ANC must jettison lapsed politicians
NOW that the elections are done and dusted, the horse-trading starts in earnest. Clearly the ANC, which perceived itself as invincible, if we remember President Zuma bragging that the ANC will rule till Jesus comes, has got the rudest of shocks.
Either Jesus has come or it got a terrible hiding all round in the local government elections. The ANC deserved losing for instance, Tshwane, Nkandla, Oudtshoorn and the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality because it lost its moral and ethical compass. It’s not the ANC of Mandela and Luthuli any more. It has mutated to an alien form riddled with a criminally and morally lapsed leadership that needs to be replaced.
Let me plainly say this. Zuma must be recalled as Mbeki was recalled by the party structures that lost faith in a man who operated from Mount Olympus far removed from the people. Not only Zuma but all those who supported him and who went all the way to shield him from the excesses that the public protector exposed in Nkandla, for instance.
Zuma operated like Louis 14th of France who was aware that the people of France were starving, jobless, homeless and heavily taxed, which put them in a violently desperate mood, desperate enough to terminate the king and all who were beneficiaries in the Ancien Régime … and he did nothing. So its “off with his head”.
What is shocking is that over 18 million people did not bother voting. What is further shocking is that many stalwarts openly advocated not voting for the ANC and the fact that Ghaleb Cachalia joined the DA confirmed how far the ANC drifted from the Freedom Charter. For the sake of the party and country Zuma should have stepped down. But Zuma chose party over country and that upset decent and loyal ANC supporters who refused to vote in the local government elections.
This means that the ANC must, in the next few weeks, start to jettison those lapsed politicians who cost it dearly and there are serious indications that it will lose more ground in 2019. SABER AHMED JAZBHAY
Durban