We are, most of us in this fair land, subjects of the AbaThembu kingdom – according to a declaration of secession presented to Parliament recently.

If this comes as a surprise to the good folk of KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Northern Cape and parts of Gauteng and the Free State – who are all claimed as part of the independent AbaThembu kingdom – it’s been a hugely compelling issue in the Eastern Cape recently, not least for the AbaThembus whose most famous son is Nelson Mandela.

It’s been an amusing topic of discussion in the Eastern part of the province and, for the past month, the letters pages of the East London-based Daily Dispatch newspaper have been filled with strident views on the secession attempt and its apparent leader, King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo.

Talk of secession, whether it comes from Texas or the Isle of White, is compelling in today’s world as it seems so loony. And Dalindyebo, who is Mandela’s clan nephew, is a colourful and controversial figure of the first order. He has a talent for dramatic gesture and has made headlines for years, from public spats with the Matanzimas over who is the rightful AbaThembu king to claiming in court papers that Mandela led an ANC coup to unseat him in 2002.

However, Dalindyebo is also a very influential traditional leader. Not only are the AbaThembus an important Xhosa royal family, but the king has political blue blood as Dalindyebo’s father, Sabata, chose exile over the apartheid government’s Bantustan policy. King Sabata Dalindyebo, after whom the Mthatha  municipal area is named, was no National Party stooge.

The fact that it took about a decade to bring the current king to trial in the Mthatha High Court last year for a raft of serious crimes – including kidnapping, culpable homicide, arson and assault with intent to commit grievous bodily harm – shows just how influential he is.

Dalindyebo was sentenced in October last year to 15 years for his crimes. They included ordering in 1995 that one of his subjects be beaten up as well as ordering the kidnapping of a mother and her children after the woman’s husband failed to pay a fine Dalindyebo had given him.
Then in December Votani Majola, Dalindyebo’s lawyer and head of The King Dalindyebo Justice Task Team, demanded that the state compensate the AbaThembu nation R80-billion and the royal family R900-million for the humiliation suffered as a result of Dalindyebo’s criminal conviction. Failure to do so would result in the nation seceding, charged Majola.

Majola served notice on President Jacob Zuma’s office and the National Prosecuting Authority about the intention to secede and then, on January 14, a declaration of secession was given to Parliament. Parliament has confirmed it has received the declaration but said it was not sure such an issue fell within its jurisdiction. Nevertheless, Majola  threw down the gauntlet and told the Daily Dispatch last month: “I served the notice on 14 January. We have officially cut ties with South Africa and we are no longer South African.”

Dalindyebo is a wily political player and has been careful to make no pronouncements on the issue but his spokesperson, Phumla Matshaya, has confirmed that the king was aware that Majola had served notice on Parliament. “Votani  is working with us,” said Matshaya. “He has done his research. He is not a crazy man and he got his act together.”

Well, we AbaThembu subjects are relieved to hear the good lawyer is not completely potty. But there are serious questions raised by this peculiar turn of events. Is this a looming constitutional crisis or is   Dalindyebo South Africa’s answer to Mad King George? And how should the government and the ANC respond?
It must certainly be embarrassing to Zuma and the ANC’s national leaders, who have always treaded softly around the Eastern Cape kings. The Eastern Cape is the ANC’s historical and political heartland and the ANC’s OR Tambo region – which encompasses Mthatha – is the party’s biggest voting region. Further, Zuma went out of his way to court the traditional leaders of the region prior to being elected ANC president in 2008 and the 2009 national election.

My guess is that this a tricky little hot potato that no one wants to react to officially.  The presidency referred me to the  Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs on the matter. The Dispatch reported  that  that department stated it would intervene only if Dalindyebo approached it.
Until now the king’s chief advisers have distanced themselves from Majola’s claims.

At a  meeting – that included the king and Patekile Holomisa, the president of the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa – of AbaThembu leaders and ordinary people at the king’s Bumbane Great Place in Mthatha two weeks ago,  a decision was taken to help find funding for the king’s appeal against his convictions but the issue of secession was not discussed.

The media were barred from the meeting but Holomisa said afterwards that the issue of secession would be discussed at another meeting scheduled for later in February.

