OUT TO LUNCH

“Hear me very carefully, this country will be turned into civil war the day the MK Party is not allowed to campaign and to be on the ballot paper. No one will vote we will make sure that no one will vote”

If you were dumb enough to ever think that the newly formed MK party with Jacob Zuma as its figurehead was in pursuit of a newer, fairer, more prosperous South Africa then maybe you need to think again. The hateful words of someone called Visvin Reddy should leave us in no doubt that the violence in KZN in 2021 when Zuma was sentenced to an absurdly short prison term was simply a warm up routine.

A spate of violence incidentally for which nobody has been held responsible in almost three years despite the boast that the powers that be knew who was behind the ‘insurrection’ and they would be facing the full might of the law.___STEADY_PAYWALL___

Rather as nobody has been held responsible for the burning down of parliament two years ago apart from a homeless man who has been in and out of psychiatric evaluation for months. The full might of the law might be better described as the full mite of the law because, under the ANC, no bad deed goes punished.

Admittedly there is a lot of harrumphing, tutting, shaking of heads and the expression of ‘shock and surprise’ from Pres Frogboiler but nothing actually happens. So the clear message goes out that it’s perfectly OK to loot and riot or burn down the National Assembly if you feel in the mood for a bit of civil disobedience and this should either be regarded as your democratic right or viewed as a display of cultural tradition. Whatever else happens, there will be no consequences whatsoever.

Which is presumably why Mr Visvin Reddy feels emboldened to threaten to overthrow the state if his party’s demands are not met. He is not alone because another fellow called Bonginkosi Khanyile weighed in with this rather more specific threat:

“If the elections of 2024 do not give Umkhonto weSizwe a two-thirds majority and leave the ANC in power, we are going to close South Africa for good ... We reject the outcome of the IEC [Electoral Commission of SA] if it doesn’t give Umkhonto weSizwe [a two-thirds majority”.

Bonginkosi Khanyile styles himself as the head of the youth movement of a party which claims to represent a bunch of geriatric war veterans so clearly irony is lost on him. But his threat of anarchy should MK not receive a two thirds majority tends to suggest that a lot of money could be saved by not holding a general election on May 29th and simply announcing that MK is running the show and JZ is the new President.

In a thriving democracy such as Russia this sort of challenge to the sitting President would almost certainly have resulted in both Reddy and Khanyile dying of sudden death syndrome while going for a morning stroll in sub zero temperatures but South Africa is a forgiving place and, besides, we don’t have too many sub zero temperature prison camps to hand.

Even in some of those Western countries that we are supposed to revile here on the southern tip of Africa the words ‘treason’ or ‘traitor’ might be uttered when confronted with such threats against the body politic but, again, we take a fairly relaxed view when somebody whips up hatred and threatens the overthrow of the state.

Like so many other ANC creations the Independent Electoral Commission seems to be almost as much of a disaster as the National Procrastinating Authority. One would have hoped for a strong and swift reaction to both Reddy’s and Khanyile’s comments followed hopefully by an arrest and custody but, unless I have been following the wrong news sources, absolutely nothing has happened to protect the rights of the vast majority of law abiding South Africans from these very dangerous threats.

We probably shouldn’t be surprised that the IEC appears to be so toothless. It obviously can’t be much fun dealing with rampaging political hotheads who threaten to burn down your building in addition to making threats of personal violence. But the whole point of having the IEC is apparently to make sure we still have something resembling democracy.

Many would argue that a racist party openly calling for the murder of white people (but not just yet) as the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters so often does should have no place on the ballot. The IEC would presumably not allow a party calling for the slaughter of the unemployed because they are economically unviable and a drain on the welfare system and that a cull would be a great cost cutting measure. How then can it allow the registration of an openly violent party? Fear of reprisal perhaps? Then there is the matter of corruption and fraud within the top ranks of the EFF. How on earth is it possible to allow a party led by alleged bank robbers to contest a general election? The VBS money didn’t steal itself.

None of this makes me very optimistic for our future, either in the run up to the election or even after it. If the ANC do manage to limp home with their projected sub 50% of the vote they will need to form a coalition and the most logical partner will be the EFF (unless the IEC succumbs of course and cancels the election in favour of a manufactured two thirds majority to MK). Mind you, there is great synergy between the two parties. They both have a long history of dodgy financial dealings and they both enjoy flaunting their ill gotten bling on social media. So it’s quite possibly a political marriage made in heaven.

Whether the financial markets, the private sector or our major trading partners regard it as such remains to be seen but since the general attitude among our political elite is that none of those things matter very much then why should we care?

The obvious question is where does Pres Frogboiler fit into the plan? Widely regarded as having been by far the worst President this country has ever had post 1994, there are many who are hoping that he will quietly fade away after May 29th to enjoy his billions overlooking the Atlantic ocean in his mansion in DA run Fresnaye. But the Frogboiler can’t be written off that easily. He has been flexing his political muscles lately and his new macho buzz-phrase is ‘whether you like it or not’.