Politics.za

The ACDP is desperately trying to get back on the electoral list in Cape Town after an administrative snafu (on their part I should add) meant they would not be allowed to contest the elections in the region.

I do like the veiled threats though, so forgiving:

If you don’t want to hear this (appeal), our only option is to seek an interdict throughout the country where there has been non-compliance with this statutory decision and it will disrupt the elections.

Update: The ACDP will be allowed to contest the elections in Cape Town.

Can the ANC get a break? I mean what’s worse than being the ruling party and contesting elections in the Western Cape, in what promises to be a very tight race, when service delivery has become the focus for the upcoming elections?

Why that would be contesting election in the Western Cape with rolling power blackouts during the week before elections take place.

Can you imagine the screaming match that’s happening right now between Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool (although considering his lame duck status he may not give a crap) and Eskom CEO T.S. Gcabashe?

Words are being said. Harsh, rude words.

Who the heck is the ID fielding for Mayor of Cape Town?

No political experience but he is the manager of the Commodore Hotel at the V & A Waterfront? Well if Cape Town is under siege by rampaging German tourists (Doesn’t that happen every summer anyway? I kid, I kid. We love you German tourists.) pissed off because their room doesn’t have a view of the ocean we’ll know who to call…

Cape Town. January 2006. You’re the official opposition. Local municipal elections are two short months away and you might actually have a chance at winning control over a major metropolitan municipality thereby giving yourself some much needed authority and proving to people you can actually govern before the next national elections.

You might have a chance that is, if your local membership weren’t infighting like schoolgirls.

It’s not just glossy reports costing taxpayers millions, the salaries of top city management in Cape Town alone will cost R10 million this year. Now Cape Town Mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo said that those salaries are needed to “attract top people who had had experience in the private sector” which is true, in order to attract talent into government you need to pay them for their talent.

But if Cape Town municipal manager Wallace Mgoqi was in the private sector and was doing such a crap job as he is doing in the Cape Town municipality (N2 gateway project stalling, jewelery district tender fiasco, city parking contract going to obviously fronted BEE company, the list goes on… trust me) he would’ve been fired ages ago.

Instead he’s probably looking forward to his 25% of annual salary bonus.

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.