The Johannesburg-based Majola told me that he was not at the meeting but he would proceed with the secession process. “Secession was decided as early as December…The issue of secession is on and we are continuing to proceed,” he said, adding that his task team wanted the process to be peaceful.

Majola said that his task team were in the process of consulting the people on the ground in the Transkei and, after that, the next step would be formal engagement with the government. Provinces such as the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal were included in the claim, he said, because these were the pre-colonial lands of the AbaThembu.

Bantu Holomisa, the leader of the United Democratic Movement and one-time leader of the Transkei homeland, said Transkeians will not take this seriously until they are consulted on the matter. But he also believed that Zuma and the ANC national leaders must be shocked and embarrassed by the turn of events from such a prominent king.

The ANC is probably using its influence on the ground to put a halt to the secession attempt, says Bantu Holomisa, so the upshot of the today’s meeting will be intriguing.

There are those who believe that this is a serious issue. Pierre de Vos, a law professor at the University of Western Cape who runs a successful blog, has warned that if the king and his lawyer act on the threat in anyway, they could be charged with treason. “There is always a thin line between expressing a wish and acting on a wish,” De Vos told the Dispatch.  “Once they start encouraging people to be disobedient towards the state they will be threatening the security of the state.”

However, Professor Stephen Friedman, director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy, says that in the practical world of politics, Dalindyebo is not going to be tried for treason.

Whatever the outcome of the meeting later this month, we can be certain that Dalindyebo is not going to step quietly off the stage. He has been granted leave to appeal his sentence and the Mthatha High Court has also granted the state leave to appeal the sentence on a culpable homicide charge – so it can up the charge to murder.

It seems Dalindyebo is determined to use everything in his arsenal to avoid a jail term so the ANC government hasn’t seen the last of the troublesome king.

* A version of this article appeared frist in Business Day.

* See also the Dispatch report on one of its reporters receiving threatening phone calls over the secession story.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Julius "Too Cool for School" Malema

Our popularist president is clearly feeling the heat of his seat in government. Why else would he would be prancing around on stage and trading jocularities with that Too Cool for School ANC Youth League buffoon Julius Malema?

We saw in the national election that Malema’s talent for shooting from the hip up the skirts of authority, white people and women that Julius can do wonders for aligning you with the masses. Malema’s vacuous popularism upsets so many also delights millions more and so to Limpopo went Mr Zuma to tell Malema’s homeboys that young Julius was a “leader in the making” and someone who would be worthy of inheriting the ANC. Click here for the full story on IOL.

Zuma also said, reports IOL:

“He is a young man who is in the process of growing up.”

Making fun of Malema’s expanding girth, Zuma said “he is a bit bigger now and he can intimidate bigger people”.

Zuma went on to say Malema did not merely speak about theory, he also did things and he was “real and not artificial”.

Articulate stuff but the truth is that Malema is neither that young (he’s 28, an age when most middle-class South Africans are knuckling down in their jobs and thinking of buying property) nor real. He peddles a ridiculouly transparent brand of popularism. He’s a ruthlessly ambitious, ill educated fat cat and would be better suited to hip hop than politics.

But then this is South Africa and look at our president… ruthlessly ambitious, transparently popularist, ill educated. He would be a fat cat if he didn’t have so many wives and children to support but he’s not doing too badly with girlfriends on the side and a coterie of rich businessmen to cover his expenses through The Friends of Jacob Zuma trust.

Makes me shake my educated, underambitious, financially struggling head, it does. It would be amusing if it weren’t so damn discouraging.

Click here to read an excellent M&G profile and analysis of the Malema phenomenon from a couple weeks back.

And take this from whence it comes, YouTube. It’s a video clip of Zuma speaking about Malema on something purporting to be “MTV Base” posted today on the site:

Popularity: 12% [?]

At the opening of East London’s new mega-mall last month, I couldn’t help noticing that few people paid much attention to a speech by the province’s finance MEC, Mcebisi Jonas. And it wasn’t because they were being rude as everybody had listened closely to the speech before, from the hugely respected BEE developer and home boy Sisa Ngebulana.

