The DA’s choking curse
· Citizen
Have you ever referenced your genitalia in a conversation with Helen Zille? Mark Sham has! Paraphrasing, in front of a full audience, he asked her why the DA seems to do so well in the run-up to an election and right before, they do something that makes him want to shoot himself in his private parts.
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To Zille’s credit though, she didn’t open a case of crimen injuria against him. His escape from catching a bizarre criminal charge didn’t extend to Helen though. For the uninitiated, crimen injuria is an offence of somebody who impairs the inner self-esteem, peace of mind, or dignity of another. I’m very keen to see how that plays out, but I’m also keen to say that if you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen… only Minister Ronald Lamola beat me to it.
DA are SA’s new chokers
We used to joke about the Proteas being South Africa’s greatest chokers but the kink seems to have spread to the political blues. They were doing so well and then…
That you can complete that sentence in so many ways is telling and a fun game for the family. If it’s not Cilliers Brink missing the bus to ComicCon in full Grand Theft Auto cosplay, it’s a candidate with fake qualifications. Zille’s supposed outburst was over a month ago, but surely a seasoned politician knows how ammunition can be stored until needed. Anthony Weiner’s laptop, for example.
In the broader scope of South African politics, those are hardly the worst things politicians have done or said but why feed your enemies with content for days? This is supposed to be the smart party. It doesn’t seem smart to make obvious mulligans right up before the vote. We have many other parties for that.
Why give haters ammunition?
Is a profane statement anything close to bankrupting a municipality? Is “praat jy Afrikaans?” as bad as stoking up xenophobia? Probably not. This is South Africa though and if you give people reason not to like you, they’ll grab it regardless of how bad others may be.
That’s the core strategy in the SA political game. It’s the core strategy in most political games; gain the most goodwill for the lowest hostility cost. You can tell the world that people moving from the Eastern Cape to the Western Cape are refugees and you’ll win a lot of love from self-indulgent folk of one of the Capes at the cost of a bit of hatred from everybody else.
So whenever somebody opens their mouths in the world of politics, there’s potential to move those scales. Sometimes, they’ll hit gold and say something that few people care about but those who do care, care greatly: Yes! We absolutely do need to ban the second, third and fourth beep when the microwave is done.
There’s an opposite situation though; one where nobody supports your position but for those who are invested, they have a different view. Taking that position wins you no friends but rather a parliament of enemies.
Just like telling people of the pain and struggle of having to bath in a hotel, you’re not winning votes by being unnecessarily profane or housing somebody who misled you about his qualifications. Perhaps you are winning some votes with the armed-up “is jy rerig ‘n Suid Afrikaner” test, but even then, it’s probably a net loss.
Political deafness
There’s always something to be said about being tone deaf. You’ll always have those who are so disconnected from the ground that they don’t get what’s going on. This is different though. This is political deafness. This is putting so much hard work at risk for a reckless moment.
In much the same way as we get worried about a party running our country’s finances when it struggles with its own, one should be worried when blunders happen when the stakes are high… and high they are.
If you want the people on your side, you also need to show them that you’re not going to drop support in vain.