Gerald Potash
Hello again,
Here there is always plenty of political news and with the municipal elections just four days away the heat has been truly turned up. Then, as you would expect at this time, there is lots of analysis as to the state of the parties and one of the most interesting articles this week is from Adriaan Basson editor of News24.
He points out that there is no question that the DA govern best in the municipalities that they control but that they are seen as a “white” party where more than 67% of black voters polled viewed the DA negatively. According to the research the DA will score between 19-23% of the vote. What makes the research even worse for the DA is that only about 5% of black voters view their party leader, John Steenhuisen favourably. The posters in Phoenix that caused such a bumble recently Basson considers an own goal scored by Steenhuisen against his party.
Daniel Silke, the political analyst points out that that losing Musi Miamane, Herman Mashaba (both now heading-up their own parties) Lindiwe Masibuko and other black leaders has hurt the DA immensely and I agree. The DA needs to show more diverse leadership if they really want to start becoming a meaningful opposition to the ANC in this country where blacks count more than 80% of the population and let’s not even mention coloureds and Asians.
The other side of the coin is just so typical. More than 60% of black voters canvassed consider the ANC as “corrupt” but say that they will still vote for it.
Julius Malema is not subtle. He wants the Xhosa vote and he went on Sunday to the palace of the AbaThembu in the Eastern Cape where he promised their King, Dalindyebu a Mercedes ML 4×4. The king is so excited about his new SUV that he hasn’t stopped talking about it. Let me tell you lots of people would vote EFF if Julius gave them an ordinary little car, never mind a fancy Merc. The only problem that I see is that it is bribing.
Julius didn’t stop there though. He reiterated that everyone who can must go to university and it must be free. That’s not bribing, that’s just not possible.
And while campaigning in the Eastern Cape Malema had a solid “go” at Cyril and his pal, the Premier of that Province, Oscar Mabuyane, he who is accused of using money from the Winnie Mandela funeral to jazz-up his house. Why hasn’t he stepped aside asked Malema. Isn’t that what Ramaphosa told cadres who are fingered to do?
Oh, Oscar is still Premier of the Province because he is a Ramaphosa buddy, according to Malema.
Malema was in Stellenbosch last week, actually in the Township of Kaya Mandi and told the crowds that the whites started taking land here without paying for it. He said that the EFF will take land and redistribute it free to the people of the area who own no land and it will cost them nothing. That’s Expropriation without compensation, said Malema.
No, actually that’s stealing.
The ANC hasn’t had an easy time on the campaign trail. Cyril has been getting it in the neck and is tired of the rude questions he has to answer…… Tough! Then there have also been plenty of placards “ No electricity, no ANC vote” to greet him. Cyril has even been booed on his campaign trail.
Well, typically, this week he has been campaigning in Tswane with a rent-a-crowd of supporters. They’re so much easier to control.
The policies of the ANC are criminal. The worst is their BEE—Black Economic Empowerment —policy, which merely boosts those top shots in the ANC by making them richer. It certainly didn’t help the poor in any way.
This matter has been very clearly explained by Paul Hoffman, SC who has written a wonderful exposé of the ANC that appeared earlier in the week in Politicsweb. It’s long but it’s an excellent piece that you really should read.
Just click on the link to access the article:
This is Rico’s take on the ANC canvassing that I enjoyed in Business Maverick earlier this week:
Yet another prospective councillor was gunned down this week and his car with bullet holes was then set alight. That’s when the police found the body. This candidate was from the NFP, National Freedom Party and it happened in his ward in KZ-N.
One of the most interesting stories of early in the week is that Carl Niehaus has filed papers for the ANC to be liquidated. He claims that they are in contempt of their duty and are illegally withholding payments to their members’ medical-aid and pension funds and have not paid salaries and wages for months. They have also illegally not paid over to SARS the deductions from their staff salaries. Niehaus wants the party to comply fully with the law or be wound-up and liquidated.
The ANC was given 10 days to comply and clock is running.
Watch this space.
You really wouldn’t expect Jacob Zuma to make the news so low down on the agenda, particularly since for him it is not good news at all, but in these days before an election everything
else takes a back seat. On Tuesday Accused No 1 was in court to hear that he had been rebuffed in his action to have Billy Downer, the State’s chief Prosecutor in his corruption, money-laundering and fraud case, with reference to the Arms Deal in 1999, removed from the case. The judge made short shrift of it in a lengthy judgement and told JZ to be in court on April, 11 2022, to have the trial begin. He actually told Zuma that it is high time the trial commenced.
