Gareth van Onselen
@GvanOnselen
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Liberal. Humanist. Author. Editor: @insidepols @quotesanc and @EFFRevolution
Johannesburg, South Africa
Joined January 2011
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Fikile Mbalula is, in many ways, a metaphor for the ANC: utterly incompetent, utterly unaware of his incompetence, yet relentlessly rewarded promoted. His rise mirrors the ANC’s fall.
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For my sins, I have just finished watching about 20 hours of Ace Magashule televised interviews, given over the last three years. My impression is this: a more dishonest, devious, evasive and insidious fundamentalist you will struggle to find.
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I am sorry if I am missing something obvious but, in all seriousness, I would be grateful if someone could explain to me why Julius Malema has not yet been arrested?
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My thoughts are with Bheki Cele today, who has to revert to arresting real criminals.
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Basic EFF argument: We can’t be held responsible for what relatives of our party members did.
Also: All white South Africans are responsible for what their relatives did.
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Well, this seems, cut and dry, the end of Julius Malema. That is, if we have an NPA worth its salt. A clear incitement to damage property, well documented and evidenced. Massive destruction as a result. He should be arrested in a couple of days I would think. Case closed.
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When an interviewer forgets she is an interviewer, to the extent she even forgets the question, in fact the first four questions, and, so in love with her own voice, just generally devolves any questioning at all into a mindless 2min political rant:
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Am looking incredibly forward to Gayton McKenzie's influence on literature, galleries, theatre, museums, libraries, paintings and concerts. This is going to be a golden renaissance period for South African arts.
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Number of public submissions:
Closing Scorpions: +100,000
- ANC closed them anyway
Opposing NHI: +100,000
- ANC says NHI non-negotiable
Opposing EWC: +800,000
- ANC will not be deterred
Ban sale of cigarettes: 2,000
- Banned. ANC: “we heard you”
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There is no BEE-based relief
There is BEE-based relief
Schools will open
Schools will not open
Cigarettes will be sold
Cigarettes will not be sold
Honestly, these guys are just pulling ideas out of a lucky packet
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EFF politics is driven by conspiracies: Indians control KZN, WMC controls the economy, Stratcom controls the media. To be an EFF member is, by default, to be a victim: an always weak, constantly manipulated subject of forces you cannot see or control. Must be a nightmare.
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It’s a brave government indeed that puts Fikile Mbalula on international television to explain anything more complex than a paper clip.
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Geez, the EFF really cannot stand anything that is vaguely uniting. It’s a poison to them, they react like a snail covered in salt, frothing and spitting with rage and pain. It’s sad, and revealing, of how deep division and animosity runs in their veins.
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Things that will not, ever bring down a government in SA:
- HIV/Aids denialism
- Life Esidimeni
- Marikana
- Nkandla
- Arms Deal
- 500,000 murdered
- Agrizzi
- State Capture
- No electricity
- Service delivery collapse
Things that could bring down a opposition in SA:
- A tweet
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The problem with SA is we tend to outsource morality to institutions. What Malema espouses is hate, and no one should be in any doubt about that. And it is hate for minorities. And it is danergous. You don’t need a SAHRC finding to know that, or to act against it.
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Think it now fair to say the ANC has done more damage to the national grid when actually in power, than it did in the 1980s, when it was out of power and trying to blow it up.
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Thank goodness Thuli Madonsela is nowhere near these negotiations; her sanctimonious arrogance, as if some sacred keeper of the constitutional flame, able alone to divine its true intent for us mere mortals, would cause any dialogue to implode. The ego, it’s just off the charts.
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I suspect, once everything has been said and done, there is a strong argument to be made, on the measures of good governance, Helen Zille is the best Premier the new South Africa has ever had.
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Imagine if we tracked corruption cases, prosecutions and prison numbers the same way we do Covid-19 waves.
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Here is what is happening: The EFF’s vote share is collapsing. Panic. Thus, it’s true nature is revealed: A rabid racist populism, born of desperation. Always there, it is now writ large. The EFF stands for everything SA is not. It is a poisonous, festering cesspit of hate.
