TOM EATON | You know what they say, set a crook to catch a crook

Spokesperson for Russia’s healthcare system and part-time deputy president David Mabuza has told ANC voters to stop concerning their pretty little heads with complicated grown-up stuff like who they’ll be voting for on November 1, and to rather just focus on what’s important: not asking questions and voting for the ANC.

According to Mabuza, who has recently taken off time from his hectic schedule of being almost entirely invisible, the ANC hasn’t announced any mayoral candidates because “it’s obvious that if you decide on mayoral positions before the elections you’re dividing your own people”.

Absolutely. I mean, God forbid anyone should be given a glimpse of the plan, because, as everyone knows, once you begin to dabble in transparency, the next thing you know, people are thinking clearly and acting independently and trying to think of ways to outperform their colleagues.

Limpopo will be mined for new talent by the likes of Bathabile Dlamini, whose experience in committing alleged perjury but staying employed by the ANC will no doubt be of great help to future mayors in the province.

No, much better to keep everyone united in anaesthetising confusion, all gazing up with anxious little eyes at the politburo, waiting to be tossed a scrap of information and get patted on the head.

Those scraps, however, will have to be tossed at some point; and according to TimesLIVE, the ANC has embarked on a process of identifying mayoral candidates around the country, sending crack teams to all the provinces to lead “interview processes”, in which applicants will no doubt be asked if they know how to use a paper shredder and are willing to accept payment in the form of handwritten gift vouchers to be redeemed at the Luthuli House cafeteria.

And to prove how seriously it’s taking the process, the ANC is sending some of its best people.

The Northern Cape, for example, is going to have its future mayors identified by such leading lights as former ANC Youth League president Collen Maine (“Tell us how you feel about 40-year-olds taking the jobs of 20-year-olds and why this is a good thing”) and recently fired defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula (“Do you know what an insurrection is? No, I’m asking you: do you know what an insurrection is, because I don’t.”)

Limpopo, likewise, will be mined for new talent by the likes of Bathabile Dlamini, whose experience in committing alleged perjury but staying employed by the ANC will no doubt be of great help to future mayors in the province.

It is in the Western Cape, however, where the ANC’s true commitment to unearthing administrative excellence is on display. Because, while it has sent deputy minister of international relations and co-operation Alvin Botes, it has also seen fit to dispatch none other than Nomvula “Let The Rand Fall” Mokonyane.

You’d have thought the ANC could just erect a billboard in front of Table Mountain saying “WE SURRENDER”.

But then again, “surrender” has three syllables, so maybe not.