Thursday.
It has been something of a staccato return to the territory after the break last year.
Work should have started last week but mine seems to be aging faster than Eskom’s geriatric fleet and, like the Hendrina, Komati and Grootvlei power stations, is losing its ability to generate power.
My De Ruytered Arthritis was running – stage six came out of nowhere, laying me flat, like a small dose of arsenic in my morning coffee, but different.
Thanks.
As a result, the last day of the ANC national conference, as well as President Cyril Ramaphosa’s closing speech and the January 8 annual statement that the head of state delivered in Mangaung on Sunday, had to go without me.
I’m a little sad.
It would have been cool, in a self-flagellating sort of way, to have seen the conference to its conclusion – stupid but satisfying – and to have joined comrades in Mangaung.
Public office holders are not the only ones addicted to the three ring circus of politics and the drama that comes with it.
See the friends who went down to the city that was looted and destroyed for a three-day party – everyone was concerned, gave a two-hour speech and promised to fix the hole – before returning to the big city with toilets and (mostly. ) running water for another year of troughs should also be seen.
There is also the unfinished business of counting the number of outside delegates from the Sasol garage at Nasrec – and their comrades who lost the battle in the conference room – who have come to the Dr Petrus Molemela Stadium to hear Ramaphosa deliver his speech. Zweli Mkhize will make it.
I didn’t see Carl Niehaus picketing outside the stadium on the television feed but maybe the camera and I both missed him – or former secretary general Ace Magashule and Mkhize, for that matter.
Mkhize’s supporters in Ramaphosa’s cabinet – and a former member of the national executive committee (NEC) who did not return to Nasrec – should be relieved that Ramaphosa is Process Johnny and will not use the ax before he gets January. salary
Also, former ANC North West chairperson Supra Mahumapelo, who was one of Ramaphosa’s cheerleaders for the cameras in Mangaung, soon after voted in parliament for the president to face an impeachment trial.
The president seems more likely to see the Black Jesus of the North West than he is to see Judas Mathabathaa – Limpopo’s premier, at least for now – on a pre-rally golf day.
Ramaphosa has blanked Mathabatha when he tried to congratulate him for winning the presidency in Nasrec, making the sense of the Prime Minister’s turn in supporting him for a second term crystal clear.
Ramaphosa ignored him again during the game at the Bloemfontein Golf Course – cold as ice – another reminder that Mathabatha was wrong when he tried to drag the Limpopo delegation with him down the N3 to support Mkhize.
Ramaphosa’s allies – and the rest of the country – are crying out for an immediate reshuffle but it is more likely to happen shortly before the State of the Nation address on February 9, once the “process” has been exhausted. again.
The seven selected at the conference have yet to meet. After that, there is a meeting of the NEC, together with the election of the national working committee to be addressed.
There is also the NEC lekgotla to consider the future configuration of the cabinet, and the government – along with a trip to Davos next week for the World Economic Forum – to get through before there is a chance Cyril put the hammer on Nathi Mthethwa and others. of the baggage they – and we – have been carrying since 2018.
If the secretary general of the ANC Fikile Mbalula and the rest of the country are gagging to reshuffle the cabinet, how should Paul Mashatile feel?
Mashatile got the ANC deputy presidency as a Christmas present, but he still hasn’t been able to open it – metaphorically – and move to an office on the west side of the Union Buildings that bears his name since December 20.
Mashatile has found himself in a procedural cul-de-sac. The Parliamentary list is closed until March and Ramaphosa’s two cabinet slots can be filled by non-MPs Mondli Gungubele and Enoch Godongwana – key allies of the president – so Mashatile may have to wait longer than February to take up the position as the country’s vice president.