Jonas is no stranger to controversy and had the gall to start his speech by saying something along the lines of “When I was asked to speak at the opening, I didn’t want to…” (now that’s how you win friends and influence people). But as the decision-makers of the Eastern Cape, such as they, tucked into the canapes and chatted away in a desultory fashion throuhg the MEC’s address, it got me thinking about how South Africans view our leaders.

The record turn-out in the April national election and whopper of an endorsement for the ANC surpirsed many — myself included, especially here in the Eastern Cape. Sure, it’s the ANC’s historical heartland but the vast majority of Eastern Capers in townships and the rural areas have also been largely abandoned by their ANC leaders. Clinics, schools and housing are in a shocking state and the Bhisho’s bigwigs continue to mismanage, look after their buddies through dodgy tenders and siphon off taxpayers’ money. Hell, even the quality of the water in this poor benighted province is going to the dogs — and if you can’t even deliver clean water to your citizens, what can you do?

I personally thought Cope would do much better than it did in the national poll in the Eastern Cape though, all told, the party did well for its first time at the stumps and it is now the province’s official opposition. The DA lost ground as did the UDM and the PAC;  the ANC still has an overwhleming majortiy in the provincial legislature.

But then, there’s the 2011 local government elections to come and I wonder if that’s where we will see the real shift. The local East London paper, the Daily Dispatch, has been running a series of what they call “Dispatch Dialogues” over the past year and the ordinary folk who turn up, black, coloured and white, are gatvol of their local authorities and are demanding better services.

My feeling is that the vast majority of ordinary South Africans – and by that I mean the millions of people in the townships and rural areas – see the ANC national government as something far away, emblematic of their decades of struggle for democracy but essentially meaningless to their worlds. Voting for the country’s president is akin to voting for an Idols contestant, methinks.

Provincial government is one step closer but also difficult to access and to influence but when it come to your local municipality and ward councillors, that’s what people really care about. Bring on 2011, I say.

Popularity: 5% [?]

1.There’s has been a bomb scare at Luthuli House, the ANC’s HQ, in Joburg. An M&G reporter was in the building so we should get good stuff from them. Click here to read and look out for updates.

2. Meanwhile, acting SABC chief  executive Gab Mampane has apparently locked himself in his office following a sit-in by staff members who want the SABC’s bigwigs fired. Read the story at The Times. What a lot of fun! Someone should just call in a bomb threat. That’ll get the big guy galvanised.

3. Politicsweb has put up an insightful extract of the latest HSRC report into AIDS. Click here to go there.

4. The Dispatch has a cute story about East London’s first ever “gay” penguins, who are to become proud parents after been given an egg to hatch. Click here.

5. I know he’s not local but you gotta love “Gordon Big Mouth” Ramsay. Someone’s got to get Julius Malema together with Ramsay, who is apologising for suggesting that an Ozzie TV presenter is an ugly pig. Read the story here at New24.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Five things you need to know about SA today

1. It’s the state of nation address today in Parliament. Always interesting to see how fast and well the online media can cover such an event. Meanwhile, The Times reports that both Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki will be there. Click here to read.

2. Business Day has an interesting analysis of Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni’s unusual attempt to talk down the rand yesterday. Click here to read. He’s clearly worried about our exports, with mining and manufacturing showing record declines recently.

3. Moneyweb has an interesting international story about Australia bucking the world trend and avoiding recession thus far. The magic ingredient seems to be aggressive action from Oz’s central bank, which cut its repo rate by 425 basis points in  seven months, taking it to a record low of 3%. The government also came up with  A$52-billion stimulus package. Read the story here.

4. Business Report explains why food prices in SA supermarkets are still high while agricultural prices have dropped. Commodities are hard to understand but it seems the rand has some role to pay and it takes a while for lower agricultural prices to feed into the economy. You can take some solace from the fact that we’re not the only ones in the world with high food prices.  In Canada, for instance, food inflation is 17 times higher than overall inflation – at 7.1%  compared with 0.4 %. In SA, food inflation is 13.7%  compared with  8.4% overall. Click here to read the story at IOL.

5. Which brings us back to President Jacob Zuma’s address today. The M&G says our economic woes are sure to take centre stage in the speech. Click here to read a rundown of the concerns analysts would like to see addressed.

Popularity: 4% [?]

