If ever there was evidence that the chilly Mbeki era is over, this is it: a video of ANC president Jacob Zuma getting down (and I mean down) at an ANC election victory party recently. I don’t reckon there are many 67-year-olds could do this.
What’s his secret. Yoga? Pilates? Tae Bo?
Popularity: 6% [?]
The ANC took a hit in its heartland, the Eastern Cape, and the party would be foolish not to take it very seriously. Five years ago the ANC got 79% of the votes in the province; this time it was 68%. That’s akin to the Republicans getting punched squarely in the nose by the Democrats in Texas! See the Daily Dispatch lead story here.
Not only is the Eastern Cape the historic home of many ANC leaders, it also constitutes the party’s biggest voting block, with the Amathole (King William’s Town, East London etc) and OR Tambo (Mthatha and surrounds) the biggest regional branches.
Even more interesting is the fact that at the Rhodes University polling station in Grahamstown, the ANC only got 18% of the national vote (and 16% provincially).
The DA cleaned up with the students, getting almost 50% of the national vote and 44% of the provincial vote. Cope got 24% of the national vote and 30% of provincial vote.
"Surprise!'
Popularity: 3% [?]
With 70% of the votes counted by Friday morning, we’ve got a pretty good idea of how things have played out in the election so how does this translate into seats in Parliament? News24 has done the calculations:
1. Of the 400 seats in Parliament, the ANC has netted 190 seats so far (they’re at 65% of the vote, below the two-third’s majority).
2. The DA has got 47 seats.
3. Cope has 22.
4. The IFP has 11 seats, UDM 3 seats, FF+ 3 seats, the ID between 2 and 3, and the ACDP has got 2 seats so far.
5. It takes 44 600 votes to get one seat based on the fact that 17.9-million people voted. Read the full News24 story here.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Who are three jokers who voted for the ANC in the Afrikaner Never Neverland, Orania?
"Nooit, man!"
Lets not forget this odd little Northern Cape dorpie owned by a group of verkrampte Afrikaans families is not too welcoming to black folk so I doubt it was the domestic, the gardener and their gogo.
News24 has a fascinating little story (click here to read) that the election results from Orania show that the FF+ won 242 votes there (out of 279 votes cast). Three votes went ot the ANC. The DA got 26 votes, Cope and the ACDP each received three and two votes were spoilt.
This after ANC Youth League president Julius Malema went on a charm offensive there a short while back. The rest of the country may think him a bit of a buffoon but clearly he impressed three people at the back of the kerk. There’s will be dark mutterings in the pub tonight.
If you’ve forgotten what goes on in this dusty town in the lullies, click here to see their website but if your Afrikaans isn’t up to scratch, here’s a News24 feature about Orania life from a few years back.
[poll id="14"]
Popularity: 12% [?]
Moneyweb has an interesting interview with Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, the highly
respected opposition leader during the apartheid years who is now a politcal analyst and businessman (chairman of the Caxton Group). Click here to read the transcripts of Alec Hogg’s radio interview with “Van”, as he call him.
Van Zyl Slabbert spells out why an ANC two-thirds majority actually means stability in the minds of businessmen:
Well, the two-thirds majority is only important if it’s deep-rooted ideological. If on the other hand the two-thirds majority promises political stability, that’s music to investors’ ears, I can promise you that. They will say, “I would rather have an ANC with a two-thirds majority committed to free enterprise and stability than have a two-thirds majority for some kind of ideological pathological movement.
Two very canny operators, Alec Hogg and Van. It’s well worth a read, especially for Hogg’s backhanded swipe at politicians at the end.
Popularity: 2% [?]
There’s only one story today: the election results and how the online media is responding. Everybody’s got the story that by 8.30am this morning, the ANC had 63.7% (2 078 352 votes) – with the largest total of votes coming from the Eastern Cape (503 730) — the DA 19.5% (636,637 votes) and Cope only 7.7% (251 200 votes).
Most of the parties’ Facebook pages are silent and the IEC’s website is not loading, possibly because of the the number of hits on it.
It’s hard to beat the immediacy of TV and radio on this one but News24 seems to have the best online package of the big online media houses, with a cool little map of SA showing the results as they come in (the Western Cape is going to the DA, the rest are sticking with the ANC). Click here to go there.
