Still ‘cold’ outside the ANC?

In the small town of Umzumbe, down the KwaZulu-Natal coast, a half-a-dozen ANC councillors were so unhappy with their mayor that they abstained in a vote by the opposition to oust him. The ANC promptly suspended them. But the political times had changed - or the councillors thought they had — and it was no longer “cold outside the ANC”. So they resigned to join Ubaba kaDuduzane's MK Party.

With the MKP having won 45% of the votes in the province, most of them garnered from areas previously known as ANC strongholds, the six councillors appeared to be backing the right horse. They would return as councillors in no time. Or so they thought. But then by-election day came. The voters chose the IFP in three of the wards, the ANC in two and MKP in only one. Hopefully, the five now unemployed councillors have learnt a valuable lesson about  KZN politics: voters are not loyal to any flag.

Judge not that ye be not judged

What do you call a disgraced and impeached judge-president? Honourable Member. Well, that is what the MPs who impeached former Western Cape judge president John Hlophe just a few months ago will be forced to call him when he joins them in the National Assembly as leader of the MKP. With Hlophe as the official leader of the opposition, the house is headed for some interesting battles. Hogarth is most interested to know whether Hlophe will get one of the seats allocated to MPs on the Judicial Service Commission. Imagine him grilling some of his adversaries as they appear before the JSC seeking promotion.

Hlophe is grandpa's headache powder

Hogarth would have killed to be a fly on the wall in the meeting where the Nkandla Crooner asked Hlophe to lead his party in the National Assembly. Baba kaD must have told the former judge how surprised he was to see MKP doing so well at the polls and that his major headache now was that his candidates' list was dominated by political novices who would have the ANC, DA and other parties running rings around them if they were left unsupervised.

He would have probably confessed to the temptation of having favourite daughter Duduzile as the leader of the party in the house but that he was spooked from that idea when she singled out the repo rate as the fastest route towards achieving radical economic transformation."Mfanakithi,” he would have concluded, “sesithembele kuwe” — using the same words the former judge would have used while improperly trying to influence Constitutional Court judges to rule in favour of the Nkandla Crooner in one of his many legal cases in the past.

The Progressively Falling Apart Party 

Another day, another political party joining McBuffalo's government of national  unity. As the adage goes, a week is a long time in politics. Just last week, the Red Berets were leading a conglomerate of small parties calling themselves the progressive caucus and vowing to give the GNU a hard time in parliament. Among the parties that signed up to the caucus were the PAC, the UDM and the ATM.

But by Tuesday, the caucus was showing signs of implosion. The PAC was the first to announce that it was joining the GNU. Then the UDM followed suit. And now Rise Mzansi, which had remained impartial, is also throwing in its lot with the GNU. Are all these parties suffering from what the Cool Kids call fomo — fear of missing out? At the current rate, the National Assembly will end up with no opposition party to speak of. As somebody warned the other day, a GNU is a one-party state by another name.