Politics.za

Following the ruckus caused by striking security guards in the Cape Town CBD yesterday, the DA led local council has teamed up with the ANC led provincial government to withdraw permission for the planned COSATU led general strike tomorrow. The decision of the provincial government is a bit suprising considering the wide held assumption that the ANC would use every opportunity to make the DA led council look bad with it’s asking for payment from the union for damage. However when it comes to stomping down on COSATU and other unions (something the ANC seems to be doing quite a bit of lately) I guess the ANC can’t let the DA have all the fun.

I expect ther is a good chance COSATU will continue to march, last I heard COSATU is still deciding, but will do so under extremely heavy police presence and with COSATU marshalls everywhere to avoid the public relations snafu that was the march on Tuesday. That being said the chances of more violence are real and if you work in the CBD I hope you have in building parking.

Update: COSATU have called off their march in Cape Town. I suspect there might still be strikers arriving tomorrow who have not heard about this decision so the potential for violence is not zero.

One thing that has irked me of late in political happenings is the constant accusation of racism. The ANC does it. The DA does it. Everyone does it and it gets a bit tiresome. That said this opinion piece by Thami Mazwai is so miguided and erroneous I had to do a fisking(Update: It seems I’m not the first, John Matshikiza ripped him to shreds way back in 2000). Mr Mazwai (who is chairman of the South African Chapter of the African renaissance – hold on I didn’t know the African renaissance was an actual organisation with chapters, I always thought it was some ideal to strive for not to mention a useful phrase for Thabo Mbeki’s speeches and if that’s not the case I hereby declare myself chairman of the South African Chapter of Liberal Democracy™) once again uses that old canard that because Helen Zille is looking into the previous administrations dealings she is therefore racist. I’m not going to fisk the entire thing just a few pertinent sentences. Let’s begin.

How do we justify the following?

• Saying she will do a forensic audit on every contract entered into by the previous administration;

Well maybe that’s because not a day before this opnion piece went to print the Saturday Argus released a report about a council offical called Mr Ten Percent so named because of his penchant for taking a ten percent cut of tender contracts in exchange for approving them. Nothing suspicious there.

• The campaign to fire city manager Wallace Mgoqi

Wallace Mgoqi presided over some of the biggest municipal disasters in recent Cape Town history. The Big Bay land sales (and subsequent resales for massive profit), the obviously fronted Numque 20 parking system tender, the stalled N2 Gateway housing project (and the N2 Gateway bus corridor which seems to have been forgotten) and the Jewellery District project in which R8 million rands in consultant fees seemed to have gotten us nothing but plagiarised plans. And then not to mention the city’s massive housing backlog. Nothing worth firing about there.

• The soccer stadium controversy

Can someone please tell me how making sure that the city can afford to build a brand new stadium (in a predominantly white neighborhood mind you, far away from Cape Town’s traditional black soccer stronghold where Zille proposed it might be built) is being racist?

It could be argued that this is sheer cut and thrust, the heart of democratic politics, between the ANC and DA. If this is the case, and I beg to differ, Zille must ensure her words do not stereotype indigenous blacks.

If Mr Mazwai can show a single sentence where Hellen Zille has stereotyped indigenous blacks I encourage him to publish them. That he didn’t in this piece is indicative that there are none.

Yet, Zille has hardly produced a stitch of evidence to justify an audit. The auditor general has also not indicated any untoward business in the metro. To crown it all, ANC administrations countrywide are ruthlessly flushing out corruption, the latest being Ekurhuleni.

Even if you forget the potential corruption issues I’ve listed above the statement is pretty stupid. Zille has not yet produced any evidence of corruption and yet the ANC is flushing it out countrywide? So either there is no corruption, because Zille can’t find it or there is and it’s being flushed out by the ANC.

Does this not also explain why she has her axe out for Mgoqi, as she is not challenging Mgoqi’s ability to perform? Is this appropriate in this day of black advancement and empowerment?

The only thing Zille has challenged is Mgoqi’s ability to perform, that being not very well. Once again if Mr Mazwai has evidence of Zille challenging Mgoqi on anything else but his ability I assume he would have put it in his opinion piece. And there’s also the fact that his renewal contract, signed a day before the elections that the ANC knew they might lose, might be invalid.

Why is it so difficult to accept the decisions of her predecessor in good faith, which, in any case, is a legal principle?

Remember when Wallace Mgoqi wrote that opinion piece in the Cape Times showing what a great job the ANC was doing in Cape Town and the IEC had to ask him to step down as electoral officer because it was clear that he was biased to the ANC. That’s why.

