s political future is guaranteed and the guillotine could come down hard on anybody. The nation’s politics have undergone seismic shifts over the past decade which have sometimes obliterated old alliances and ideologies and resulted in an entirely new environment to operate in. The ruling ANC suffered a major hammering two years ago. The once-flagrant and promising EFF appears to have hit a ceiling and the new kid on the block MKP is, at least according to the political analyst Prince Mashele, destined to soon take over the important eThekwini Municipality. Now, because the laboured electioneering copy and paste no longer has the desired effect, parties seem to be dabbling in new bluffs and schemes. In this panic-mode, the pressure is taking its toll and stuff-ups as well as the unlikeliest confessions are coming from figures who tend to usually double down when the questions become too hard.
Smelling blood, peripheral opportunists have become emboldened, and some of them leave us thinking, indeed, if there’s one sensible thing that the dreadfully animated Fallist leader Mcebo Dlamini ever said it’s that South Africa is a movie – a B-grade flop that promises fireworks only to bomb and disappoint before it’s even hit the box office.
If not, then explain to anyone who takes themselves seriously how a figure like Ntsiki Mazwai could ever think she could run for the nation’s most important mayoralty and actually win? The ever-grumbling poet who’s perpetually twarring, trolling or texting about the insatiable carnal desires of the 40-plus female body has come out as the Gauteng mayoral candidate for the hitherto (at least to this writer) unheard-of Land Party.
Yes, the one who is on one hand a supposed hardline feminist but who is also a serial online troll with nothing good to say about anybody who dislikes her social media rage-baiting. Yes, she’s the one who once had the nation’s men in a feverish frenzy when she concluded through a tweet on X that SA men had been dealt a bad hand when it came to, uhm, ‘size.’ Wish I was making this stuff up except these are just some of the things she is most famous for. But it gets even wilder. How about Prince Mashele, the analyst mentioned above and whom we’ve ran an in-depth article on some time ago?
Well, rumour has it that shortly after the LGE, he will be launching his very own political party. Promising to rope in the very brightest minds across all racial groups, Mashele is adamant that his meritocentric entity will go on to formidably challenge the ANC as early as the 2029 general election. Now, here is where things might get a little sticky for Mashele and would-be voters. He has reportedly been quick to approach billionaire Rob Hersov for some R2 billion to kickstart the venture. (I’d urge the reader to revisit that earlier article on Mashele to see that our suspicions were not without sound reason after all.)
ANC Secretary-General, Fikile Mbalula, has been out and about pleading for one more chance from the electorate. Mbaks has even ditched the usual vanity, openly admitted to the party’s ‘mistakes’ but has been quick to once more assure that they are working hard on fixing them. These have resulted in serious lampooning on the socials, especially that bit about second chances. As in, haven’t we’ve been giving you second chances since 2009? In fact, so intent is a certain group on teaching the ANC a lesson that there’s an online campaign to locate a certain woman from Bloemfontein. During a recent visit by the Free State Premier Maqueen Letsoha-Mathae, this unnamed ordinary woman who was sat beside an informal structure boldly told the Premier and her people to ‘go away’ in front of the cameras. On social media she became an overnight sensation as she clearly had expressed what so many wished they could. Last I checked the idea of funding her was circulating widelt on the online streets with many people saying they were eager to lend support.
For the past three decades the powers that be have had it relatively easy. Hyped up by the spirit of democracy, the constituency was malleable; ate up the BS, held on to the leadership’s every word and believed that things could only start to get better. Not so anymore. Whoever would seek to run things even at local government level must come with a new set of skills because the old tricks have obviously become null and void. Mbalula’s humble tone suggests that he must have sensed that the usual spin no longer cuts it. The Free State Premier didn’t realise just how angry people were and she was immediately punished for it. Helen Zille has been pushing a catchy campaign. Centered around none of the ideological fluff, it’s gone back to good ol’ basics: service delivery, employment and clean governance. Our celebrity poet hasn’t completely put away the trolling but she has at least repackaged it to focus on radical politics. Like I said – the circus is in town.
Featured image: Free State Premier Maqueen Letsoha-Mathae. Source: Premier Maqueen Letsoha-Mathae Facebook page.