Politics.za

This week’s Sunday Times is a veritable smorgasbord of ANC bickering and infighting.

Firstly is the front page story that ANC Secretaty-General Kgalema Mothlante is being investigated as the source of the fake emails that laid out a conspiratorial plot between Deputy President Mlambo-Ngucka nad businessman Saki Macozoma to get rid of Jacob Zuma. This is another blow to the far left of the ANC/SACP/COSATU alliance who, while now trying to distance themselves from Zuma, had highlighted Mothlante as a possible replacement as “champion of the left”. Looks like they might have to get keep on looking. Perhaps they should try an Idols-type reality show (titled “Comrade Champion” naturally) where public entrants will be critiqued by a panel of judges (my picks: Jeremy Cronin, Blade Nzimande and international celebrity judge Hugo Chavez) in a variety of categories: Megaphone slogan shouting, populist speech writing, the popular (but much maligned by women’s groups as demeaning) red t-shirt modelling competition and the grand final task: the ability to dodge and recover from a verbal beatdown by Thabo Mbeki.

There is one cause for concern in the above report on a possible investigation: the police are planning to raid the NIA. Now if you remember the debacle that was the Scorpions raid on the offices of Shabir Schaik’s attorneys (where guns were almost drawn between Scorpions agents and SAP officers) then you, like me, are hoping the SAP send only those officers with the coolest of cool heads. And no guns.

Secondly is the article highlighting Tokyo Sexwale’s speech where he demands national government stop sending out “double messages” about AIDS and do something about the reality of the situation. No doubt that speech has endeared him even less to Thabo Mbeki.

And thirdly the infighting in the Western Cape ANC continues with opponents of lame duck Premier Ebrahim Rasool accusing him of paying journalists for good press. Ivan Flynn, editor of the Argus, has supended political editor Joseph Aranes and journalist Ashley Smith. As the article in the Sunday Times pointed out this reeks of the Information Scandal all over again and if true could be just as devastating.