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Things a governing party would struggle to survive in a modern democracy:
-Killing 143 patients
-Gunning down 34 miners
-Spending R250m on a house
-Ingratiating a private family into executive business
-Running out of electricity
-Destroying basic education
Oh, also a recession.
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It is too much to explain on Twitter, you will have to go with this summary: City Power and Rand Water in Johannesburg are in a state of utter and total chaos. Just an absolute implosion. It is a disgrace beyond comprehension. The ANC have broken an entire city.
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The media at the IEC or, at least, many in the media, laughing and giggling at Zuma’s “jokes”, as he calmly but menacingly threatens the very process and institutions that underpin our constitutional democracy. Disgraceful.
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Let me just say this: if there have been a group of political saboteurs set on maligning, undermining and destroying Zuma since 1990, and the result was he got elected president in 2009, for nine years, they have got to be the most useless saboteurs the world has ever seen.
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Soweto has, for a decade now, effectively run a tax revolt operation. Billions in debt to Eskom (and other services) has been written-off. Billions more owed. Officials were violently expelled when pre-paid meters were installed. Zero consequences. Tax revolt? We been having it.
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R50m worth of street lights, gone. People vent about how politicians steal public money from "the people". And yet, on a daily basis, "the people" do exactly the same thing. We are a nation of thieves, some just happen to govern.
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Ramaphosa, the literal commander in chief, does not know if his own government supplied military weapons to another country? If there is limit to how much SA can absorb, in terms of this man’s oblivious incompetence, this, surely, is it? If not for SA, then the world.
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Cannot tell you how absolutely and fundamentally I disagree with this appointment.
A controversial podcaster and conservative social media activist, Roman Cabanac, has been appointed as the chief of staff in the office of the minister of agriculture, John Steenhuisen.
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Eskom goes to stage 4 load-shedding, SAA placed under business rescue, CSA imploding, Tshwane placed under administration, GDP contracts 0.6% signaling possible recession. It’s all mad. The place is being run into the ground. Good news is, ANC just got control of two new metros.
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The EFF is more akin to virus than a political party, it infects a coalition government, kills it, then moves into its next host. But it cannot survive on its own, or in actual government, it is too weak, too fragile. It has no purpose but to leach, damage and destroy.
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WC unemployment rate drops below 20%. There a lot of important (and depressing) stats in SA, but the lack of real media interest in how the DA consistently beats the trend on this front perplexes. Surely it the most remarkable, NB achievement, worthy of much space and analysis?
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Happy Anniversary Julius Malema! 12 years ago, you kick started your campaign to destroy the NPA’s case against Jacob Zuma, and deliver SA’s most destructive president to the people. Let’s reflect today, on just how much damage you helped inflict on the country.
“Let us make it clear now: we are prepared to die for Zuma. Not only that, we are prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma.” Julius Malema, 16 June 2008
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Here’s the truth: a rugby team has done more today for the idea (and and actual practice) of cohesion and excellence than any political party has done for those things in 18 months. But you watch every party try to take ownership of it in the next week, rather than learn from it.
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Every ANC meeting about the president confirms one thing above all others: The problem is the ANC, not Jacob Zuma.
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Everyone should stop being so tough on the ANC. After all, 30% is a pass mark. They taught us that ages ago. 40% is crushing it. All this 50% pass stuff is just western propaganda.
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This is outrageous. Blatant campaigning. Total abuse of the office of the president. Just utterly disgraceful.
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Here is a sobering thought: Our energy crisis was birthed in 2007. In four years time - in 2025 - those born in 2007 will turn 18. This is the “load-shedding generation” - an entire generation who will never have known a stable electricity supply. How’s that for an ANC legacy?
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1|18 There seems to be a general misunderstanding of the EFF’s proposed national shutdown. It isn’t to protest, disrupt or intimidate, it is to test the revolutionary waters. Here is how:
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I am starting to wonder if Dali Mpofu is on the bottle. I mean you can't make this stuff up. These two tweets, back to back.
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At 1m in this interview, Lindiwe Sisulu says, as minister of intelligence, “we bugged everybody (in the media)”. This strikes me as a profound admission and worthy of serious investigation.
