The Week That Was JUN 2, 2024 – ANC, Cyril, DA, Elections, Palestine, South Africa, Zuma

[Nat Quinn]

The Week That Was JUN 2, 2024 – ANC, Cyril, DA, Elections, Palestine, South Africa, Zuma

 

Gerald Potash,

Hello again,

At their final ANC election rally on Saturday at the FNB Stadium a giant Palestinian flag adorned the stage. There was no sign of a SA flag. You have probably seen our Foreign Minister and many of the Ministers wearing Keffiahs confirming their support for murderers and rapists and they threaten prison for any SAn who returns home after serving in the Israeli army.

The ANC is good at only one thing; giving away T-shirts. At the FNB stadium they handed over almost 70,000 T-shirts.

 This cartoon from David Doubel was in the Daily Friend earlier this week:

Ramaphosa used the SABC and our national TV stations on Sunday evening to campaign for the ANC rather than give a “Presidential” assessment of where we are as a nation and why we should all vote, as was expected. In this political stunt he even went so far as to tell us all how well the ANC had done during his term as president and how much better off we all are. That is a blatant lie. Fittingly he has received a strong backlash from virtually all the political parties and political commentators. The DA are hauling Cyril to the Electoral Court for abusing his office in the national address and for using the address solely to solicit votes for the ANC; which is illegal. They asked for a fine of R200,000 personally to be served on him and Zuma’s party, umKhonto we Sizwe (MK) also wants action from the IEC. They want Cyril to be jailed.

But far the most hurtful part of his ‘talk to the nation’ was when he spoke of Gaza and identified with Hamas. He ended his speech by chanting ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ and made it clear that he (and his party) are calling for the annihilation of Israel. He thereby also identified his regime as a supporter of a terrorist organisation and confirmed that the ANC is anti-Semitic.  Under Cyril’s leadership South Africa seems like the legal arm of the terrorist organisation, Hamas.

Doesn’t SA belong to all who live in it as laid out in our constitution any more?  The ANC have purposefully left the local Jewish community out of their regular course of action. The annual United Prayer Day, organised by the government (ANC) excluded any Jewish rabbi this year for the first time in 30 years. The ANC also recently did not pitch-up at a debate organised to take place in the Jewish Centre in Cape Town. No excuse offered, notwithstanding the invitation accepted by them.

Two in depth articles in the authoritative magazine, Economist, with SA even on its front cover, makes this week’s edition a must read. Except by now it is now last week’s edition. The ANC have ruined SA and are running it into the ground and a change of regime is called for.  All agree that this election is by far the most important election since 1994, when Nelson Mandela became president.

Generally things went quite well yesterday. Voting stations opened on time and closed at 9.00 pm or later to allow those still in line to vote. There were some hiccups, with long, long queues stretching so far that some voters had to wait until midnight to cast their votes : but in fact they were a small minority of an otherwise well organised election. The world champion and I voted in our clubhouse and we were in and out in less than a half hour. The IEC here were well organised and helpful and very unlike some other polling stations reported during the day.

 The results that have come through at the writing of this newsletter don’t yet indicate any particular direction other than the ANC losing their majority for the first time in our 30 years of democracy. That alone is a reason for celebration.

This Zapiro cartoon, with himself on the right is another classic from the Master from the Daily Maverick:

As I write the counting of the votes of the significant parties are as follows with about half of the votes counted:

ANC….42.7%

DA…..23.57%

MK…. 10.08%  (Zuma’s new party).

EFF….9.53%

For the first time since Mandela it looks almost certain that the ANC will not govern on its own. It is almost certain to suggest that we will have to have a coalition government. What that will look like nobody knows at this early stage.

This week the Economist again features an article on SA. They point out that despite flaws SA’s democracy is still stronger than its neighbours. The New York Times also has been highlighting SA this week, but then almost every Western newspaper has been reporting on the voting here.

I really must thank those of you who share your SA news from your newspapers. Norman, Avrim, Rob, and Tom to mention a few, have been sending me regular updates and naturally that helps to form considered opinions.

The usual suspects haven’t met for a while and Dennis, that character of note had us all (without Kenny this time) meet yesterday in Newlands for lunch. It was a marvelous lunch at a top restaurant and the chatter across the table was even better than the meal. Mostly we spoke about the election and the amazing accuracy of the pollsters in calculating the eventual outcome so far ahead of time. I really didn’t think that the ANC would dip under 50%. In spite of their opinions i did not think that the ANC would fall under 50%.

It was lovely just to spend a couple of hours in each other’s company, talking mainly of the election. I highly recommend this type of get-together as a tonic for any ailment you may have. Ailments didn’t come into the conversations at all.

Some very good news is that yet again SA won a gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show. There have been some wonderful photos in our ‘papers but truly not enough has been made of the beautiful sight.

I watched the FA Cup final which was yet another Manchester derby on Saturday afternoon. Who would have thought? Who would have predicted that after such a dismal (for them) season Man United would/could beat their City rivals in the final game of the season. The weather was lovely, the crowd was loud and the atmosphere was amazing. What a win……it really does make up for the whole season’s blunders.

As always,

Gerald

 

 

SOURCE:The Week That Was – Africa Unauthorised

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