And so, this week, we come to the end of the most unimaginative, unoriginal, unedifying and tired election campaign since 1994. Politicians are notorious for taking voters for fools and promising heaven and earth in the run-up to elections.
This, however, was a campaign which distinguished itself by the cynical manner in which some of our so-called leaders scraped the bottom of the barrel and delivered stale, simplistic, divisive and moronic answers to the cries of our people.
National leaders from Jacob Zuma and Mmusi Maimane to Julius Malema raised false alarms and focused on issues that had nothing to do with the collapse of local government in many parts of the country. They fought over Nelson Mandela’s legacy instead of what they were actually doing to turn around the appalling state of municipal finances.
Did you know that, according to the auditor-general this year, municipal irregular expenditure has more than doubled to almost R15-billion since 2010-11? That unauthorised expenditure has increased threefold to more than R15-billion and fruitless and wasteful expenditure has increased by more than R1-billion to R1.34-billion in the same time?
Why wasn’t it an issue in Nelson Mandela Bay Metro, which – together with Matjhabeng Municipality in the Free State – are responsible for more than R570-million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure in just the past financial year?
We have been a democracy since 1994, but if this election campaign is any indication, we are abandoning scientific thinking and logical political argumentation and falling back into the ways of scare-mongering, sorcery and finger-pointing. Worse, ANC president Jacob Zuma turned to “the ancestors” to scare ordinary folk into voting for his party.
“The ancestors are turning their backs against you if you leave the ANC and you will have bad luck,” he said at an election rally in Letlhabile near Brits on Thursday.
On Friday, he was back at it again, telling audiences in Soweto that they must vote for the ANC or else the “ancestors will punish you; you’ll have bad luck for ever”.
If the ancestors is all that the leader of the ANC – the party of Pixley Seme and Albert Luthuli – can conjure up to get votes then we know we are in deep trouble. It shows a political bankruptcy that has not been seen in the ANC since January 8 1912. The ANC branch that Nelson Mandela famously said he would join in heaven must be reeling as it listens to the utterances of Jacob Zuma.
Then there is the Democratic Alliance. What is this obsession with being a mini-ANC or the Congress of the People?
Why not put out your stall and tell people about your success in the Western Cape and how you will grow? Instead, the party is obsessed with portraying itself as the real ANC.
It tried this in 2013 with those pamphlets of Mandela and Helen Suzman hugging. It went on to do it again in 2014 with the “ANC Ayisafani” (ANC is no longer the same) campaign.
Two years later the same idea is brought out for an advert in which the DA tries and fails to make itself out to be the real ANC. Really? No imagination. No new ideas.
What about the EFF? It should be called PopulismCentral, really. Its leader, Julius Malema, was on-song last week talking up his Mugabenomics.
He told people in Hammanskraal that social grants for the elderly must be increased to R3000 per month from the current R1500 per month. He called for an increase in child grants as well. When the economy is growing at a projected 0%, where exactly is the money going to come from?
In February, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan announced that social grant allocations would increase from R129-billion to R165-billion. Malema essentially wants to double that number. Will he just print the money, as his hero Robert Mugabe did in Zimbabwe and collapsed the economy?
Oh, I get it. He was just talking. It’s just an election campaign after all, when politicians say things that they will not implement come August 4.
This election campaign has been an unedifying, uninspiring, unimaginative and sad spectacle.
The parties have all jumped onto the racism bandwagon, taking their campaigns rushing straight down to the gutter. Many of their local candidates have been so compromised (remember the murder accused fielded by the ANC in Alexandra township, or the EFF councillor calling for whites to be hacked and killed) that the real question is why the parties don’t revoke their memberships.
While leaders like Zuma have banged on about the ancestors, they have said nothing about the widespread murders of local candidates in KwaZulu Natal and elsewhere. It doesn’t seem to matter at all. Neither do the real issues of service delivery.
Well, thankfully we have you, dear voter. You can send a message to your political leaders on August 3. Show them that despite their best efforts you are not demoralised. Every single vote counts in this election and this is your most powerful moment. Don’t waste it.
