From: Rosemary Fowkes
Via email
When I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, my Dad used to say that the trouble with our country was that we had politicians running it, while what we needed was statesmen. I can’t say I appreciated what he was saying then but I think I do now and especially when I look at some of the individuals hoping to take office on the fateful fourth.
Now I do appreciate that my Dad’s idea of a statesman as someone who holds office to promote the interests of the country and its people may seem a little grandiose when one considers we are electing people to manage essential but unglamorous issues like refuse collection. However, if that office holder in the refuse department doesn’t see the role as promoting the interests of the country and its people, then we have my Dad’s politician.
I got into conversation with the supervisor at my supermarket about this the other day. I approached him not to talk about the LGE but to find out if he had any of a particular brand of metal polish in stock. This led to a discussion about the lack of fuel, Donald Trump and our own political situation, at which point another shopper joined in, saying that if the politicians weren’t so busy fighting one another rather than putting their egos and ambitions aside and working together, our problems would be solved.
I didn’t say so, but I don’t think that’s possible. I think that’s the point of a system of political parties, each with its own leader and manifesto, which enables us to choose the party we most identify with and whose members we consider are more likely than any other party’s to behave like statesmen.
Herman Mashaba may think that traducing Helen Zille as he so freely does, is good strategy and boosts his party but in my eyes, washing his dirty laundry in public is distasteful and has made me lose respect for him. I don’t know what the cause of the quarrel between them was/is but I’m old enough to know it takes two to tango. Helen Zille is one tough lady and we know she can be ruthless in pursuit of gains for her party and her plans for it, but she’s the first one to say “you don’t have to like me” and nobody can deny that she gets the job done, however punishing her schedule, and by all accounts she drives herself harder than she drives anyone on her team. I respect that.
I felt like weeping, all those years ago now, when I heard that Jacob Zuma was to be our new president. So did everyone I knew, and our fears were nothing compared to what he actually did to us and the country. We still haven’t recovered and here we are again with an MK party putting sand in the works. I can only hope the party doesn’t do too much harm, just as I hope the EFF does not, given that its leader’s mission seems to consist of one thing only, to spread discord among us.
A lot of people hold it against Gayton McKenzie that he had to pay his dues to society with a jail term. I think it’s admirable he put that behind him. When I heard he had started a party, I thought “good for him”. Since then, though, the picture is rather of a very good speaker, a brilliant speaker in fact, but sadly, a lousy administrator.
There have been claims of his mismanaging funds as Minister of Sport, and suggestions that athletes were penalised by a lack of funding while he seemingly squandered money on going to watch the World Cup. This is suggestive of everything to do with being a sleazy politician rather than a stateman.
We South Africans can spot sleazy politicians. After all, we have had many years to observe how they operate.
They always dress well. Speakers capable of delivering a fine speech do the talking, very convincingly, butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths and they always promise, with stately pauses, to fulfil the needs crying out for attention. There is always a plan.
The honeyed words having been spoken, the politicians withdraw – until the next election or the discontented take to the streets, and the reassurances are immediately re-issued. Things quieten down, the government sinks back into its accustomed lassitude and the population struggles on.
Why does the ANC government stay in power, returned to power routinely by its long-suffering, loyal supporters?
That’s an easy one. Not to support the ANC would be a betrayal of the heroes who in forcing the end of apartheid, restored to South Africans – except white South Africans who had theirs – their humanity. I can understand that loyalty.
I live in a small town which has always had one supermarket. Now there’s another, and its prices are lower, which in these cash-strapped times is a serious consideration. But there are those of us who can’t bring ourselves to shop there because of loyalty to the shop that has served us so well for many years and which we can see is struggling because it’s losing custom to the new shop. We can’t desert our old shop. We feel we owe it our support even though it’s costing us.
There’s a difference though. Our old shop is doing everything it can to look after us, its faithful customers and to attract new customers. If it weren’t doing that, we would be thinking they don’t deserve our loyalty and we should do the sensible thing and shopping at the new shop.
It seems to me the ANC forgot, along the way, that they owed their supporters appreciation for their loyalty. It has ignored the needs of its customers for so long that more than a few of them now see no reason to pay a higher price and are willing to see whether they fare better under new management.
As for the zillions of other enthusiastic new parties on the ballot, let them take their chances – but if they don’t attract a certain percentage of the votes (which is for legislators to decide), I think they should be disqualified from holding office.
As it’s a municipal election, it’s quite possible some of these very small parties will attract a high percentage of votes, become the core of the municipality and serve their towns well. Let them to it, I say.
However, in a huge city where the results may, for example, show a third of the population voted for a party, it is absurd to give that party an insignificant role in the municipality in favour of a party which attracted a tiny percentage of the vote. The important positions in the municipality must reflect the outcome of the residents’ wishes, as expressed in their votes – or else, as my Dad so dolefully said roughly 65 years ago, “Our trouble is that we have politicians running our country when what we need is statesmen.”
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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