David Bullard has been all over the blogosphere in the past week, arguing and trading witticisms and insults with Internet users in comment threads at Moneyweb, where his Out to Lunch column now  resides after being sacked from the Sunday Times for an allegedly “racist” column, and other blogs.

Some users profess to hate him but they’re still there reading his columns and comments.  The guy people love to hate is always clever, irreverent and articulate. Click here to read the recent Moneyweb column.

As his court date with the Sunday Times looms on June 22, Grubstreet spoke to the controversial Bullard about life after the Sunday Times, the Zuma apology and how tough it was to re-establish his reputation.  Click here if you’ve forgotten what all the fuss was about and read the column that got Bullard fired  — and for other links about Mr Conspicuous Consumption post-Sunday Times.

QUESTION. Give me a rundown of all the things you’re doing these days? You’re on Moneyweb. You’re on Radio Today (on satellite doing a media show)?
ANSWER.  I’m writing Out to Lunch on Moneyweb. I’ve got a new column on the Richmark Sentinel – that’s been going
two weeks and with Michael Trapido of Thought Leader so we’ll see what’s happen with that and I’m doing a clutch of
magazines still… I’m also doing quite a bit of corporate stuff, which I had been doing  before (leaving the Sunday Times) from time to time.
Quite a lot of that involves going to MC conferences and such like, which pays well. It pays better than writing. That dropped off after the initial sacking, obviously, because once your name has been tarnished by your employer, people tend to phone and say: “I’m sorry, we don’t want a racist being MC”. To which I would then say: “Well, have you ever had one before? Give it a go.” Fortunately that’s come back now because the credibility of the accusations are – shall we say – diminished so I’m back in favour, I’m happy to say.

Q. Well, let’s talk about that: about rebuilding your reputation. It couldn’t have been that easy?
A.  No, it’s a bit like having acid thrown in your face and then having the guys run away. I invited my accusers (at the

Bullard as we knew him every week at the Sunday Times.

Sunday Times) to come live on air both on TV and radio and they weren’t prepared to. Their diaries were too busy… I think to be accused of racism in this country is very emotive…
I took the view that I had to fight back because a). It’s a lie, and b). It’s also extraordinarily damaging and so instead of going tail between legs and hiding away somewhere in the Free State, I was on every radio and TV station who invited me to go on and discuss it. I decided that I would make a comeback. I think the fact that Alec Hogg (of Moneyweb), who is a respected business commentator, took on the Out to Lunch column says an awful lot for it as well.
It is incredible difficult and has been very traumatic for both my wife and I. And I have to say that I was incredibly depressed for two or three months – I was opening a bottle of wine at 10 in the morning and contemplating suicide but I thought I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. I thought to fight back would be a better idea.

Q. Did you ever think of going back to the bond market and leaving media behind you?
A. No, that’s all changed quite a bit now. I think I was there in the heyday, when the market wasn’t particularly transparent and that’s when you make money. So the market’s very transparent now and, of course, under the rather more capable administration of the ANC, the economy isn’t as volatile as it was under the Nats. Which is a paradox but you had more money to be made under the Nats than you do now.
I also think you outgrow it. I had decided to do a bit of a right-brain activity by writing and I never really want to leave that and I do enjoy it.

Q. When you were with the Sunday Times, you famously shut down your blog and said: “This is for the birds”. But now you’re back blogging?
A. Well, I’m being paid. I didn’t think there was an awful lot of point spending time in the office at  the Sunday Times and not being paid to write (for the blog) when I was being paid to write for print and I just don’t think they were sophisticated enough to think that this might be the new way. So whatever I’m doing now, I’m getting paid for and I’m getting paid a slightly higher rate, I suspect,  than the newspapers pay. So that makes it worthwhile.
I do think things are going to change with Seacom and other cables and more people are going to be getting their information on a computer so my attitude to blogging and the Internet has probably changed a little bit over the past two years.

Q. It seems you enjoy arguing with people in the comments threads of blogs?
A. I love it. I’ve always enjoyed controversy and the great thing is people are very easy to get a rise out of. All you’ve got to say is: “I’ve got a bigger desk”… and it’s something that doesn’t go down well with people who don’t have a bigger desk.  You can always get a rise by talking about having lots of money and being allowed to ride a Bentley and things like that.

