At the close of the ANC’s national executive committee lekgotla this week, President Cyril Ramaphosa made an impassioned plea to party leaders to cease their conspicuous consumption which, he argued, partly caused the ANC’s alienation from the electorate, resulting in the party’s worst performance at the polls. One of Hogarth’s informants at the meeting tells him that, as McBuffalo spoke, he could see some comrades pushing their feet and arms under the table to hide their stylish Louis Vuitton loafers and Breitling watches. Hogarth hopes the comrades are embarrassed enough to start buying local.
DA leaky MbaZille
The self-proclaimed Fear Fokol of the Blue Party seems to have developed a distaste for the media, even though she started her working life as a reporter. On reading a story about the ANC and the Freedom Front Plus engaging in talks to oust the DA in some local councils in the Western Cape, she wrote on X: “Even if you can’t believe everything you read in the media, you can believe this. It has come to me from several sources.” Seeing that Sweet Helen recently outed herself as the unnamed source of several articles about coalition talks between the ANC and the DA, Hogarth will take her word on this one.
Neoliberal beetroot
Judging by what happened in Oudtshoorn recently, where the FF+ formed a government of local unity with the ANC and others, Hogarth believes GodZille’s fears aren’t too far-fetched. Has anyone checked on SACP boss Solly Mapaila’s response to the news that the ANC is not only working with “the neoliberals” in the DA but that, in the Western Cape, the party is now scheming with the “ultra-right” to oust those very neoliberals? The comrade is — ehm — going red.
Cultural purges in the age of Zuma
Speaking of communists, their erstwhile fellow traveller on the outskirts of iNkandla Forest is busy with Chairman Mao-style purges. The Nkandla Crooner is enacting his own version of the Cultural Revolution in his political outfit, the MK party. Hogarth has lost count of the number of party “leaders” who have been axed, without a hint of public explanation.
This week it was the turn of about 18 MPs, all of whom were apparently surprised to learn they were no longer “honourable members” after they had been expelled. Attempting to explain why so many MPs were recalled barely two months after they became parliamentarians, MKP spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela blamed it all on “saboteurs” who had populated the party list with bogus candidates. “It’s also important to note that, leading up to the elections, the (MK) party’s IEC list was comprised by saboteurs who went on to populate the IEC system with their friends, family members and neighbours,” he said.
Talking about friends and family who made it to parliament, isn’t Ndhlela only there because his uncle, Tom Moyane, is an MKP leader and the Nkandla Crooner’s best buddy?
Long walk to a far kingdom
Meanwhile, back at the Nkandla Ranch, uBaba continues to receive colourful visitors. This time it was the turn of one Malesela “King Sebetha” Mokonyama, who claims to have walked for 20-plus days from his home in Polokwane to Nkandla, apparently in protest against the May 29 elections which, he says, were rigged.
No-one seems to have given Mokonyama the memo saying the MKP long abandoned its unsubstantiated claim that the elections were rigged. Perhaps feeling a bit sorry for a peripatetic old man taken in by his party’s propaganda, the modest Nkandla Crooner presented the humble Mokonyama with a portrait of himself to show appreciation for the alleged long walk. “I would like to thank you all very much. I thank the people who came all the way from Limpopo, and most importantly I thank King [Sebetha]. You are a king because you did something only kings do. You showed great leadership by walking from Limpopo to Nkandla, fighting against black people’s oppression. If we can’t follow your steps as black people and do what you have done, it would mean we no longer have real men,” said Zuma.
It’s Sir Kieth to you
In a statement released on Thursday, cabinet congratulated Prime Minister Sir Keith Sthrmer (sic) of the UK and the Labour Party for their victory in the recent general elections. “South Africa stands ready to work with the government of the UK to increase trade and partnership,” the statement noted. Nice gesture, except his name is Keir Starmer.
What a way to kick-start relations with the leader of one of your most important trading partners.
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