'Jimmy' Manyi wants to 'reconcile with people of the Western Cape'

Nine weeks before the elections, two developments point towards the arrival of silly season in politics.

One is former media owner Mzwanele Manyi's "special service" in Elsies River, Cape Town, on Saturday. The former chief government spokesman is the policy chief of the African Transformation Movement (ATM).  

The second is Goab Khoebaha Calvin Cornelius III's court bid to stop the elections.

When Manyi still answered to the name "Jimmy", he offended many people when he said there were too many coloureds in the Western Cape and they should spread to the rest of SA.

This week, Shireen Horne, a publicist for ATM's Western Cape premier candidate, Manny Niekerk, issued an invitation to an event entitled "Jimmy Manyi to reconcile with the people of the Western Cape!"

Confused about the use of the name Jimmy, TimesLIVE asked Horne if the invitation was legitimate. She confirmed it was.

"That’s how we know him – as Jimmy," said Horne. "As you know, Africans have two names."

The invitation, in Afrikaans, says: "The people of the Western Cape are cordially invited to an exceptional and special service to celebrate the grand biblical principles of patience and peacefulness with Jimmy Manyi.

"Come and watch how opponents become friends, and how the nation gets healing, and how the Western Cape embraces a new future when people are united to make the people of the Western Cape truly free from oppression and the people of the Western Cape are truly empowered to be equal and have equal chances and be prosperous."

Then, enter Cornelius. The king of the "Sovereign State of Good Hope" has launched a bid in the high court in Cape Town to stop May’s national elections.

Cornelius’s court papers say he wants "an urgent court order to cease and desist against" the president and government "that no election be held in the Sovereign State of Good Hope … which consists of the Western Cape, the Northern Cape and part of the Eastern Cape till as far as the Fish River".

Cornelius said he applied to the UN last year for "observer status as a sovereign country".

He added: "On the 16th July 2018 an eviction notice was handed to the office of the president at the parliament in Cape Town. On leaving the premises, the eviction notice was placed on the doors of parliament in Cape Town giving the government five days to clear the premises …"

Ramaphosa had defied him, he said. "I therefore plead the court to issue an urgent order to cease and desist for no elections in the Sovereign State of Good Hope."