The New Truman Prince
Still the fighter; still the challenger; most certainly no longer a punching bag
26 April 2016
For reasons as varied as they may be strange and perhaps subversive, or even underhanded, the media continues to clothe the name, the brand Truman Prince, in impropriety.
I call your attention to the words of the great Malcolm X: “The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power.”
It does not surprise me that I draw attention. Wherever I am, things happen. That my political opponents who regularly receive whallopings at the poll, and at public meetings, and in council sessions would do most everything and anything to get at me and to constrict my effectiveness and efficiency, similarly does not surprise me.
I push the envelope. I get things done because I am audacious. I have pluck. I apply my mind. I make deliberated decisions. I execute with precision. I take considered chances. All for the benefit of the people I serve with commitment and conviction.
I am most certainly not your vanilla, garden variety politician. I am not the kind of politician who shrinks at duty for fear of negative publicity. Take me on for my enthusiasm and temerity; I’ll meet you head-on and with a smile.
I offer no excuse for being a public figure and for living a large life. My people must always know that their lives are as important and as special as mine; my people must never doubt that they can be all they dream to be. My life bears witness to this state of mind; to this attitude.
I am zealous about my people. I take politics seriously. I take my career seriously. I have a duty to promote my image, my career, my brand, in order to achieve even more for the people I serve.
Therefore I give notice that any and all unsubstantiated reports about me, spread knowingly, purposely, or designedly, in the legacy media, or on social media, or by public utterance, will be professionally traced to source and the culprits held to strict account to the full extent of the law.
Take, for instance, the recent media on women at the receiving end of my ire and roughness: Unadulterated nonsense! My build and bodily strength guarantees injury from attack. I get rid of frustration and excess energy and fervency in the gym, not in the street.
Yet the specious product of a one-sided media continues to feed the prejudice of readers keen to believe soapy plots and readers uninformed of the facts by the very angle of the reporting: first a traffic official, then a councillor – both women allegedly suffering by my roughness.
And even with such stories foundering, they rise again in subsequent reports and so the story gains meretricious purchase as the lie is repeated so regularly that it assumes a semblance of truth. Only the sensationalist media gains. But at the dear price of credibility. My credibility is attacked, but the credibility of the attacker is destroyed.
The dossier of the complaint filed by the Leeu Gamka traffic official some eight days after the alleged injury, is still retained by the local prosecutor. The tarradiddles of the DA councillor are rubbished by eye-witness sworn statements. Period.
No further speculation can possibly bear consideration. The facts are clear. The lies, too, are clear.
I will continue to push the envelope. I will continue to reset boundaries. The extraordinary problems facing my people by the double bane of apartheid and slow reform, demand extraordinary solutions.
To those so keen of accusing me of violence: I am no ruffian.
But I am a fighter. I am a champion of the people of Beaufort West and the Central Karoo.
Take me on at the polls on August 3. But be advised that should you harm my brand, you’ll get it. As of right now.
I am Truman Prince. Truman Prince is in the building.
Statement issued by the Beaufort West Mayor, Truman Prince, 26 April 2016
