The beauty of what’s coming out of Maputo is that it is young people who know their truth, tired of being played and insisting on their rights. Ditto Kenya’s youth a few months ago.
The elderly in charge of the moribund structure called Sadc are unsurprisingly flat-footed as our region is engulfed in flames of despair.
And the US had a choice between Kamala Harris, who spent years prosecuting criminals, and the felon that is Donald Trump — and still chose the criminal. It is democracy at work, is it not?
We, here in the south, should not be sanctimonious about their choices. We elected Jacob Zuma — twice — fully aware of the details of his corruption charges involving the arms deal. The charges he has spent more than 20 years trying to avoid. Thankfully, he is running out of options. If we corrupt the meaning of the phrase “every dog has its day” we know what eventually will happen. Disclaimer to those within the MK Party: I have not called Zuma a dog! Such, indeed, is a sign of the times.
But here is another sign that worries me: the excitement about people leaving the EFF and congregating around Zuma, as if solutions to the gargantuan challenges we face as a country are to emerge from him. It’s possible I may be missing something, but didn’t Zuma spend a whole nine years at the Union Buildings supposedly implementing solutions meant to deal with the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality? How is it that the guy who failed spectacularly — given that much of the country’s indebtedness relates to the heavy reliance on borrowing on his watch — could now be the lodestar?
Granted, some may be mesmerised by his singing ahead of elections, which helped him get some 3-million votes, but why is it that people who are supposed to be thought leaders, or intellectuals, are congregating around him? Perhaps I am exaggerating, let’s just call them prominent people. Surely, Busisiwe Mkhwebane, the disgraced former public protector, is well-known — but not for her lucid and esoteric offerings. She lost her job because she could not apply her mind appropriately and then relied on the so-called people’s advocate, Dali Mpofu, who was also rubbished by his colleagues for failing to apply himself appropriately as a legal representative.
Mpofu, in spite of the criticism and losing so many cases, is somewhat brainy, or brainier than the average Mkhwebanes of this world. Why then would Mpofu believe the best chance to dislodge the ANC from power is through Zuma, of all people. It doesn’t make sense to me. If the ANC has sold out, why would it be the view of Mpofu and other “thinkers” that Zuma is the right leader to help us out of this situation? Is it because the MK Party received some modicum of success in the last election? Zuma it is then, adv Mpofu?
Within the EFF, it is for Malema to look inward and ask himself honest questions about why the average Mkhwebanes and the not-so average minds like Mpofu and Shivambu are deserting him
This, of course, is if we believe EFF leader Julius Malema’s narrative that it was Mpofu who delivered a paper for the collapse of the EFF in favour of a new party led by Zuma. Zuma? How? Are we that out of options?
The EFF may be going through its darkest hour, with some asking whether this is the beginning of the end. Or why did Malema’s former deputy, Floyd Shivambu, who is not an average mind, leave the EFF and choose Zuma’s outfit as a vehicle to achieve the future he believes South Africans deserve?
There may well be pull and push factors. Within the EFF, it is for Malema to look inward and ask himself honest questions about why the average Mkhwebanes and the not-so average minds like Mpofu and Shivambu are deserting him. Is it his reported dictatorial tendencies? He may argue that those leaving the EFF, like Mpofu and Shivambu, had joined it from other parties that have not collapsed as a result of their departures — so why would the EFF collapse?
Yet it is important for Malema to be honest with himself because avoiding the difficult questions now will lead to a bloodbath in the 2026 local government elections.
But it is the pull factors around Zuma that remain mysterious to me. During his nine wasted years he did nothing about mineral beneficiation, he did nothing about expropriation of land and he did almost zilch about the poverty, unemployment and inequality that was entrenched long before he became president. Is he also not the same leader who failed to provide free tertiary education and, in his last days, proclaimed this — intending it to be a poisoned chalice for incoming-president Cyril Ramaphosa?
That those joining him are educated shows the limitation of education itself — or their failure to communicate their reasons, if such exist.
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