2009 shaping up to be an interesting year

Poor politicians — they never have a break. While the rest of the country is closing up shop and heading for the beaches, South Africa’s politicians are hard at work. Yesterday, both the ANC and the new splinter party, COPE, held rallies in Bloemfontein, where the leaders of both parties claimed their group represented the true spirit of South Africa’s liberation and transformation.

The COPE rally came at the end of the party’s inaugural congress, where delegates hammered out a constitution for the party and elected its leaders. Former Defence Minister, Mosiuoa Lekota was elected president of the new party with former premier of Gauteng Province, Mbhazima Shilowa, his deputy.

COPE stands for Congress of the People. It’s a strange choice of name — the full name is understandable as it reflects democratic sentiments and connects the party to the Congress of the People organised by the ANC in Kliptown in 1955, where the Freedom Charter was drawn up. But the abbreviation is unfortunate. It’s COPE, as the party wanted to avoid being called COP — since the police are not universally popular in SA. But you can already see the cartoons and mocking headlines: ‘New party not COPEing’, ‘Can Lekota COPE’, and so on. Didn’t they consider this?

Nevertheless, the launch of the new party is exciting. I don’t know if I’ll vote for them — I am still suspicious that the party is simply a collection of one-time Mbeki allies who are disgruntled at being shunted aside. These are the people who stood by silently while Mbeki and his health minister completely mismanaged the HIV/Aids crisis after all. And aside from the old Mbeki crowd there are all sorts of dodgy characters coming out of the woodwork to join up — such as Pieter Marais, a former Premier of the Western Cape, who is nothing more than a bumbling, posturing fool.

But at least they are stirring things up. The ANC at present is too strong and needs to be challenged, to be made to feel insecure, so that they become less arrogant and pay attention to what the voters really want.

Until recently I was fairly impressed with President Kgalema Mothlante, and like many South Africans was thinking that if somehow, if only, Jacob Zuma could be persuaded to let Motlanthe stay in power after the elections next year, things might start looking up. But Mothlante has disappointed terribly in the past few weeks, as he refused to reinstate the director of prosecutions, who was suspended by Mbeki, but cleared by a commission of enquiry into his fitness to hold his post. Motlanthe seems to be trying to protect Zuma and prevent a full enquiry into the government’s controversy-plagued 1999 arms acquisition deal.

So, like many of the people I talk to, I’m presently on the sidelines, watching the political antics, and reserving my judgement until it things become a little clearer. Who knows, I may choose not to vote next year, for the first time ever. Or I may swallow my distaste and vote for a lesser party I don’t like, just to send the two major players a message of protest.

Only one thing’s for certain — before it’s even started, 2009 is shaping up to be an interesting year.