You’ve heard of Mantashing, the act of firmly declaring something as fact and then abruptly changing your mind, declaring the opposite and then denying there is conflict between what you say now and what you said then. That’s right, it's named after Gwede Mantashe, the ANC national chair and apparently one of those harbouring the ambition of being the country’s next leader.
He was the keynote speaker at a Freedom Day rally when other top leaders were unavailable. One gem of a quote from him that day was: “People forget that we were, actually, colonised for 342 days ... Of that 342 days, 46 years were years of apartheid government, when the Nationalist Party misgoverned this country.”
Despite his current proximity to the office, a Mantashe presidency would really be a long shot. More likely is the emergence of something called Mantashematics — being challenged by numbers.
It just doesn't add up
But Mantashe is not the only politician who has difficulties with counting. Up there in the land of the free, US attorney-general Pam Bondi declared that the Orange One’s administration had saved 258-million American lives by seizing fentanyl pills at the country’s borders. In other words, were it not for Trump’s election, 75% of that country’s population would be dead today! The drug problem there is worse than we realised.
Yo-yo mindfulness
Still on matters American, US president Donald Trump tries to live up to his reputation of capriciousness. This week, having initially described his national security adviser Mike Waltz as a “good man”, he shuffled him to the role of US envoy to the UN. It was Waltz, of course, who included a journalist in a top secret Signal security discussion. When the story first broke, Potus defended Waltz and launched an attack against the Atlantic, the news magazine that broke the story. But Potus has had second thoughts.
This on top of his yo-yo tariffs policy which has traumatised the entire world. There’s a saying: 'What’s the point of having a mind, if you can’t change it.'
Nasty? You're joking!
Even with a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire seemingly imminent, Trump hasn’t ceased reminding his followers that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky rose to power on the back of being a “modestly successful comedian”. When Hogarth heard that Godzille was recording a show with Showmax where she gets to be “roasted” by famous comedians, celebrities and some politicians, he realised she was taking a leaf from Zelensky’s book and may be aiming for the Union Buildings.
She has started telling funny jokes too, like when a reporter asked her what she hoped to achieve with the show, the feisty one said: “I’m always so sweet to everyone, no-one knows I can be nasty.”
It's getting cold out there
Meanwhile, at a little-known ward in Mandeni, KwaZulu-Natal, comedy of a different kind took place this past week. The three big parties in the region — the IFP, the ANC and the MK Party — went out to attract votes in the ward 18 by-election. While the MKP slaughtered a beast for the locals, the IFP opted to distribute blankets just hours before voting started. The provincial IFP leader and premier Thamsanqa Ntuli could be seen counting those who had received blankets — believing that these would translate to the number of votes.
Come election results day, it turned out that the elders had enthusiastically accepted the IFP blankets but voted for the MKP.
And even colder for the EFF
But spare a thought for the red self-proclaimed government in waiting. While the MKP won the ward with 813 votes against the IFP’s 575 and the ANC’s 533, the EFF — the party that keeps telling all and sundry that it is the next government — only got 20 votes. Seems like it’s going to be a long, long wait here.
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