The Week That Was

Gerald Potash,

Hello again,

The whole country waited with baited breath on Thursday morning to hear what the sentence that was to be meted out to Julius Malema by the magistrate, would be. She was precise and detailed in her summation of the facts and when all the parts of her judgement are strung together, Malema has received a 5-year jail sentence for unlawful possession of a firearm with a further R60,000-00 fines.  Julius has now learnt that we are all equal before the law.

The guilty sentence is unappealable whereas the rest of the sentence can be appealed. No surprise, Malema is appealing and will, no doubt continue to appeal, at great legal costs, just like Jacob Zuma has ‘stalingraded’ his time to stay out of jail. 

As expected, 100’s of EFF supporters were outside the court chanting & singing after the sentence was passed. Julius came out to address them and they all sang “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer” together. Malema repeatedly told his supporters and anyone who would listen that the magistrate is a racist (she is white), that she is incompetent, that he will report her to the Magistrates Commission and here he has again overstepped the mark and can expect repercussions. 

Paul Hoffman of Accountability Now, makes the point in his letter to the editor of Business Day published today, that the rantings of Malema could very well count against him in his appeals. As an MP Malema has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and now his ranting is making nonsense of his oath of office.

Some political analysts don’t believe the sentence will make much difference to the EFF support. It will, however, it will make a tremendous difference to Julius. The very real prospect of being locked up in one of our jails is not funny and he knows that his impunity is over.

Julius’s legal troubles grew on Monday when a lawyer, Hilmer Krugrer charged him with countering the Constitution when Malema verbally attacked the magistrate and the charges include intimidation and hate speech. 

Not all of our political commentators are unanimous in their views of the sentence. Prof Sipho Seepe writing in the Argus (naturally) feels the sentence is political persecution. Then, Kananelo Sexswale, in the Sunday Times points out that the the firearm was handed to Malema by his white bodyguard but he was acquitted despite the licensing requirements. The large majority of commentators believe the sentence to be fair and correct in the circumstances. 

We have a brand new (Afrikaans) weekly newspaper, Die Papier–(The Paper). Their cartoonist Mynderd Vosloo had this cartoon this week:

Julius on the phone to Zuma “ JZ tell me again how you managed just an hour behind bars”. And Zuma just laughs and laughs.

The ANC has forced members with dual loyalties to it and the SA Communist Party (SACP) to choose. There is currently a selection process for mayorships and the SACP has declared that it will no longer be seen as a part of the ANC. It intends to contest the upcoming municipal elections as an independent party. This leaves people like Gwede Mantashe, long-time Minining Minister in a tight spot. He is proudly a communist and a long-time cabinet minister.

The Madlanga Commission is hearing evidence about corruption and misconduct in State institutions. Almost all of the hearings can be followed on TV. It is deeply aggravating to hear how crooked some of our state employees and especially the police are. This weekend Julius Mkhwanazi, Deputy Chief of Ekurhuleni (Boksberg, Benoni, Brakpan, Springs & Germiston) Metro Police was arrested at his home and now faces various charges after having been found lying in his evidence to the Commission. The search of his home uncovered unlicensed firearms, state handgranades as well as boxes of bullets. Together in jail with Mkhanazi is the Ekhuruleni City Manager charged with the same fraud & dishonesty. Hopefully, they will rot there.  This cartoon comes from Siwela in the Citizen on Tuesday:

If you think that is bad; the SIU (Special Investigating Unit) early this week obtained a freezing order on a 44 year old’s 7 luxury cars (5 Porsches and 2 Lamborgoni’s) and 17 of his multimillion Rand homes. How did he get so rich? The freezing order is for R76.5 million. He sold basic switches to Eskom for R50,000-00 each. The market price at a hardware store is between R200.00 and R450.00 each. He must have sold a ton of them as you can deduce and obviously there is staff at Eskom who must also be investigated.

Add to the above the fact that our National police commissioner, appointed by Cyril to this top-job is currently standing in the dock being charged for failing to prevent irregular expenditure and losses resulting from criminal conduct in a R360 million tender. (Business Day today).

All this after Cyril’s carefully chosen Minister of Police remains suspended.

Jonny Steinbeck writing in News24 makes the point that the DA are not likely to broaden their base much because of our political system. Steinbeck points out that here the small parties not only eat away at the larger parties support, they also get grand reward by way of cabinet positions. He quotes the PA Party of Gayton Mckenzie who have less than 10 parliamentary seats but have a loud-mouthed cabinet minister as a reward.

Roelf Meyer, our new ambassador to the United States is 78 years old. His age has attracted some criticism; also that he was a top (white) Nationalist MP at the time of Apartheid.    Peter Bruce writes in this week’s Sunday Times that ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba says Meyer is still the same old Afrikaner Nat he always was

Last week 50 people were murdered in the Cape Flats townships. Where are the police? And where is the army who are supposed to be helping the police keep order in the townships?

‘Time Out’ has again rated the top cities in the world to visit. Cape Town has dropped from 1st last year to 6th. The top five cities on their list are

Melbourne 1, Shanghai 2, Edinburgh 3, London 4, & New York 5.

A noteworthy coffee catch-up this week was with Johan, my old erstwhile Stellenbosch pal. We had excellent coffee at the Russian lady’s new venue where her ‘1865’ coffee shop has now moved into where Chatters used to be. The coffee at the new venue is as good as it always was.

After many years of trying the Blitzboks, our 7s rugby team won their first Hong Kong Sevens tournament this weekend.

Saturday afternoon was long. First the coach and I watched Connaught come to Cape Town to beat the Stormers in a helluva tight match. We are ranked higher than them and they played really well to win a tense battle 33-24 away from home. Then still on the couch we both watched Spurs play Brighton. Tottenham were unlucky not to win this important, for their future in the Premiership, game when almost at the end the visitors equalised. It’s been a long, tough season for us Spurs fans.

As always,

Gerald