My favourite story of the past two days, however, goes to the Daily Dispatch, which ran a reader competition of people’s memories of the 1994 election. I actually got a lump in my thoat when I read this one, about a reader’s memory of his grandfather voting for the first time.
The Dispatch’s election page is also much more lively than most, with an video interviews of young people talking about the election. Each video is embedded into a Google interactive map. Nice! Click here to interract.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Fastfood chain Nandos, of course, couldn’t resist with their special brand of irreverent advertising to capitalise on the election. Check out this fun little vid of comedian Don Packett showing you how to vote:
Popularity: 3% [?]
1. SA’s editors are steering clear of endorsing any particular party one day ahead of the election, with most saying that people should vote but must make up their own minds and that they don’t think they could influence voters if they tried. A bit of a cop out, methinks, but there you have it. Read a wrap-up of the editorial standpoints in this Business Day story.
2. Meanwhile on Facebook, the parties are up to some odd things. Jacob Zuma’s page has no update at all today, Helen Zille mentions a successful Middelburg rally in spite of ANC disruptions on route and Mosiuoa Lekota says: “Do not kill this country for one man. Vote COPE.” My personal favourite of all the politicos on Facebook, Bantu Holomisa (because he’s clearly writing his own missives with no spindoctor in between), simply says: “Elections elections elections.” Nuff said, General.
3. Twitter is where the action is and looks like its going to revolutionise SA elections as never before have South African citizens been able to share the voting experience with each other in such a direct, lively fashion. Check out the special Twitter newsfeed on Grub Street, updated every 30 minutes, here.
4. Speaking of new media, an audio clip of ANC spokesman Jessie Duarte losing her cool and laying into a Sunday Times journalist, whom she accused of being part of a “third force”, has spread like wildfire on the Net. The Times says almost 13 000 people had listened to the four-minute clip by last night and Cope and the DA have even posted a link to the recording on their Twitter accounts. Read The Times story here, which also links to the clip.
4. Not to worry Jessie because on the stump, the ANC played its trump card at a massive rally at Ellis Park attended by a laughing, relaxed Nelson Mandela. Read The Times story here.
5.
Popularity: 2% [?]
You know, I really would like to like Mr Zuma, our new president. I would, truly. As a proud ANC voter since 1994, I became so dismayed with Thabo Mbeki in his second term and began view him with a mixture of distaste and pity.
His paranoid, autocratic style of leadership did so much to damage our democracy — and we’re living with the consequences today: our health system is in a shambles because of Mbeki’s cronyism as he protected Manto Tshabalala-Msimang as health minister and fired Nosizwe Madlala-Routledge for acting on her conscious on the Frere Hospital investigation broken by the Daily Dispatch. (Compare, for instance, this to the fact that Barbara Hogan could speak out of turn on the Dalai Lama saga recently and still retain her job after she apologised). The dismantling of the Scorpions and now the discrediting of the NPA can be laid at Mbeki’s door as he sought to meddle — or at least created the climate for others to meddle to curry favour — where he should not have.
The corruption charges hanging over Jacob Zuma’s head are in the past as far as I’m concerned — that’s done and dusted. It’s time to move on and I do hope that Mr Zuma is as wily a political operator as I think he is.
Popularity: 10% [?]
1. Best quote of the week award goes to 79-year-old retired East London judge, Colin White, who just got his masters in history from Rhodes, graduating with his grand-daughter. He told the Daily Dispatch:
You’ve got to have something other than your bladder to get you up in the morning.
2. The Times reports that British newspaper The Guardian is in discussion with ANC president Jacob Zuma’s lawyers about apologising for a column they ran calling Zuma (among other things) a ‘‘polygamous, leopard skin-draped Zulu boss’’ and ‘‘unschooled former terrorist, communist sympathiser and rabble-rouser’’. Read the story here.
3. IOL’s Baybnet has a fun little election sidebar story on the various politicans’ favourite dishes. The UDM’s leader, Bantu Holomisa, for instance, goes moggy for a Thai dish, fish in coconut sauce. Read the story here.
4. The three doctors whose opinions helped convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik get medical parole will know today if they will be investigated formally by the Health Professions Council of SA.
5. A key figure in the Fidentia saga, Steve Goodwin, has been convicted of fraud, corruption and money laundering. Read the story at The Times here.
Popularity: 5% [?]
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