Q. Let’s talk about that. You’ve always projected yourself as Mr Conspicuous Consumption and independently wealthy. Are you in fact independently wealthy?
A. I’m probably well off enough to take the Sunday Times on in court but I do need a job. I’ve got a reasonable amount of what they call FU money but I still need to work. You know, all I’ve really done is provide for old age so I don’t necessarily want to lose it all because at some stage, I won’t be able to work and I’m rather hoping it will be able to see my wife and I through to old age.
When I was employed at the Sunday Times, I got into motoring because no one was writing motoring at the paper and then spent seven years travelling around the world down the sharp end of planes and driving very fast cars… And I did brag about it, of course, because what the point of travelling down the sharp end of an aircraft and driving fast cars if you don’t brag about it.

Q. Indeed. But when the court case is over or settlement is reached with the Sunday Times, what happens then because you have defined yourself as the guy who got fired from the Sunday Times and fought back?
A.  All I really want there is an apology. I’m not after lots of money, to be honest. I would like them to pay lots of money, which I would then give to charitable causes. I would like them to pay for the past 14 months when I wasn’t employed and to pay the legal fees but really I’m out for an apology. I just want fairness because I think putting posters around town saying: “Bullard sacked for racist article” was very dirty and completely untrue and was not something that the Humans Rights Commission have agreed with either. They haven’t come back and said: “Gosh, this guy is a menace to society. Let’s put him away”… I think, afterwards, I’ll probably stay on the Internet (doing what I am now).

Q. Can you tell me what the figure is you’re claiming?
A. I’m not claiming anything. I’m asking for my job back. I want an apology and my job back. I’m going for reinstatement because I contest I was wrongfully dismissed. People say: “Could you go back there with all the ill feeling?” and I say: “That’s not my problem; that’s their problem. Of course I could go back there”… But I suspect what they’ll probably do is say: “This doesn’t work” (and pay me to go away) or they’ll fight it in court… But an apology will be first prize and it doesn’t need to cost them a lot of money, to be honest.

Q. Now let’s talk about you apologising to Jacob Zuma. Tell me about the meeting?
A. I was speaking at a breakfast at Emperor’s Palace… and the lady at the table said: “You know Jacob Zuma is still suing you for R1.2-million? I don’t know if you know it but would you like me to make it go away?” I thought that sounded quite nice but I thought it was a wild play. Then I got a phone call at about 10am that day to say I must be at a meeting 4.45pm. (I went off and met) the lady in question, who handles Zuma’s legal affairs with newspapers, and she set up an apology within the day.
Mr Zuma sat at the end of the table silently while I made my speech to him, saying that having been on the other side – having been the hunted rather than the hunter – I understood what it was like and the damage that your family suffer and I offered my apologies. To which he replied: “I accept your apology without qualification, Mr Bullard”. The lawyers from the Sunday Times phoned the next day and it was all gone.
You know, people say: ‘Why did you apologise?” But if you’re unemployed and you’ve got a chance of someone dropping a R1.2-million court case, there is a pretty compelling argument that you should be thinking of apologising.
The fact is that having been on the other side, I also felt that we had been a little unfair and he didn’t have to accept the apology. But he did and I was very impressed with that. He didn’t interrupt me when I spoke to him. I was impressed with the way he did it.  We then spent 30 minutes chit-chatting about all sorts of things. I think he’s an incredibly resilient man.
I asked him if he ever got depressed about all the comments (made about him) and he just said no. I think he just takes it. I would have been hugely depressed about it, including (the things) written by the paper I used to work for – especially the things I’d written…

A. Do you want to add anything?
Q. The other one was the ANC. People said that suddenly I was endorsing the ANC. The reason for that is that I was invited to by the ANC. I hardly think that someone sacked from the Sunday Times for racism would go along to an ANC meeting and say: “Hi guys. I want to get my credibility back. Any chance I can address your party?” They would have said something quite rude.
I was invited to be there and I did it from the point of view that we have to live in this country and we have to live with the government. We have to embrace the new president and his cabinet and hope that they do well and, when they don’t, they’ll think that it’s our job as the media to point it out…
I’m quite impressed with what Jacob Zuma’s done thus so far. I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt and my support until I see a reason not to. I must say I’m much more comfortable with a Jacob Zuma presidency than I ever was with a Thabo Mbeki presidency… I feel quite relaxed living in South Africa under a Zuma government at the moment. I reserve the right to change that view though.

