The Week That Was- ANC, CNN, Jacob Zuma, South Africa, Tottenham Hotspurs

[Nat Quinn]

Gerald Potash,

Hello again,

Jacob Zuma has had a bad week. He lost–for the 6th successive time–yet another court action to have Billy Downer removed as the prosecutor in his upcoming corruption and money laundering trial in the ‘Arms Deal’ case. In that matter he is Accused No 1 and Thales, the French Arms dealers are Accused No 2. But then last week JZ also lost in the case where the courts made it quite clear that he is not able, as a convicted criminal, to represent the new Party, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in parliament after the upcoming elections. In fact even though the new Party has him as their No 1 on their list he is now compelled to stand aside. He will probably take this matter to court to have the ruling overturned but he will lose that case too.

To add to his gloom on Thursday night Zuma’s motor car was involved in a crash at about 7.00 pm. Neither he nor any of his guards were injured but the “drunk” 51-year-old driver of the other vehicle was arrested for drunken and dangerous driving.

Mind you, JZ was mightily happy to have won the case for his new Party to be called uMkhonto we Sizwe. The ANC went to court to try to prohibit the Party, led by Zuma from using that name. They explained that the name was that of the armed wing of the ANC when they, the ANC, were in exile. The ANC through their Secretary General, Fikile Mbalula went to court to stop the new Party using that name. The court did not agree with Mbalula and the name stays.

Amazingly Zuma remains one of the three most popular politicians in our country.

The leader of the MK Party, Visvin Reddy was in court yesterday (Wednesday) for threatening violence because JZ has been barred from contesting the election. He went ballistic and threatened riots. He will be charged with contravening the Riotous Assemblies Act.

Now it seems as if one of JZ’s many children, Duduzane, the one he favoured to be the millionaire in the family by “ lending” him to the Guptas so that the Zuma name would attract government tenders while he was President, is thinking of standing for Parliament. I loved this cartoon from Dr Jack & Curtis in News24:

Justice Malala writing in the Financial Mail points out that even if the ANC does drop below 50% in the upcoming elections they are still likely to remain the powerful force in our politics. It is more than likely that they will still hold all the key cabinet positions in any coalition and that is troubling because so much in this country needs to change. Chaos reigns in SA today because the governing Party has failed to implement the law when it must. Malala writes that nothing works because there are no guardrails. Our police are so weak that they are now outnumbered and outgunned by gangsters and security companies. To keep order the army will soon be deployed. And then what, asks Malala?

I tend to agree with Rassie Erasmus, the Springbok head-honcho who says that rugby is the only thing that works properly in SA today.

One of the most critical political thinkers in our country is Dr Frans Cronje. His talk on Chai FM radio station makes clear how very similar we, SA, are to Hamas. Hamas is the Iranian war proxy and SA is the Iranian ideological arm to spread their ideas and stigmatize Jews all over the world.

Another disturbing article in the Financial Mail this week highlighted the shrinking number of doctors we have left. The figures supplied by the South African Medical Association (SAMA) indicate a massive drop in the number of practising doctors and Ken Boffard, retiring head of the Association warns that the NHI (National Health Insurance) is coming whether we like it or not. Boffard quotes these figures for where our doctors have gone; Canada 350, Australia 300, US 150, and about 100 in the rest of the world.

SA made it onto the CNN News  twice last week. The first clip that I saw was all about the SA police being corrupt and ineffective and no, I didn’t write that segment for the American broadcaster.  This was the cartoon of the week by Nathi & Ubuntoons:

The second piece on CNN was about the bus transporting 45 believers of the Zion Christian Church from Botswana to Moria in Limpopo for the religious services. The bus they were travelling in fell off a bridge and burst into flames and 45 passengers were killed in the horrific crash. Only an 8-year-old survived. She is recovering well in hospital.

Cyril spent Sunday at Moria. He wasn’t the only politician to head for the churches this weekend.  The St Engeness Zion Christian Church is one of the biggest churches in the country and Cyril was there to shake hands, kiss babies, and have his photo taken.

Oh, Julius Malema was there too and they both received warm welcomes when introduced to the very large audience. They hugged on stage.

Cyril told the large crowd that he was expecting a decisive outright victory in the elections and for that he got a big cheer.

I wasn’t surprised to see who the Sunday Times had as their Mampara of the Week this week. None other than our disgraced Speaker of the House, Nosiviwe Mpasi-Nqakula. As the newspaper says “she believes that there is one set of rules for society and another set of rules for her”. On Tuesday she lost her urgent application to postpone her imprisonment. The court chucked it out and she is now in a tight corner.  The NPA can come to arrest her at anytime. Oh, she will be brought to court and will ask for bail and it will be granted so I don’t expect her to sleep in jail. But it is so nice to see an ANC big-shot squirming.

Paul Mashatile, our Deputy President is also under investigation. By Thursday he has to answer to the parliamentary ethics committee on the corruption charges he is facing.

Eskom continues to be a mess. The utility wants to hit consumers with a more than 30% unit price increase, well the price was increased this week but fortunately not by that much. Why the increase? Eskom owes more than R400 billion and it has to pay interest on that. We are approaching being the most expensive electricity in the world. And the price of our petrol has also gone up this week.

The usual sports fans, the world champion, the coach, Oom Dawie, Elise & Corrie and the rugby guru, Hendrik were on the couch for 6½ hours of sport on Saturday. The two big games were Spurs vs Luton in London and Stormers vs Ulster in Cape Town. The games followed each other on the box for a change which was convenient.. The first game (the Bulls) had the coach already on the couch at 3.00 pm and the Stormers game ended after 8.30. What an evening! Both big games went down to the wire.  In the Ulster game the first half was a nightmare for us fans and Spurs were equally poor in their game in the first half. The press on Monday called the Stormers game “ugly” and both games had our favourites behind at half time. But by the final whistle they had both won their matches. So all ended well.

On Tuesday night Spurs travelled down the road to West Ham and could only manage a draw. Disappointing because they had 72% possession. All you can say is:

COYS

As always,

Gerald

[Author]

Posts