🔴BREAKING NEWS🔴 ANC veteran Lindiwe Sisulu has revealed that during their investigation into the X account Goolam, they discovered that the person behind the account works in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office and is a woman involved in communication.
Sisulu shared this
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Think the DA should walk away now. This CR stuff about a parallel state is a red line. If the ANC cannot conceive of a coalition, you cannot be in one with it. It will destroy it. Makes negotiations moot too: No trust equals no sustainable foundation, however the deal structured.
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Breaking: SA releases its own first-ever picture of a black hole.
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The idea that many people - once again bitterly disappointed in Ramaphosa - are trying desperately to articulate but cannot quite bring themselves to say just yet, is: “The ANC and Ramaphosa are one in the same and we were wrong to think otherwise.” You’ll get there in the end.
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To summerise the ANC conference: Passengers on the Titanic just re-elected the captain.
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The ANC is the most despicable organisation - a self-serving, anti-public collection of venal, dishonest incompetents. And the transport minister is a semi-literate fool as well. Think that about covers it.
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Say what you want about the DA but Hlophe the first big ethical test of the new parliament, and all these new parties (Bosa, ASA, RM) that spent months saying how useless the DA was, all capitulated before the EFF/MK’s disgraceful candidate like a pack of cards. The DA did not.
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As a resident, I cannot tell you how infuriating this is. The denial is one thing, but the tone - hapless, visionless, dismissive, detached arrogance - is incomprehensible in a public representative. Day 1 and already I have absolute contempt for this man.
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The ANC defies belief, really. Her royal highness is stuck in a lift and someone must must be fired. Meanwhile our children literally cannot read for meaning and no one is fired. And that’s just education.
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Discovery’s “Black People Only” equity scheme a great opportunity to test the law: A white person should apply, say they identify as black, and then require Discovery to legally prove (perhaps Discovery has some kind of pencil test), they are white. Then take them to court.
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Please take a moment, as ANC, Cosatu and SACP members scream blue murder about war mongering Trump and the imperialist USA, to remember how none of them would say a word about Robert Mugabe for decades, as they argued it was not their place to comment on foreign governments.
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Great news! Airplane pilots no longer need a certain amount of hours in the air to get their licence! And to lead by example, Ramaphosa will employ the first such pilot to fly the presidential jet. Leadership!
Ramaphosa calls for experience to be scrapped to allow young people to enter labour market
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3 facts about Brian Molefe, worth remebering:
1. Cyril Ramaphosa was head of ANC deployment committee when Molefe appointed Eskom acting CEO.
2. CR was also in charge of a grand SOE “turnaround” strategy at time.
3. CR totally endorsed Molefe’s appointment as a “shot in the arm”
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So I presume the next step is for SAPS to open a docket, to bring Malema and Shivambu in for questioning, with a view to building a case and arresting them if the affidavit holds up? Looking forward to quick progress on this.
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Today is the very tough day for Thuli Madonsela, who desperately wanted the EFF and MK in government. It would be nice if the coalition didn’t fail, but while it holds please join me in sending her thoughts and prayers.
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Lindiwe Sisulu says “I stand by what I penned”. Well, that rules out 23% of that column at any rate.
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There is a massive water crisis coming to SA over the next decade, that will make the problem of Eskom look insignificant by comparison. Our water infrastructure is shot, our boards are shot, and our supply is shot. And the weather ain't helping either.
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The presidency was a suppressant, it held at bay, at least partially, Zuma’s fundamental contempt for the constitution. He is off the drugs now, and the full, grotesque menace looms large. This man is possibly the biggest threat South Africa’s democracy has ever faced.
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This is staggering, a real revelation if true. Too big, I fear, for people properly to process. R4.5m a month for Zuma, in cash, from the security agencies? An unbelievable crime on an unprecedented scale.
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People queuing for SASSA grants dispersed with water cannons. Crowd in Bloemfontein, at Ace Magashule’s trial, left alone. Curious.
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That was the speech of a man adrift at sea, trying to turn a raging storm into a breeze, by reading to it, in an emotionless tone, his hopes and fears. As his ship is hurled towards the rocks, he turns finally to his crew: “More words, comrades! We need more words!”
