Nomvula “Let The Rand Fall” Mokonyane has warned voters not to be tricked by politicians pretending to represent the ANC. Instead, she implied, they should continue to be tricked by politicians who genuinely do represent the ANC.
Speaking in Mpumalanga to the sort of people who turn up to listen to people like her, Mokonyane said voters should “be careful” because “there will be people who come here claiming to be ANC” and asking for their vote.
While Mokonyane didn’t name Jacob Zuma — perhaps because she knows it’s not nice to bite the hand that once fed you, or at least the man you once swore to protect using your buttocks — she was clearly talking about the former president’s new party with the plagiarised name.
It goes without saying that the ANC insults the intelligence of voters every time it opens its gravy-clogged mouth, and Mokonyane was no different: Zuma’s party is very clearly called uMkhonto Wesizwe, not ANC, and has an entirely different logo. If you’re likely to confuse the two, you probably shouldn’t be using metal cutlery.
Still, I understand that these are confusing times in South African politics.
I myself am very confused how, for example, the post-Zuma ANC decided to appoint as one of its deputy secretaries-general a woman who was accused at the Zondo commission of having received bribes from Bosasa.
The rand has fallen — and fallen, and fallen, and fallen — and Mokonyane and her buffoonish colleagues have never picked it up, because they never had the ability to pick it up, or, indeed, to pick anything up, except the drippings off the banquet tables of Zuma and the Guptas and now Ramaphosa
Putting Fikile Mbalula into the secretary-general role makes sense — Ramaphosa needed a plucky little Dutch boy who wouldn’t ask questions and who would stick his finger into any dyke and stay there until someone’s wife’s cousin got the tender, 5,000% above cost, to come and do a half-arsed repair that would last two months. But Mokonyane? It just doesn’t make sense.
Most confusing of all, however, is why the ANC hasn’t simply expelled Zuma.
Of course, there might be pragmatic reasons for this.
First, expelling Zuma would require Ramaphosa to explain the concept of consequences to his party, and he doesn’t have the hundreds of hours and thousands of crayons and gold stars it would take.
Second, and perhaps more pressingly, while expelling Zuma might end a lot of confusion, Ramaphosa probably fears it also might end a lot of trucks, warehouses, shopping malls and even a few lives, too.
Perhaps the real reason, however, is simpler, and perfectly embodied by Mokonyane.
When she was made minister of water and sanitation, in May 2014, the rand was trading at R10.35 to the dollar.
When she blurted out her infamous dismissal of economic reality, in April 2017, saying “let the rand fall, we will pick it up”, the rand was trading at R13.70 to the dollar.
At the time of writing, almost seven years later, it was trading at just over R18.50.
The rand has fallen — and fallen, and fallen, and fallen — and Mokonyane and her buffoonish colleagues have never picked it up, because they never had the ability to pick it up, or, indeed, to pick anything up, except the drippings off the banquet tables of Zuma and the Guptas and now Ramaphosa.
Perhaps they’re not expelling Zuma because they don’t know how, or don’t understand why they need to, or simply hope that they can keep doing what they’ve always done — nothing — and that the voters won’t notice or won’t care, and that the salaries and braai packs and expensive whiskey will just keep coming.
But whatever the reason, it is anchored in the same self-deluding, self-destructive arrogance and ignorance that we’ve seen every day for decades.
Still, I don’t want to leave you on a downer, so let me give the last word to Mokonyane, who used the opportunity to pledge, er, something to Ramaphosa.
“We remain here,” she said, presumably because they’d booked the venue for the rest of the day. “We will continue being ANC and being led by Ramaphosa. Even in the elections we’ve decided that the president of the ANC will be the president of the country, so we know that the face of our elections will the president of the ANC.”
If that’s not loyalty, then I don’t know what it is. No, seriously, I don’t know what that is. Can you tell me? I’ll listen on the radio.
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