John Matshikiza
It isn’t that easy to track down the leader of God’s People’s Party. Perhaps I was wrong to try to make contact by telephone first.
The listed number rang for some time, and was then answered by a humble, black female voice. Her name was Elsie. I asked for her leader by name. “Who?” she said. “Mr van Rensburg,” I repeated a little louder. “Mr JJ van Rensburg?”
“He’s not here,” she replied, after a pause.
For a moment I was stumped. “Are you his assistant?” I pressed on.
“No,” she replied. “I work here.”
“Oh, I see,” I said. “Is that party headquarters?”
“No, it’s the flower shop.”
“Oh, Mr van Rensburg’s flower shop?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I see. Where is this, anyway?”
“Bethal,” she replied.
Bethal? My blood ran cold, dredging up memories of the days when Bethal was notorious for potato farmers who used slave labour siphoned from the prison system.
I steeled myself: “Is there a number for the party office?” I asked. She didn’t know what I was talking about. “How about his home phone number?” I said.
“He hasn’t got a phone at home. But I can give you his cell number.”
At last it seemed like I was making progress. I dialled the cell, wondering, like you wonder when you’re about to meet the Wizard of Oz for the first time, what kind of sepulchral voice was going to greet me on the other side. A cautious, white, Afrikaans female voice answered.
It seemed that Van Rensburg was not in the vicinity of his cellphone either. I explained that I was looking for the offices of the God’s People’s Party.
“Yes,” she said encouragingly.
“Are you his assistant?” I asked. A pause.
“His … secretary,” she finally said, demurely. Her name was Linda. I was beginning to get excited.
I asked if she could tell me anything about the party in his absence. Had they registered for the elections? They hadn’t. They were one of many parties who felt that the registration fee was too steep.
“He’ll carry on by himself, anyway,” said Linda, her voice becoming stronger with proud conviction. “That way, people will get to know him and what his message is.”
“What’s his message?” I asked.
“We stand for honesty, equality … er … justice … and righteousness,” she said. “We are the only party that stands for everything that’s right.”
Something funny was going on in the background. A door had been opened while she was speaking, and a male voice was prompting her through the last few items on the list. It turned out that Van Rensburg was now around in person.
“He can tell you himself now,” said Linda. “He’s just finishing washing his hands.”
Van Rensburg came on the line. He sounded strong and confident. He explained why, even though his party had 800 potential candidates, they had failed to register for the big event: “We’ve got lots of support for our platform. Everybody wants to stand. But nobody wants to pay. Once you tell them what it will cost, they all keep quiet. I couldn’t pay for the whole lot.”
He isn’t a rich man. He is unemployed. This sounded strange, given the existence of the flower shop, but I didn’t pry.
His strategy now, as Linda had hinted, was to play the long game, biding his time till 2004. “I’m sure by that time the people of this country will have a better understanding of what is being done to them. Let them suffer a bit more, then they will know. It is God’s will.”
His party would reintroduce the death penalty. “Parties that don’t want the death penalty back are the ones that have their own murder squads in place. Of course they don’t want the death penalty. They want to be able to go on with their murder squads without fear of proper punishment.”
The high rate of crime he puts down to the rottenness of the justice system. “If you have no money, you have no justice,” he says. “You can take an ox wagon and drive in a circle right in the middle of the court if you have money. The devil and money is the same thing,” he continued, warming to his theme.
“If I’ve got money, I can go up to the first bloke I see in the street and accuse him of rape or murder. I produce two witnesses. If he’s got no money, he’s finished. That’s our justice system. The only thing is the people doesn’t want to wake up to it. One day they’ll wake up and say, `Hell, I should have listened to that ou! [meaning himself].'”
Meanwhile he bides his time.