Popularity: 13% [?]

For a long time many of us — myself included –  have been Snuki bashing. Under Dr Zikalala, SABC radio and TV news was a fat yawn and unctious — and then there was the John Perlman saga.

Well, now that he’s got the chop, he’s given an interview to The Star about his time at the SABC and it makes for interesting reading to get the other side. On the blacklisting issue, he says it was more like “greylisting” — that he just wanted commentators to be from academic institutions and he gave out no names of preferred commentators.

Personally I’m sticking with the highly respected Perlman and Pippa Green on this, who resigned in protest that there was blacklist  of commentators.

I don’t reckon Zikalala will find as many job options post-SABC as Green and Perlman did. They bounced back fast, with Perlman now doing his current affairs show at KayaFM and Green writing the recent autobiography of Trevor Manuel.  The SABC not renewing Zikalala contract was seen as a move to oust the Mbeki camp from the broadcaster so I guess he’s not with the “in” crowd at Luthuli House either.  Oopsie. Abandoned by the devil and deep blue sea.

Click here to read the interview with Zikalala at IOL.

Popularity: 4% [?]

1. Here’s a choice bit of observation at today’s cabinet pow-wow. IOL reports that DA leader Helen Zille, who is at the cabinet lekgotla as Western cape premier, was spotted in the parking lot at the Presidential Guesthouse in Pretoria texting messages into her cellphone — while the other delegates were inside with their phones locked in a cubby hole. Click here to read. The reporter wonders if Zille is worried about having her cellphone bugged. It seems the mood was rather jolly in the boardroom and Zille had a friendly chat with President Jacob Zuma before hand. This after she caused a media storm when she called the president a “selfconfessed womaniser” and has broken protocol by scheduling her state of the province address before Zuma’s state of the nation speech.

2. Zuma’s spokesman says that his wives are all equal and he hasn’t made a choice about first lady. Read the story here at The Times.

He hasn’t decided that only one is the first lady. He will decide at any given time who will go with him. He may go with all three of them.

That will make for a jolly little tea party with Ms Clinton, when Team Zuma go to Washington.

3. It’s official — we’re in recession. But if you’re thinking state spending will get us out of it, then read this opinion piece by Business Day. It turns out that state spedning is already the chief ingredient to growth, with yesterday’s figures from Stats SA showing  construction, government services and personal services is being supported by the official purse.

4. There are a few companies doing well out of our straightened circumstances. Mr Price has reported a  24% increase in  clothing sales to R4.5-billion for the year to the end of March as consuners are shopping more at the cheaper end of the market. The chain store has opened 58 new stornes in this period but also said even they were expecting  the year ahead to be “challenging”. Read the IOL story here.

5. And talking about the economy, here’s an excellent piece by veteran reporter Hilary Joffe at Business Day anaylsing Eskom’s application for a 34% tarriff increase. Read it and you’ll see why there no reason for the public to pay for the parastatal’s need to invest in new infrastructure. Here’s one fact that staggered me: The R60-billion the government is giving Eskom this year is the first equity injection from the state  since Eskom was established in 1923!

Popularity: 23% [?]

The animosity between the ANC and the DA is growing and, with party leader Helen Zille’s breach of protocol (she’s scheduled her state of the province address before President Jacob Zuma’s state of the nation address), it’s likely to get worse before it gets better. (Click here to read The Times story on the latest spat.)

Last week, Grubstreet spoke to the DA’s leader in Parliament, Athol Trollip, who made headlines when he said Zuma should be treated with the respect that his office confers on him.

Trollip, who surprised many when he beat DA strategist Ryan Coetzee to the caucus leader’s job, is an Eastern Cape farmer who is known for his affable and collaborative style. Looks like he’s going to have his hands full in his desire to build a constructive relationship with the ANC.

Athol Trollip

“Anger very often clouds sanity,” Trollip said. “What I’ve been trying to instill in my colleagues at a provincial level and will continue to do so at a national level is to make sure we don’t try to engage the ANC is a shouting contest. Seventy-seven (DA) members will never be able to outshout 264 ANC members.

