Minerals and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe. Photo: Gulshan Khan/AFP
Just as Tito Mboweni was ditched by “slay queen” Lerato Makgatho in favour of the “tiger” that is Gwede Mantashe, so too will Mantashe, come December, relinquish his 15-year reign as the sexiest man in South African politics.
In October 2019, the country awoke to claims from the then 26-year-old Makgatho, who spoke of the supposed saucy sexual escapades she shared with Mboweni and Mantashe, both of whom were ministers in the cabinet of the cupcake-in-chief, Cyril Ramaphosa.
Makgatho’s salacious story was written by Meta Mphahlele and published in the Sunday World. It was aptly titled, “Two ministers and a fed-up slay queen”.
Of the two senior politicians, Mantashe was mentioned as the most mesmerising on the mattress, with Makgatho proclaiming that Gwede “was a tiger in bed”, adding that “he even lasted long”.
And I will definitely take her word on that because, politically, Mantashe managed to last for 15 years at the top table of the governing ANC’s national leadership, otherwise known as the top six structure.
Having first taken his seat as the ANC’s secretary general — which is the organisation’s engine room — after the party’s Polokwane conference in December 2007, Mantashe is the only politician, of the five others who were elected at the time, to have consistently been reelected to the top six.
After the ANC’s conference in December 2017, Mantashe managed, for the first time, to score himself a cushy cabinet post while still remaining the national chairperson of the governing party.
It is, therefore, evident not only to the lustful at heart that Mantashe approached his coitus and political performances with the same predisposition — perpetuity.
But it’s all falling down like a floppy phallus for the GQ model-esque Mantashe, because the branch numbers he needs to get a further five-year ride at the rodeo, when the party convenes again for another December conference this year, fail to rise up.
“Why?” I hear you ask.
Well, on Monday, my colleague Lizeka Tandwa gave me the first numbers coming out of branch nominations for who they want as their next national leaders.
With 18% of completed branch nominations, as of Monday, Limpopo ANC leader Stan Mathabatha looks set to take over the national chairperson post; he leads Mantashe by 33 percentage points.
Yes, the nascent nominations process still has some way to go. But it is hard to see where Mantashe can mount a comeback, considering how he was ejected like an irritating former lover at the Congress of South African Trade Union’s recent tête-à-tête.
Yes, he was kicked out by the very same union members for whom he once professed love, before the enduring allure of the capitalist political class proved too irresistible to pass on.
Therefore, no amount of courting from the Cala Casanova can coerce his consorts of yore, who proudly exalted his prowess for a decade and a half, to nominate him again.
And, boy, does Mantashe know it.
Those perfectly squint eyes nestled behind his chiselled cheekbones spotted the expected political whipping of dominatrix proportions from afar.
Why do you think that, when addressing ANC members at the organisation’s 110-year anniversary January celebrations in Limpopo, Mantashe said he was opposed to the prosecution of comrades implicated in corruption by Chief Justice Raymond Zondo’s report on state capture?
“We can use that report to hunt each other down and destroy every-thing that is in the movement, we can do that.
“Or we can use that report to look into the mistakes and weaknesses that are in that report and try to correct them.
“That is a better option for me,” Mantashe contended.
Forgiving alleged graft would indeed be a better option for him, because the Zondo report stated that further investigations into Mantashe’s dealing with the infamous company, Bosasa, could find corruption in how the services firm paid for security upgrades at
his private home in Boksburg, Ekurhuleni.
Losing his political clout removes the protection he had in avoiding possible graft investigations into some of his alleged dodgy dealings.
So what now for Mantashe? Will he still have aesthetic appeal to land the lovely ladies now that his political power is nearing its end?
After all, Mboweni, who left the government in August last year, seems to have restyled himself as the new Naked Chef, using his culinary skills to court women on social media into cooking for him at his home … allegedly.
Uncle Gweezy needs to think of something fast because, politically, he has lost his sex appeal.
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