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Philosophical question: If you know a party is fundamentally corrupt, loaded with ethically compromised individuals, profoundly hostile to accountability, and systemically incompetent, and you vote for them, are you co-responsible for the damage that party inevitably inflicts?
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What utter bullshit. 1000s of cases of corruption, at national and provincial level alone (never mind the ocean of corruption and maladministration at local level) and he says we going through a renewal? Not a single high level prosecution. On what planet?
We are cleansing the country and getting ready for the next mission. Beyond what we are going through now, we will emerge much stronger and much more detemined. The current processes are taking us through a catharsis, that will lead us to redemption. Let us not be too alarmed.
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The problem with the ANC today is not that Malusi Gigaba wants to be president, but that he thinks he is presidential material.
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A Bathabile Dlamini speech is the equivalent to taking a brain, putting it into a blender for 10 minutes, mixing in a hallucinogenic and a few random letters of the alphabet and then connecting the resultant goo to a microphone.
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The thing about MK: It does not exist for the public interest. It has no views on the public good. It is a grievance machine for a single, deeply wounded ethno-nationalist. Its purpose is poltical brute force, to destroy personal enemies. Every MK vote is just fodder to that end.
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Soooooooo excited! Some HUGE arrests coming in next 24 hours! Cause the police minister doesn’t lie. Brace yourselves!
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Q: As far as I can tell, Cyril Ramaphosa, president of the ANC, a party which has had a dire election, and dropped below 50% for the first time, has yet to address the media as ANC leader, or take any questions from the media on the result? How, exactly, is that possible?
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Shame, poor Cyril Ramaphosa, imagine being no less than the Deputy President of a country and governing party for a whole five years, and being so ignorant you didn’t even know a company had half the state and party on its bribery payroll. Actually... hang on...
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Consider tonight especially the weak and vulnerable: tomorrow, on the back of a decimated economy, joblessness, Covid-19 shambles and a massive cold front about to hit, there will be loadshedding. Why? Because the ANC. But, you know, they are the party of the people.
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Anyone interested in a thread on some of the ANC’s more infamous election quotes? I dunno, 50 likes and I’ll do one?
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Only in SA can a spokesperson for the party that killed 144 people through callous indifference and cruelty take up the mantel of spokesperson for the ethical concerns of those families effected, and then feign moral outrage on their behalf. It is disgusting arrogance.
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Rarely have I seen the ANC government adopt almost totally the policy of the official opposition. Never mind the smart lockdown model, there are stage descriptions in the President's address that could have been lifted wholesale from the DA's document.
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Party that operates in a “war room”, whose leader is called a “commander in chief”, whose members are called “fighters” and “ground forces”, and which regularly says things like it will take power “through the barrel of a gun”, bemoans war and war talk as capitalistic 🤪
All progressive & socialist forces in the world should oppose senseless wars, should isolate war mongers & defeat them. Where’s the ICC? War is basically about capitalist elites sending young people to die in battlefields so that the elites can continue to live!
#NoToWar
!
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EFF is doing great work making the DA’s case for them. Just basically acting like a massively racist, anti-constitutional bunch of thugs. Which is what they are. How would anyone, never mind the DA, vaguely interested in a shared future or economic prosperity, work with the EFF?
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Principally and politically, this is THE battle. The DA and the WC need to keep their schools open. Go to court, use whatever means necessary to have this fight. The ANC/SADTU/EFF vs the DA/Reason/Rationality. The DA can define itself in a profound way.
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Well, if the bar for resignations is now set at meeting the Guptas, there ain’t gonna be much of a cabinet left after this commission is done.
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I don’t know if the ANC’s behaviour on social media is indicative of its behaviour on the ground, I presume it is, but never before have I seen the ANC this panicked, this far out of an election. 100% propaganda mode on every front. Remarkable to watch the desperation.
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The taxi industry is out of control. They pay no taxes. Taxi drivers show contempt for the rules of the road. They assassinate and terrorise their opposition. They vandalise and destroy property on a massive scale. They are becoming more mafia than a public service.
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The good news is, using the ANC’s matric pass rate of 30%, this election has been a roaring success for the party.
