We have all heard of the saying, "Politics is a dirty game." This is very accurate when referring to our current political situation.
The ANC is the ruling party and the party mostly responsible for bringing us freedom and "equality" in our country. We are forever grateful for their bravery and struggle. We are not however indebted to them because that's the perceptive we get from their die-hard supporters. As a country we are no longer fighting the same agendas we did back in 1988. Our main concerns now are fighting greed, poor service delivery, corruption and abuse of power.
With the obvious out the way, its time to divulge the core political issues in the country. The ANC have leakages compared to that of a tap after a 7 year old has brushed his teeth. This was evident during the last electoral campaign where people blindly voted for COPE, a runaway party from the ANC. They gave Thabo Mbeki a vote of no confidence as South African president, forcing him to step down as president of the country in 2008 and they voted Zuma as ANC president who later became the president of the republic. The same hypocrites of Mbeki's leadership methods are now trying to oust Zuma out of leadership in Mangaung this month. There's talks of another vote of no confidence towards President Zuma in February next year from opposing parties. President Zuma has reshuffled his cabinet ministers 3 times in his one term as president. This poses the question, "Does the ANC really know what they're are doing?" They seem to have a lack in judgement and they are too busy waging power fights among themselves to really notice that the country is getting gatvol of them. We read everyday of corruption in the government, abuse of taxpayer money, nepotism, labour unrests etc.
thanks to our ever vigilant media, the same media the ANC wants to disable by passing the secrecy bill and are forever badmouthing them when they post stories exposing the ANC's iniquitous ways. Our president has been in the media for all the wrong reasons, makes you wonder why he was elected to lead the ANC in the first place. We are all aware of the current state of our economy thanks to the Economists with their front page exposé with the heading "Cry the beloved country" and we all saw live on national television as men were gunned down for their pittance. Labour unrests have been rife and we have seen the most number of strikes, mostly due to unfair pay, in a presidential term under Zuma but yet the man is the most paid leader in a democratic state ever! Inequality in South Africa has remained the same post-apartheid era, it just changed colours. The political game is quite dirty indeed. The ANC promote the starting of small political parties to oppose them but have legislations preventing mergers of small political parties to form one big political party to run against them. This is another form of oppression in my mind but a very conniving and thoroughly thought out form of oppression.
We can continue putting our faith in the ANC and hope things change for the better or we can look elsewhere but where? The DA? Ran by the ever so confrontational Hellen Zille, do we have hope for the country there. With crazy elitist ideals driving it, extremely focussed on the youth and gen-y a.k.a the boomers...it's a radical party that has two to three valid goals at best but operates within a "point fingers" framework. The DA went and put pit latrines outside black people's settlements and says, "we're doing what the ANC hasn't/ can't/ won't do" vote for us, vote for change. Then goes all elitist and preaches about economic freedoms for whites and blacks etc. Like, what do people from Khayelitsha and the deep rural areas know about financial freedoms? What is a pit latrine meant to do? Is it not better to do things right and build houses with proper plumbing systems and sewage facilities? Quick fix stuff isn't going to help the nation. My judgement of the DA is lacking in factual finding and the lack of knowledge about the DA is mostly due to the control the ANC has on the media.
Do we as the public really have power in this country, do we have a say or do they just tell us that we do to satisfy us and keep us quiet? If you look at it now, there is no "leadership" in African politics, there is what I'd like to call a "Bullying Right". Who gets to be the next one to pillage their nation under false pretence. [to be continued...]
(The view from the ordinary resident around Zuma's iNkandla's residence)
