Can we trust the current ANC to lead us to the promised land?

I would in most likelihood not be amiss to suggest that we do indeed live in interesting political times; we face a future in which we may be led by man with allegations of corruption, tax evasion, racketeering and money laundering hanging over his almost deformed head.

It has become unquestionably apparent that this populist leader is very liable to believe the delusions that his charlatans have created around him. The trade union movements and kindergarten wing of his organisation have propagated a barrage of untruths; that such untruths gradually began moderating the common knowledge of their supporters on the true state of affairs. This populist leader, under the false guise of victimhood and apparently the victim of unknown conspiracy, drew on the sympathy of the gullible mass of supporters and commanded their admiration, in order to advance his campaign for high office. A very cunning and deceptive scheme by a man not known to possess the vigour and acuity of mind ascribed chiefly to his main rival.

His loyal supporters have attempted to bamboozle the rest of us into believing that the aspirations and wishes of the leadership of the trade union and liberation movements represent those of the general mass of their membership. They have been relentless in their attempt to convince us that their opportunistic and populist nomination of a man of such feeble constitution was a nomination in line with the aspirations of the majority of their members; that what they wished for was what the masses wanted.

It is even more worrying when a candidate for the presidency is backed by men of such incompetent mental faculties, who seek to advance their self-interest above those of the mass supporters they purport to represent. The conspiracy allegations do not hold. The current dubious leaders of these movements have in a very subtle and conniving manner succeeded in brainwashing their mass support to place themselves in the populist leader’s situation, and conceive themselves enduring all the same torments, which by any stretch of imagination, is preposterous and absurd. Their gullible mass supporters will ultimately awaken to the realisation of the shallowness of the principles (or lack thereof) upon which these dubious characters proceeded in election of the populist leader and place him for the presidency.

There are many of us who continue, in spite of his mortal flaws, to hold the president of the Republic in highest esteem, in the belief that, as Descartes put it, “even the greatest minds, as they are capable of highest excellences, are open likewise to greatest aberrations.” What we cannot, of course, dismiss is the fact that the President has almost in all cases attempted to rightly apply his spirited mind, and assumed unpopular political positions, often to the exasperation of more populist members of his movement.

We have witnessed, within the liberation movement and its alliance, an unprecedented promotion of repulsive careerism and opportunism, even the threat of violence. The thought of the type of cabinet the South African government is bound to have after the 2009 elections is almost certainly capable of driving any man of feeble constitution to near suicide.

We do hope that voters in the 2009 elections will endeavour to induce themselves to exercise reason, follow its dictates, and elect a man of unquestionable integrity whose fortitude of mind is congenital and not the fruit of populist influence; a man of robust make and who is not easily seduced by the lure of money and kangas. We hope that voters will not sink under the weight of intimidation but will rather find some support in a consciousness of their purpose, and confidence in the principles that inspired the liberation movement for many decades.