Beware of election ghosts, goblins, witches and evil trolls

Elections in South Africa are rather like Halloween. The run-up to polling day is a protracted political Festival of the Dead, as the pale shades of those who are out of favour try to resuscitate their careers, zombie monsters stalk the periphery of our dreams, and skeletons rattle ominously in the cupboard.

Cynics might grouse that elections are pointless if there is little chance of a rotation of power. They miss the point that the African National Congress government is an alliance of increasingly bitter foes and elections are the one moment when the veneer of civility is dropped.

It matters not whether these electoral contests are national, local or within the party. The stakes are high when being even a lowly town councillor is not only a sinecure but also the door to tenderpreneurship and the ultimate security of ANC cadre deployment to some undemanding but handsomely paid state job.

This is the moment for sharp elbows to keep interlopers from usurping pole positions at the trough, graduating to the sly stiletto between the reputational ribs and, if necessary, some ugly but politically fatal hatchet work. It’s a time of comic opera, too, as politicians make promises that they have neither the ability nor the intention to keep.

One should not forget that the only violence that is likely to occur in the upcoming local council elections has already happened and was all about securing a place on the potentially lucrative ANC candidates’ list. Laughed off by ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe as a “minor hiccup”, the chaos was countrywide and prolonged, involving stonings, burning tyres, blocked roads, storming and occupying premises, hostage taking, assaults, death threats and riot police.

May 18, voting day itself, will most likely go off placidly, as it has in every single election since the establishment of democracy in 1994. That’s because most of the real contest for power and gravy takes place inside the ANC’s tripartite alliance, not between the ANC and opposition groupings.

The electoral run-up is also a time to be seen and be noticed, and for grand, publicity grabbing gestures. Like ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema appearing in a courtroom flanked by 16 lawyers and half-a-dozen bodyguards armed with automatic weapons and mirror-shades. Malema might believe that he is fully entitled to sing a song threatening to kill the Boer but he is clearly taking no chances on some of the buggers shooting back.

Malema’s appearance before the Equality Court could not have been better timed or scripted for asserting the ANCYL’s growing primacy in the organisation’s structures. Flanked throughout by the Dracula Princess, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, to stress his Struggle authenticity, Malema gleefully exploited the moment to proclaim that it was not he who was on trial, but the Revolution itself.

The ANCYL simultaneously released its discussion document on “economic transformation”, proposing to amend the Constitution to empower the state to expropriate private property, particularly land and mines, without compensation.

Halloween is also the moment to frighten the kiddies with witches, gnomes, and evil trolls of mythic proportion. Police crime-intelligence boss Richard Mdluli, on charges of a love triangle murder and cover-up, has gone so far as to try to raise the ghost of former president Thabo Mbeki.

The Mbeki camp, claims Mdluli, is trying to seize control of the police intelligence network to use against President Jacob Zuma at the 2012 ANC conference. This is part of a plot to depose Zuma as party leader in favour of Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale, aided by a treasonous cabal that includes Police National Commissioner Bheki Cele, KwaZulu-Natal premier Zweli Mkhize, Julius “Don’t-Start-The-Revolution-Without-Me” Malema, and assorted Cabinet ministers and ANC national executive members.

Yet another ANC leadership plot? It sends a mock-shudder down the spine. Yawn.