I flinch when I notice how my mother, who turns 80 in a few weeks, glares at Leon when he is on TV, and then see her longingly look at the poker next to the fireplace.

If that’s how his mother reacts just when she sees Tony Leon on TV I wonder how she reacts whenever she drives past the seemingly abandoned N2 Gateway housing project and informal settlement that sits right next door, and which have been there for the past 10 years. He must have to hide all the glassware.

A few interesting points emerge from the Cape Town Metro show. Are the DA’s bedmates happy with Zille’s calls for a forensic audit without adequate reason as this suggests that the previous black administration was corrupt as a matter of course?

Well seeing none of them have objected to it I assume they’re alright with it.

Are they not aware that Zille would never make this insinuation against a former white mayor and administration?

How can Mr Mazwai even make a comment like this and still be taken seriously? Once again he must have scads of evidence locked away but just couldn’t fit it in the space requirements given to him. In that case I bet Mazwai will never write an article critical of a black mayor and administration. I have loads of evidence as well. I just can’t fit it in here so trust me on this.

In short, are they happy with Zille’s archetypal stereotyping of Africans in general and are they oblivious of the fact that it also applies to them?

Again could you please supply a single sentence of Helen Zille stereotyping all Africans.

Are they, more so the black parties, also against black advancement and empowerment as evidenced by the campaign to smoke Mgoqi out?

Getting rid of one city manager who was messing up left and right = Being against all empowerment. Just so we’re all clear on that.

How can people take this piece seriously.

Quite a few people are perturbed by the the chair throwing at Mayor Helen Zille during a meeting she attended in Crossroads, an ANC dominated ward. The excuse from ANC councillor for that ward Depoutch Elese that Zille was attacked because she had not followed procedure and informed him of her visit is of course pretty laughable and only serves to make the ANC’s ward councillors look like wannabe lords over their own personal fiefdom. That the meeting was actually convened by SANCO, usually an ANC ally, to discuss crime in Crossroads only makes the ANC look even worse.

However I must say I wasn’t exactly suprised by the violence. Despite South Africe being a relatively peaceful country when it comes to politically motivated violence, it is still present. I’d even go so far as to say that in certain areas in KwaZulu-Natal, due to the tension between the ANC and IFP, I’d say that political violence is more of a norm than an exception. That there would be violence in the Western Cape at some point in the future after the municipal election is almost a certainty.

It is nice to see national government condemn the attack in no uncertain terms seemingly without a reserved word of support for the ANC councillors or a shifting of blame (although the local ANC officials did plenty of that). However I still would like to reiterate my call for all political parties to start hosting joint seminars for their members entitled ‘Politics: No One Has To Die’.

The ID have stated that from now on they will abstain from any council vote that could give the ANC control of the Cape Town council. No doubt the PR beatdown and (still simmering) supporter backlash the ID suffered after voting with the ANC against Helen Zille was a factor in this decision but there’s also the fact that the ID could potentially already lose a seat to the DA in a by election after an ID councillor resigned.

Now if the ID sticks to this decision it does make the chance of the ANC getting the position of mayor back pretty slim. Even if the ANC could get the AMP and the minor parties on it’s side it would have 90 votes while the DA and ACDP (who I don’t think will ever leave the coalition) will have 97. I’m not sure if the mayoral vote requires an outright majority (+51%) for a decision but if not then the DA can breathe a bit easier.

Update: According to the comments, Sheval Arendse, who was the ID councillor who resigned, will be running for vacant seat as a DA candidate.

Tomorrow the DA will introduce a bill into parliament seeking to prevent floor crossing. And I’m sure once the ANC MP’s have wiped the tears of laughter from their eyes they will give it a good looking over before tossing it in the rubbish bin. The DA do try to show why the ANC should vote for the bill:

We hope that the ANC will not wait until it faces a mass defection from one of its major factions before it decides to throw its weight behind the move to repeal the floor-crossing legislation in its current form.

The DA is probably hopeful to get this passed before the next floor crossing window potentially wipes out their hold on the Cape Town City Council.

Unfortunately for the DA the ‘10% clause’ (at minimum 10% of party members must defect) in the current floor crossing legislation makes is a bit difficult for a ‘major faction’ to just up and walk away from the ANC. Something the ANC knows all too well. Although with the current paranoia in the ANC you never know what irrational act they’ll be carrying out next.