He also told Zuma that if his health becomes an issue he would have to submit himself to extensive examination by the State’s medical team.
Is there any other delaying tactic that JZ or his lawyers can pull out of the hat to delay this matter? Definitely; they have already indicated that they will appeal this judgement. But this in fact is clutching at straws and the appeal can only be heard after the trial. So it is a hopeless case and he will be rebuffed with costs again, but that hasn’t stopped Accused No 1 before.
Oh incidentally, the 12th April is Zuma’s birthday. But I’m sure the judge did not know that!?
An interesting article that caught my eye this week has been the interview with the Chairman of the North West Chamber of Commerce (Andre Coertzen) and the Economics Prof (Ronnie Lotriet) discussing the recent riots in KZ-N and Gauteng and the affect thereof on SA.
What is absolutely astounding, and something I should have realised, is that the Township economies are run by the “Chinese Mafia” and that our locals in no way benefit from it. The explanation is that foreigners come into the country (mostly illegally) and then work in the townships in Spaza shops. They are employed by Bangladeshis or Philippinos or Chinese and the locals are in no way involved in this economy where the goods are already produced and ready for sale and so there is no benefit to the locals from this economy.
Extremely worrying is that the SA Government has no idea how many “foreigners” are here illegally. Some come on holiday (where do they get the R10,000-00 for a plane ticket?) and simply stay. Others get “smuggled” in over the borders. In Johannesburg you can easily (illegally) buy a driving licence, a passport, or any official document you need for whatever reason. In Namibia a lady was recently arrested for producing hundreds of false entry documents for entry into SA.
It’s hard to tell you week after week how poorly SA is being run. A striking example is that almost 100,000 Schedule 8 offenders have been released from jail because there is no DNA sampling. Schedule 8 suspects are murderers, rapists, child-traffickers and the like.
Whose fault is it? Why the Minister of Police who is more worried about which hat to wear to his next press briefing than bring the necessary Schedule 8 bill to parliament. This is not a new thing, it is years old and nothing is being done, despite the Minister being put to time.
But so what? He is a loyal ANC cadre and he is in Cyril’s camp notwithstanding his Zulu background. Most Zulus seem to belong to the Zuma faction.
Mandla Madela is a grandson of the great man, he is a MP and he is virulently anti-Israel and pro-Palestine. He is married to a Moslem lady. On Sunday, with a celebrated Palestinian activist, here to drum up support, he was in St George’s Cathedral and begged the crowd to oppose Miss SA taking part in the Miss Universe pageant later this year scheduled to take place in Israel.
It’s hardly news anymore but we have had intermittent load shedding again. At this time it is particularly noticeable because of all the canvassing and the complaints that comes with it but Eskom warned that unless they went into load-shedding immediately there could be a total collapse of the grid. These outages are apparently likely to recur right until 2026. Oh dear.
The electricity situation is serious and yesterday Eskom moved us to stage 4. This is Brandan’s take on the misery that Eskom has become from Business Day on Tuesday
Sporting wise this was a tough weekend. The Proteas, in an exciting match, went down to the Ozzies in their opening game of the World T20 competition in Abu Dhabi. But then made up on Tuesday by beating the current champions the West Indies quite easily.
Unfortunately the victory was completely overshadowed by our star batsman/ wicket-keeper refusing to “take the knee” before the game and so being left out of the 11.
There is talk that Quinton de Kock will be banned.
I hope not, taking the knee should be a personal choice and if it’s forced on players it really doesn’t mean much, does it?
Then Spurs lost 0-1 in a London derby to West Ham. To make matters even worse the Man of the Match was their back called Zuma (actually Zouma, but pronounced the same)
We then watched Man U vs Liverpool……enough said.
The coach was on the couch watching with me and you know It’s hard being a Spurs fan.
Late last night Spurs booked a place in the quarter finals of the
Carabao Cup but it was an uninspiring performance and the pressure remains on Nuno to do much better with his squad.
On Saturday evening we will have Richard from Sydney to join us on the couch to watch Spurs play Man United . It’s not often our son is able to come back to visit and it’s just such a pleasure having him back at home.
As always,
Gerald
| Email: gpotash1@gmail.com Phone: +27 82 557 5775 |
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Another great article Gerald. Keep them coming in. Tug