It’s quite cruel. The demographics and education systems of this nation are these days producing woefully underequipped politicians totally incapable of doing the maths required to understand the election calculus required when arranging political alliances. Recently we have been watching the creation of a number of single party winning outcomes. Like mayors and party leaders. It turns out these are very short-lived arrangements, allowing not even enough time for the current winner to get the Rolex around his wrist and the shisa nyama victory party supplies delivered. Mind you, the sticky-fingered Jocks from the Scottish National Party are having tabulation trials too.
It’s very expensive and a huge waste of time and effort that nations seem incapable of organising an election where the winner is unequivocally acceptable to an effective majority. And one man one vote isn’t what it seems.
By their very nature, political alliances are bad ideas but of course in SA these shaky edifices are normally constructed with blue prints drawn in languages unfamiliar to the designers and by people whose mutual trust is seasoned with ancient tribal divisions. The spineless current President Ramaphosa is an international type specimen for an indecisive and hopelessly compromised political leader. Even the saintly Nelson Mandela spent a lot of time tip toeing through the tulips trying not to crush the blooms.
Over the Easter weekend the last secret part of the 21st centuries great fraud was leaked and resulted in absolutely nothing happening. Those members of the Gupta family who had so obviously brazenly stolen public and private money here in South African over the past decades were granted amnesty and told by the UAE authorities that there were no charges against them. They now have passports issued by Vanuatu and can cease worrying about any legal proceedings originating in South Africa. “Have a nice day” What? We were told endlessly that arrest and justice for these sleaze balls was guaranteed and inevitable. It looks as if we are not even going to have the pleasure of watching the complicit locals who helped to weave the tissue of lies, fall on their swords and it seems that all we are going to get from our leaders who sold us the lies is an assurance that they did what they could. Lies. Utter lies.
I wonder what the reaction of our justice teams was when it dawned on them that they had met their match in duplicitous underhand negotiation and promise making and breaking ? My own puzzle is what benefit there was for the Arabs to side with the Indians. It can’t have been money. Dubai has all they need of that stuff and some of the Gupta loot might even still be in rands.
When the idea of BRICS was first flighted as an association of nations that had few things in common, most of us were deeply puzzled. Especially when it turned out that Jacob Zuma appeared to have invited himself aboard. All he seemed to be able to provide was a nice big solid capital letter S letter that sort of balanced the acronym. With the rand in poor shape even the fact that each of the member nations used its own currency, seemed a poor basis for forming this particular liaison. Remember this was a time when our leader was running up against accusations of using public money to carryout improvements on his palace in Zululand. This was a charge he tried to divert attention from by demonstrating that the swimming pool was a reservoir for the vital thatch fire-control systems.
More recently our current president has continued the tradition of entertaining his fellow Brickettes by demonstrating the use of US dollar notes to keep the upholstery plump. But now suddenly we have our own special secret club with a lapel badge and special handshake. There is no denying that the BRICS have suddenly become sexy. But as we mentioned at the start, beware countries that have plans that require putting your own young people in uniforms.
James Greener.
Friday 14th April 2023