“I believe that we can do much more than being an opposition in Parliament, where one is typecast as antagonistic and politicking with the ANC. There is a place for it but I am a proponent of political engagement in the plenaries in Parliament… We will be an effective, critical opposition — where the ANC falls down and cannot deliver on (election) promises, we will expose that and come with an alternative that will make government more effective. ”

Those who know him from the Eastern Cape say Trollip will do the DA a lot of good in Parliament as because he grew up speaking Xhosa in rural Eastern Cape, he understands traditional African etiquette that the top people of the ANC appreciate: you can be forthright but polite; there’s no need to shout.

“It would come out very clearly when he addressed the premier,” said Zingisile Mkabile, the former Pan Africanist Congress leader in the Eastern Cape who has since left politics. “He has some understanding of African values in terms of respect… And having operated in the Eastern Cape, I think his approach will be different compared to those who come from the Western Cape or Gauteng, where the DA is much stronger. The opposition parties were overwhelmed by the ANC in the Eastern Cape so you had to find a way of navigating through that territory.”

It was in his new role as spokesman on the presidency that Trollip characterised Zuma as a fallible, “warm-blooded” South African that was read by some as contrary to Zille’s pronouncements on the president. In a letter last week to The Times newspaper, which reported Trollip’s statements at the Cape Town Press Club under the headline “Top DA man’s attack on Zille”, he denied distancing himself from Zille in any “shape or form”. (Click here to read The Times story that caused the mini media storm.)

He told Grubstreet that he thought the headline did not reflect the report or his statements. He says both Zille and he respect Zuma as the country’s president — a sentiment, he says, that has not been returned by the ANC for Zille’s position as premier of the Western Cape.

The DA is the most media savvy of all the parties and when asked if the strategy may be to project the Trollip and Zille as “good cop, bad cop”, Trollip smacked it down.

“It just shows you a week is a long time in politics because a week ago Helen was the darling of the media and the public. I think it’s a very funny question and I don’t want to be contemptuous about it,” he said.

“I believe I was elected on the strengths I bring to the caucus and not because I would be a balancing act for Helen. And I don’t believe she’s a bad cop. I believe she is an incredibly good cop and the reason why people saying she is being aggressive, you must understand the kind of onslaught she’s under (from the ANC Youth League and MK veterans).”

Trollip may be known for his collaborative style but Bobby Stevenson, who has taken over as the DA’s leader in the Eastern Cape legislature, said: “I think it’s wrong to say he’s not confrontational. He’s not afraid to call a spade a spade or point out any failures of government. I think he doesn’t personalise politics. He doesn’t get personal. He sticks to the issues – that’s his style.”

Click here to read a Q&A with Trollip I did for the Dispatch in 2007 when he campaigned for the top job in the DA and lost to Zille.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Five things you need to know about SA today

1. If you’ve been wondering what our former president, Thabo Mbeki, is up to these days,  he turned up as a  last-minute guest at a student meeting at Rhodes. He was by all accounts thoroughly charming and affable and even joked about a former Lovedale teacher who had a penchant for gin in a science beaker. Who turned out to be the grandfather of one of the students! Clearly,  the pressure’s off now that he’s not the Pres and he’s back to charming pre-presidency Mbeki! Read the Dispatch story here.

2. DA leader Helen Zille is under fire by the ANC again as she’s scheduled her state of the province address for Friday — before President Jacob Zuma delivers his state of the nation speech next week. This is a breach of protocol, says the government, so things are sure to get even nastier than they are between the ANC and DA. Read The Times story here.

3. The Times also reports that a doccie on political satire, which the SABC pulled  just before elections last month, will be on tonight on Special Assignment on SABC3 at 9.30pm. Click here to view a video interview with cartoonsit Zapiro at The Times. Zapiro’s work is featured in the show.

4. IOL has a handy rundown on President Jacob Zuma’s political appointments, who will advise him on his policy drive. Click here to go to the story.

5. Business Day reports that Cosatu will meet government ministers on the sidelines of a cabinet pow-wow tomorrow to try resolve an impasse over civil servants’ pay. Read the story here.

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Popularity: 9% [?]