Gutter electioneering a sure sign SA’s in trouble
This, however, was a campaign which distinguished itself by the cynical manner in which some of our so-called leaders scraped the bottom of the barrel and delivered stale, simplistic, divisive and moronic answers to the cries of our people.
National leaders from Jacob Zuma and Mmusi Maimane to Julius Malema raised false alarms and focused on issues that had nothing to do with the collapse of local government in many parts of the country. They fought over Nelson Mandela’s legacy instead of what they were actually doing to turn around the appalling state of municipal finances.
Did you know that, according to the auditor-general this year, municipal irregular expenditure has more than doubled to almost R15-billion since 2010-11? That unauthorised expenditure has increased threefold to more than R15-billion and fruitless and wasteful expenditure has increased by more than R1-billion to R1.34-billion in the same time?
Why wasn’t it an issue in Nelson Mandela Bay Metro, which – together with Matjhabeng Municipality in the Free State – are responsible for more than R570-million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure in just the past financial year?
We have been a democracy since 1994, but if this election campaign is any indication, we are abandoning scientific thinking and logical political argumentation and falling back into the ways of scare-mongering, sorcery and finger-pointing. Worse, ANC president Jacob Zuma turned to “the ancestors” to scare ordinary folk into voting for his party.
“The ancestors are turning their backs against you if you leave the ANC and you will have bad luck,” he said at an election rally in Letlhabile near Brits on Thursday.
On Friday, he was back at it again, telling audiences in Soweto that they must vote for the ANC or else the “ancestors will punish you; you’ll have bad luck for ever”.
If the ancestors is all that the leader of the ANC – the party of Pixley Seme and Albert Luthuli – can conjure up to get votes then we know we are in deep trouble. It shows a political bankruptcy that has not been seen in the ANC since January 8 1912. The ANC branch that Nelson Mandela famously said he would join in heaven must be reeling as it listens to the utterances of Jacob Zuma.
Then there is the Democratic Alliance. What is this obsession with being a mini-ANC or the Congress of the People?
Why not put out your stall and tell people about your success in the Western Cape and how you will grow? Instead, the party is obsessed with portraying itself as the real ANC.
It tried this in 2013 with those pamphlets of Mandela and Helen Suzman hugging. It went on to do it again in 2014 with the “ANC Ayisafani” (ANC is no longer the same) campaign.
Two years later the same idea is brought out for an advert in which the DA tries and fails to make itself out to be the real ANC. Really? No imagination. No new ideas.
What about the EFF? It should be called PopulismCentral, really. Its leader, Julius Malema, was on-song last week talking up his Mugabenomics.
He told people in Hammanskraal that social grants for the elderly must be increased to R3000 per month from the current R1500 per month. He called for an increase in child grants as well. When the economy is growing at a projected 0%, where exactly is the money going to come from?
In February, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan announced that social grant allocations would increase from R129-billion to R165-billion. Malema essentially wants to double that number. Will he just print the money, as his hero Robert Mugabe did in Zimbabwe and collapsed the economy?
Oh, I get it. He was just talking. It’s just an election campaign after all, when politicians say things that they will not implement come August 4.
This election campaign has been an unedifying, uninspiring, unimaginative and sad spectacle.
The parties have all jumped onto the racism bandwagon, taking their campaigns rushing straight down to the gutter. Many of their local candidates have been so compromised (remember the murder accused fielded by the ANC in Alexandra township, or the EFF councillor calling for whites to be hacked and killed) that the real question is why the parties don’t revoke their memberships.
While leaders like Zuma have banged on about the ancestors, they have said nothing about the widespread murders of local candidates in KwaZulu Natal and elsewhere. It doesn’t seem to matter at all. Neither do the real issues of service delivery.
Well, thankfully we have you, dear voter. You can send a message to your political leaders on August 3. Show them that despite their best efforts you are not demoralised. Every single vote counts in this election and this is your most powerful moment. Don’t waste it.
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