BY ALEX MATTHEWS
Leaked plans by the ANC to destabilise and distract from opposition leader Helen Zille from fulfilling her duties as premier of the Western Cape shows the contempt that our ruling party has for democracy.
After several years of the ANC’s chaotic mismanagement and paltry delivery, the Western Cape’s voters decisively elected the DA to run the province. In moves startlingly reminiscent to its repeated attempts to topple the DA-led Cape Town council, it is clear that the ANC simply cannot accept that its totalitarian agenda has been thwarted by Zille.
The ANC clearly isn’t interested in creating “a better life for all” as its slogan cynically claims. This is because the planned attempts to disrupt Zille’s administration will hurt the poor hardest. Zille has emphasised that service delivery and the practical obligations of her party’s much vaunted “open opportunity society” are her key priorities. Should she be prevented by the ANC from fulfilling this, then the poor – who would be the most significantly affected by her programme of action – will suffer.
Blinded by its elite’s relentless pursuit for power and privilege, the ANC’s track record local and provincial government – especially in strongholds like the Eastern Cape – has been that of abysmal incompetence and corruption, with the poor remaining shackled by apartheid’s legacy. Little wonder that the party cannot bear to be shown up by a principled, effective white woman who gets things done and actually genuinely cares about the plight of the impoverished.
When the MK Veterans Association threatened to make the Western Cape ungovernable after Helen Zille dared to exercise her right to free speech (even if she displayed unseemly insensitivity in the process), there was not even a whisper of condemnation from the ANC for this brazen, illegal incitement to violence. Making a province ungovernable is tantamount to rejecting the rule of law, and the constitution that underpins it. But this implicit endorsement of violent intolerance is not surprising. As we shall doubtless see in the months to come, the ANC will use its attack dogs – whether they be a semiliterate Youth League or washed-up war veterans – to brutally undermine any opposition that stands in the way of its bid for perpetual rule.
Alex Matthews is editor of The Soapbox. He writes this in his personal capacity.
