HOGARTH | Ready, steady ... go home

They dressed up and flew in from all corners of South Africa, with high hopes for imminent great good fortune. Who could blame them? All of them had gone through gruelling interviews, answering tough questions from a panel of ministers and ANC veterans.

So when they were invited to Johannesburg for the announcement of who had made it, their hearts were in the mouths.

But McBuffalo had developed cold feet and resorted to his tried and tested strategy of kicking the can down the road. Instead of announcing who had been annointed as the ANC’s candidates for mayor in metros, cities and towns across the country, as scheduled, President Cyril Ramaphosa turned the occasion into one of those gatherings where everyone gets a consolation prize but no-one is actually declared a winner.

Perhaps the title for this year’s ANC election manifesto should be: “Not Quite Ready to Govern”.

Mayoral chain reaction

Among those paraded on the stage as potential ANC mayoral candidates in Ekurhuleni were the incumbent, Doctor Xhakaza, and finance MMC Jongizizwe Dlabathi, who was recently nearly fired by Xhakaza over the nomination process. As they shared the stage together, along with two other candidates, party secretary-general Fikile Mbalula was moved to observe that they looked angry.

Mbalula would know; after all, the infighting in that metro is partly because of his interventions.

Zille as ANC peacemaker

Less angry were the candidates for Johannesburg, Loyiso Masuku, Dada Morero and the Rev Frank Chikane. The great cleric made a show of them all shaking hands as they walked onto the stage — showing no mutual animosity, even though Hogarth has cause to believe Masuku and Morero are barely on speaking terms.

Hogarth wonders, however, whether that apparent harmony derives from their resignation to the likelihood that, in Johannesburg, the next mayor will be either Helen Zille or Herman Mashaba.

Castle made of sand

This newspaper’s sister publication, Business Day, did a wonderful job on a story about a court battle between the South African Reserve Bank and Kastelo, a fintech company partly owned by the DA’s finance boss Mark Burke. The story, which is reported in detail in Business Times today, caused a political storm for the Blue Party — whose leaders are still recovering from John Steenhuisen’s claim that another former leader, Tony Leon, used his proximity to the party to promote the interests of his PR clients.

The political Right is up in arms. Suddenly, Hogarth’s colleagues at the somewhat conservative Business Day are being described as “pro-regime journalists” by Politicsweb.

Expert opinion

The Nkandla Crooner was in Mthatha, Eastern Cape, last weekend hoping to extend his MK Party power base beyond KwaZulu-Natal and parts of Gauteng. Addressing a small gathering, the Umshini wami hit singer complained that under McBuffalo, South Africa has gone to the dogs: “We have a crook running the country, I forget his name.”

A case of the kettle calling the pot black?

The X factor in xenophobia

The MK Party has an MP called Andile Mngxitama. If his name rings a bell, it is because he is a party hopper of note. Back in the day as a student at Wits University, he marketed himself as an adherent of Black Consciousness. So much so that he gained the nickname “deputy [Steve] Biko”. Then when the Red Berets became the rage, he began cheering for the CIC in red overalls.

But he quickly tired of praise-singing and decided to start his own outfit, Black First Land First, which was famous only for intimidating a newspaper columnists who offended the Guptas. The Gupta link inevitably led him into his current political home.

With the MK Party working hard to recruit anti-migrant group March & March to its cause, Mngxitama has made it his business to defend the group at every turn — even when it behaves in decidedly non-Bikoesque ways. So when March & March met with AfriForum, Hogarth hears that Mngxitama took to social media to write: “In 1961 January, Malcom (sic) X met the Klux Klan klan (sic). Do whatever you wish with that information.”