Tony Leon believes that public pressure will force the ANC to approve the bill, but considering that the majority of the public supports the death penalty and the ANC has no plans to bring it back I think he might be wasting his time.

The ANC is at war with itself

Groundbreaking and original analysis from the DA’s James Selfe.

Mayor of Cape Town Helen Zille has decided to put a temporary freeze on the development of the new stadium for the 2010 World Cup in Cape Town for a number of reasons:

• The venue, replacing the Green Point Stadium, would pave over Metropolitan Golf Course, the only course close to the Cape Town CBD and one that is right next to tourist hot spot at the V&A Waterfront. Needless to say the tourism industryare not too pleased about it.

• The stadium is projected to cost at minimum R1,2 billion. This in a city with a backlog of 360 000 housing units.

• Wallace Mgoqi, in his infinite wisdom, signed a deal with FIFA giving them all the income from World Cup related activities in Cape Town leaving city to pick up the tab for funding that is not covered by national government.

And surprisingly provincial Sports MEC Mzonke Whitey Jacobs is agreeing with her although Premier Ebrahim Rasool is going to have a meeting with her to try and “convince” her of the current plans positive attributes. This does have the potential to be a major flashpoint between the DA and ANC.

Now I don’t think that Zille will prevent there being World Cup matches played in Cape Town, to do so would be political suicide, but I do think the council needs to carefully think things through about where the stadium should be (personally I think an upgraded Newlands is quite adequate, or even fully upgrading Athlone stadium would be nice upliftment for the community in the area) and how we’re going to pay for it all. Altough they do need to be quick about it.

The ID have rejected the DA’s offer of seats on the executive mayoral committee although Mayor Zille is still keeping a seat vacant for them in the hope they have a change of heart.

Someamongus believes that this is due to De Lille’s ego although her own justification that the ID has nothing in common with most of the coalition is valid. Frankly I didn’t expect the parties in the coalition to last a week. It should be noted that the ID will not support the ANC led ‘no confidence’ vote but it is trying to have the executive mayoral committe disbanded in favour of an executive committee representing all parites in council.

I’m not sure if this will work. Firstly with the ID not joining the coalition the power of the smaller parties (ACDP/FF+/AMP) in the commission remains the same. Had the ID joined their power would have been diluted and in an executive committee system their political power would be minimal. I do not see them giving up what power they have.

Secondly the ID might not have all of it’s councillor’s supporting the move. We know that during the mayoral election there was a single vote from the ANC or most probably ID that broke ranks. We also know that prior to the mayoral election four members of the ID (most probably their ward councillors) were willing to vote for Zille had the AMP voted for the ANC mayoral candidate.

So either De Lille is going to shoot herself in the foot (again!) or manage to attain some power in the Cape. Personally I’m betting on the former but then again I thought the DA coalition would be impossible to pull off.

Well that was short. It seems that Deputy Mayor Andrew Arnolds was merely a ‘placeholder’ for Pauline Cupido who was the ACDP’s original candidate for mayor and will step aside and put the position back up for the vote. It seems Cupido is still a member of the national legislature and will have to resign first.

This is illustrative of the fact that no one was really sure who was going to win power in the Cape and so were unwilling to give up the power they already had. Although at least Helen Zille had the cojones to resign from parliament before she was elected mayor and was prepared to be a normal city councillor had she lost.

Now the ACDP are not guaranteed of replacing Andrews with Cupido. There still might be some suprises. The DA is supposedly still trying to get the ID into their coaltion and they might use this as an opportunity to woo them over. Conversely the ID might want to try and seperate themselves from the ANC and vote for whoever the coalition proposes anyway.

The ID might be doing another about turn and join the DA led coalition in the Cape Town municipality.

This will be good news for the DA as it will make votes much more easier to pass in the future. It will also reduce the threat of floor crossing considering the terrible reaction the ID got from it’s backing of the ANC in the mayoral election I’m pretty certain they won’t be too keen to try it again.

However there is still a threat of the coalition not lasting. Consider this:

AMP councillor Wasfie Hassiem said although the party’s first preference had been for the ANC, their overriding goal was to be a part of the winning team.

Doesn’t exactly endear a sense of stability does it?

And on a last note Patricia De Lille has got some serious problems with her party members. From the linked article:

...if its members kept their promise to give their three votes to the ANC candidate, up to four ID members would break ranks and neutralise the AMP by backing DA candidate Helen Zille.

So ID councillors were happy to vote according to ID leadership wishes as long as the ID lost that particular vote? Ouch.