Line crossed as consensus sent packing in maths glitch

The DA understands that getting below 50% means you haven’t won the election; the ANC doesn’t

Picture: 123RF
Picture: 123RF

It’s intoxicating to be a world leader right now, what with those Divine Right of Kings fumes pouring out of Washington DC; but here at home the new global trend of rounding up consultation, consensus and compromise, and putting them on a midnight deportation flight to nowhere, is causing some flutters.

By now most readers will be familiar with the latest ructions inside the government of national unity (GNU), as the DA sternly tells the ANC to stop being the ANC, and warns that if the ANC doesn’t stop being the ANC, the DA will have no choice but to keep telling the ANC to stop being the ANC, except from further away. 

Certainly, this week’s cabinet lekgotla promises fireworks, and not just because that’s what happens when people soak themselves in mutton fat and liquor and then sit too close to the fire juggler. They’re always fairly high-stakes affairs — imagine trying to pretend you’re listening to Cyril Ramaphosa while surreptitiously sliding your hand between couch cushions in case he’s left any cash down there — but this time around there may be some very frank words spoken. 

The discord regarding Ramaphosa’s signing of the Expropriation Act and the ANC’s determination to proceed with National Health Insurance has been ascribed to differing ideologies, but the real disagreement seems less ideological than arithmetical: the DA understands that numbers below 50% mean you have not won the election, the ANC doesn’t.

Instead, the ANC believes losing its majority was nothing but a slight administrative complication, whereby instead of being able to do whatever it wants it now has to inform the DA before it does whatever it wants.

Unsurprisingly, some of the more excitable corners of the internet are already speculating about last straws, red lines, red straws, and the walkouts and break-ups that might follow them.

According to wiser heads though, the departure from the GNU of the DA seems unlikely, not least because the only outcome the ANC wants less than working with the DA as its largest coalition partner is working with the DA’s likeliest replacement, Jacob Zuma’s MK party. 

I can’t imagine MK is particularly crazy about that scenario either, since being part of a power-sharing arrangement would rob it of a potent political currency it’s still working hard to amass: victimhood. Indeed, I suspect Zuma has been watching the US for some time, marvelling at the astonishing, transformative power of fake oppression.

He will have watched American billionaires — who pay an average tax rate of 8%, versus the 13% paid by the working poor in the US — warn of the threat of socialism and the economic havoc wrought by undocumented immigrants (who pay about $90bn a year in taxes without being able to access social security). 

He will have heard evangelicals claim their faith is under attack even as they demand that Bishop Mariann Budde be deported for preaching mercy. (Special mention must surely go to Utah deacon Ben Garrett, who warned Christians not to commit “the sin of empathy” by listening to Budde. “She hates God and His People,” Garrett wrote on X. “You need to properly hate in response.”) 

Finally, Zuma will have marvelled at American conservatives insisting that the media is controlled by liberals, even as Rupert Murdoch’s Fox continues its total domination of television news and opinion, the Washington Post censors cartoons, and the owner of Facebook, who controls what 3-billion people see, ditches fact-checking and appoints as its “president of global affairs” a former Republican White House chief of staff whose job is to sweeten the relationship between Meta and the Trump administration. 

Admittedly, that last spectacle would have left Zuma feeling a little sad as he reminisced about the most recent time he tried to create a propaganda network and remembered how it all ended: with ANN7 in ruins and Mzwanele Manyi selling books out of the boot of his car outside a McDonald’s.

Luckily for Zuma though, the politics of victimhood require one to do very little: as long as you’ve got a solid script plagiarised from Trump and the usual journalists willing to act as human megaphones, you’re solid. In fact, when it comes to profiting from self-pity the best possible outcome for Zuma, at least for the next few years, is for nothing at all to happen. Which is why his lawsuit against the Independent Electoral Commission is such a great idea.

Late last week Zuma spelt it out nice and clearly. Reiterating his claim that MK won last year’s election, Zuma said: “As you know, the case is about to start, and we’re sure that if the honesty is there, we’re going to see who is going to be running the country.” 

“If the honesty is there”: it was almost beautiful in its elegance, setting a perfect snare for his followers. Because of course the courts won’t find in MK’s favour, because unlike Zuma the IEC can do basic arithmetic; and when that happens Zuma can raise his arms, a crucified messiah, and say: ah, the honesty was not there.

It wasn’t just the election that was rigged: the judiciary is against us, too. The list of enemies grows. The laager draws tighter. Still, best not to point and laugh: until the ANC learns that 40% isn’t the same as 50%, the rest of us aren’t much better off. 

• Eaton is an Arena Holdings columnist.

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