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Ramaphosa impressive tonight on travel bans. Clear, reasonable, passionate and damning. Quite right too.
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I get the sense the national mood is changing, as inevitable ANC incompetence begins systematically to undermine whatever goodwill and sense of “unity” it had initially engendered.
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Must say, I quite like the idea of a billionaire president overseeing a bankrupt party, and apparently entirely unwilling to help it out. In the meantime, enjoying the benefits of R2bn VIP protection programme, five official state houses and a private jet, at taxpayer’s expense.
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So, to summerise, the ANC’s attitude to mining seems to be: create a regulatory framework that destroys growth, discourages investment and over-complicates compliance, then, when mines collapse, to call them “mindless” and “uncaring”. That’s a special kind of stupid.
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Not sure why everyone blaming Ramaphosa for GDP decline. 57% of SA voters gave his particular brand of economic mediocrity a mandate. Maybe have a word with them?
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Breaking: Man whose party never abides by court decisions stresses importance of abiding by court decisions.
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Watched Bathabile Dlamini’s SONA speech. Honestly, how on earth is this person a national minister? Watching her trying to grasp reason and logic is akin to watching someone wearing a latex glove covered in crude oil, trying to squeeze a pealed banana dipped in Sunlight liquid.
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Great speech. A few points. 1. The EFF is regressive not progressive. 2. The EFF is racist. 3. The EFF deplores consequences. 4. The EFF lies all the time. 5. The EFF has sold out multiple times. 6. So far, history says the EFF is a failure. Otherwise, all good.
Good morning progressive forces! We must hold onto each other with such strength that it unsettled the racists and collaborators.
Our readiness to face any consequences will carry us to victory and history will absolve us. We must destroy the very idea of fear from our minds by
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Just finished at the Randburg Licensing Department. The place is a slum. Filthy, dilapidated and ugly. The staff, helpful and friendly enough, work in ramshackle hovels. In summary: It is a monument to decay.
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Everything Fikile Mbalula touches turns to mould.
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If I was the DA I would write to the SABC to ask for a live broadcast from Alan Winde tomorrow night, as he brings to a close his five year provincial administration. Fair is fair.
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Amazed at how little capacity the PA has. Not a single voice outside of McKenzie. No executive bodies, senior leaders or staff. Just one man - the cook, the baker and the candlestick maker. Must be the most intellectually hollow organisation in SA. Definition of a one-man show.
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I have just listened to the minister of defence, on enca. There are 1000 SANDF members in KZN. 1000? I cannot describe the accompanying, incoherent, indecisive babble that accompanied that fact. This was just an amateur, a pretend defence minister. Absolutely clueless.
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Another EFF supporters observation: They seem to have the smallest vocabulary and thus narrowest mindset imaginable - forever trapped between the words “racist” and “white”. Take those away and most would be left to mouth sweet nothings, like angry Goldfish, blowing only bubbles.
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A leaked report says it would cost R8.4bn to build a new parliament in Tshwane, but that would save R183m each year on MP travel. So, it would take a mere 46 years before those savings alone (ignoring other costs) paid off a new parliament. Seems like a regular ANC kind of plan.
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Summary of ANC governance, based on ANC descriptions:
-SOEs: Bankrupt
-Police: 10,000 officers corrupt
-Health: Verge of collapse
-Local Government: 61% dysfunctional/almost dysfunctional
-Education: Broken
-Economy: Shrinking
-Unemployment: 36%
-Water: Trillion Rand backlog
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Anyone interested in a reasonably short little thread on what the 2021 polls said vs the actual 2021 election result? Like if keen.
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Malema has plans for Eskom. So far, he has helped bankrupt Limpopo, the ANCYL, his family trust and, of course, himself. So we should definitely be listening to him carefully. I mean, if we could just improve Eskom from its R420bn debt to mere bankruptcy, we'd be laughing.
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One of my favourite JHB potholes. Coming along so nicely.
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I feel sorry for Panyaza Lesufi. Some time ago SA realised its future lay in coalitions. Not him. Stuck in the past, slave to an antiquated majoritarian impulse, he is slowed being drowned by a changing world. Might take a while for him to be fully submerged, but it is coming.
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