Like many other concerned citizens I am very worried about what is going to happen to that clever but largely misunderstood fellow, Tony Leon. So far I haven’t actually lost any sleep over Tony, though I have to admit that a week or so ago he did appear to me in a particularly unpleasant nightmare I was having about a feminist bush-conference. Tony was being sexually ravaged by three gigantic mauve lesbians and was whimpering in a sort of terrified ecstasy.
As indeed these days Tony’s whimpering for help in real life, and he can hardly be blamed. Suddenly
losing control of dozens of otherwise productive municipalities must be hard to swallow. Certainly when you’ve been preening yourself as a government-in-waiting.
What is causing most concern about poor Tony Leon is, of course, what he’s going to do now that the several tons of political night-soil that constitute the New National Party have been taken away from him and emptied all over the ANC. (It must make the ANC cadres bristle with pride to have Verwoerd, Strijdom, Vorster and Botha’s sons, cousins, nephews and aunties joining the ongoing “struggle”. Aluta Continua!)
The trouble is that, after some 18 months perched on the pit with Marthinus “Smokin’ Jockstrap” van Schalkwyk, Tony Leon hasn’t learned a sodding thing. Scarcely had Marthinus fled the shed, than Tony hitched his pants up and started nervously scanning the horizon for a new political fiancée. First up for consideration, so it’s being said, was that sub-tropical old hussy, the IFP. Should it ever reach the altar, such a political wedlocking should certainly be lots of fun. Can you imagine Tony Leon, after demoting the Big Mango to second-in-charge of the Democratic Indaba, trying to stick it to him on matters of coalition policy. Never mind when the Zulu mayor of Durban decides to rename Snell Parade the Shaka Boulevard. Not much future watching that space.
Where else could lonely Tony press his rumpled suit? He could try Bantubonke Holomisa’s stolid little UDM outfit but, again, it would be a case of either Tony or Bantubonke having to accept the “deputy leader” tag; insisting on Tony as boss would be taking re-affirmative action a touch far.
Where next? Cosatu? The trouble is the union’s far-leftists would probably recoil against their organisation taking up with a newly privatised divorcee, no matter what the rumours promise about divorcees being easy pickings. As for becoming a comrade in the South African Communist Party, that would be back to dialectically materialistic long-drops, the dingy grey ones with little folios of Jeremy Cronin’s poetry hanging off the nail. Apart from that, there’s Amichand Rajbanji’s small crowd and that’s about it.
There is, though, one spectacular coalition option that Tony Leon should investigate with all possible haste. In this era of African political cross-fertilisation there is no discernible moral barrier to Tony Leon’s residual Democratic Alliance joining the brain-drain and setting up shop with a political party in one of our neighbouring countries. In fact, it can be argued quite strongly that once politically accommodated over the border the Democratic Alliance would probably have a more telling effect on South African affairs than it does at the moment.
It follows that the obvious choice for Tony Leon’s DA to join up with would be Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF, a party that — just like the NNP was when the DP came to its rescue — is showing all the signs of imminent implosion. We can be fairly sure that, in service of the greater good of arresting the slide into perdition of his party, Mr Mugabe would quite forget all the ornate things Tony Leon recently has been saying about Bob being a shit-faced, murdering, political, homosexual-despising presidential guttersnipe with lower principles than a syphilitic Whitehall sex-worker, and welcome him into the perfumed embrace and arcane passages of the latest SADC Zimbabwe masterplan.
With Tony Leon’s subtle hand guiding him, Robert Mugabe could find his return to international acceptance well lubricated. He could even ask his foreign affairs chappies to get Jurgen Harksen extradited to Harare to help Tony set up fund-raising for the new DA-Zanu-PF. He could get Gerald Morkel as part of a job lot.
What is best of all is that, at the very instant the Democratic Alliance joined up with Zanu-PF, Tony Leon would become one of Thabo Mbeki’s most trusted political darlings. Not only would Tony gain his longed-for access to the Mbeki ear, he’d find himself an instant hit in Tuinhuis circles, sitting up and taking nourishment along with Colonel Gadaffi and that nice Mr Castro and all those cute people from Iraq and Jakarta. That alone is worth the effort, and Tony might even get a flip in the luxury R520-million presidential jet, nKwazi — as an observer, of course.
Think about it, Tony. Being hugger-mugger with Mad Bob isn’t such a bad idea. You could even get a free farm out of it.
Archive: Previous columns by Robert Kirby