TOM EATON | Before parties promise us the world, let’s start with the basics

Over the weekend, the country’s major news outlets revealed the surprising information that campaigning for November’s election had “moved into the fast lane” and “hit high gear”.

It’s not a bad metaphor, I suppose, given the similarities between driving and voting in SA, both being grim necessities that force one to come into contact with solipsistic maniacs who don’t believe the law applies to them.

But it’s definitely an odd one to use now, five weeks before an election that seems to be as eagerly anticipated and packed with quality as the second half of a Grade 2 recorder recital.

One understands the extraordinary lethargy of the ANC, of course, a decadent cabal that’s reached the final, bilious, dead-eyed, soul-sick half-hour of a 30-year orgy and is now lying face down in the topiary; one last, half-eaten hunk of cake clutched in its chubby little hand; a crust of fondue cheese, gravy and wine hardening around its slack, reeking mouth.

Even an eating machine like the ANC has to get nauseated at some point, and when it forgot to register candidates last month, it was clear the party is almost over.

Not everyone, however, has given up. Over the weekend, a video emerged showing ANC treasurer Paul Mashatile handing out cash in a church, an act that looked an awful lot like vote-buying until he explained that he was simply distributing dosh to assistants who were filling collection plates, which is obviously very different to buying votes because, as we all know, money in collection plates is beamed directly into Heaven and has no effect on worldly things like elections.

The lights of Cape Town already stay on a little longer than elsewhere in the country ... I see no reason why similar schemes couldn’t be extended to neighbouring rural municipalities, perhaps involving the harnessing of static electricity from the polyester trousers of DA voters as they rush towards the Freedom Front Plus.

Still, at least buying votes is more honest than the rest of the ANC’s campaign, which seems to boil down to tinny apologies for having done all the things it plans to keep doing, along with a desperate lunge towards youth.

According to Business Day, a quarter of the ANC’s candidates are younger than 30, a recruitment process that must have been terribly difficult for a party whose Youth League was recently led by a man of almost 40. Hell, just getting hold of former ANCYL president Collen Maine to ask if he knew anyone under 60 must have been an ordeal for Cyril Ramaphosa, his calls left unanswered because Maine couldn’t see who was calling because he’d left his reading glasses at the chemist when he went to pick up his vitamins.

Jokes aside, I believe this generational shift is timeous and excellent. Every day I see the ageist tendencies in our society, and I for one am delighted that the ANC’s young recruits will now be given the opportunity to show us that Millennials and members of Generation Z can screw up just as spectacularly as the old-timers.

Meanwhile, far away from these low-hanging fruits, the country’s second- and third-largest parties assembled to launch what they called “election manifestos” and what writers call “fan fiction”.

To be fair to the Democratic Alliance, its promise to make six Western Cape municipalities “blackout-proof” seems fairly realistic. The lights of Cape Town already stay on a little longer than elsewhere in the country thanks to the Steenbras hydroelectric plant, and I see no reason why similar schemes couldn’t be extended to neighbouring rural municipalities, perhaps involving the harnessing of static electricity from the polyester trousers of DA voters as they rush towards the Freedom Front Plus.

The EFF, for its part, spent the weekend celebrating Winnie Madikizela Mandela and the unrestricted spread of Covid-19, naming its new headquarters after the former struggle icon as it hosted a vibrant superspreader event in central Johannesburg.

It was yet another bold act of self-sacrifice by Julius Malema, a man who continues to risk exposure to the virus despite not being vaccinated.

Of course, he hasn’t confirmed or denied this publicly, saying in August that vaccination is a “personal matter”. I couldn’t agree more: when they sedate you and guide that ventilator pipe down your throat, I imagine it feels very personal indeed.

Still, we don’t need a press release to know that Malema hasn’t been vaccinated, given his angry denunciations of American and European vaccines and his passionate endorsement of Chinese and Russian ones, neither of which are available in SA yet.

It’s basic logic, isn’t it? I mean, if we imagine the unthinkable, and pretend for a moment that Malema has been vaccinated, it means he’s either had a couple of vials couriered over from Beijing or Moscow and isn’t telling anyone because it’s not a great look to take medication that your followers can’t access, or he’s had the Johnson & Johnson or Pfizer jab like everyone else, and won’t admit it so that he can keep risking the lives of his followers to shill for Chinese or Russian oligarchs. And I simply refuse to believe either scenario. Not our Julius. Never.

In the coming weeks, more manifestos will appear. Thousands of words will be spoken and written, telling us what we should want.

But the writing on the wall is very clear and very simple, and we already know what we want. We want bureaucrats who can read for meaning, and be on time, and do accounting, and obey the law.

And as for hitting high gear or getting into the fast lane, well, how about we start by finding first gear and crawling out of the garage?