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Of potholes, electricity and
politicians
Readers of this here e-zine will know that I generally hold politicians in
some disfavour...
Their works seldom coincide with the more righteous yearnings of the people...
In consequence, I have never been big on formal political coverage...
We've concentrated on conditions on the streets where people live - potholes,
houses, electricity, water, sewage disposal, crime - hoping that that's where
the REAL politics reside in our country.
But things changed a bit when Zuma came into power.
He was clearly the people's choice at the time...and he went out of his way
to court them.
His voters were/are our readers.
It was time to get more political.
So we inched forward.
But in past weeks we've broken into a bit of a stride.
Consider this:
Last Friday we approached ANC headquarters with this question: The head of your
Youth League says that in the hard land of Zimbabwe politics, he only has regard
for Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF... Clearly, because the Youth League is part of
the ANC, this opinion is shared by the wider ANC as well? And where does this
leave President Zuma's arbitration efforts north of the border?
As expected, this caused quite a stir.
Within half an hour came a written statement...
No, this Youth League opinion does NOT reflect the views of the ANC...
And the roof started to cave in on Julius Malema...
Maybe it was going to anyway.
Order was in clear need of restoration.
But maybe our inquiry pushed it on a little bit.
Who will ever know for sure in the murky pool where we are starting to paddle.
But the point is that with our absolute print domination of the world where
the New Average South African dwells, we are quite a hectic paddler...
More intriguing events soon unfolded.
President Zuma's statement on Saturday afternoon was, obviously, the Page One
lead in Sunday Sun the next day... ZUMA SLAPS DOWN MALEMA...
(click
here >>)
On the Monday we saluted the Zuma statement...and hailed the birth of
"leadership by the centre..."
(click
here >>)
And the very next day the ANC secretary general, Gwede Mantashe, sat on SABC
TV's Morning Live breakfast show proclaiming that the ANC represented the
"centre" of the ruling alliance...
Good stuff...
Leadership by the Centre...
We have not heard THAT phrase from politicians before.
So who knows?
Maybe we had a tiny bit to do with that as well?
Regards
Deon du Plessis
SunPublisher
about 4 hours ago from SunPublisher, Deon du Plessis
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