In order to run the African National Congress’s Vision 2004 election manifesto, computer users will first have to install a version of Microsoft’s popular operating programme that has been specially designed for South Africa. This version was commissioned by the Government Communication and Information System because it’s believed that the user-friendly way to communicate the manifesto is through an aperture familiar to the greater proportion of the ANC voter-base. The new version is called Shack Windows and is totally compatible with all standard computer systems. Copies may be pirated from the Independent Electoral Commission website.
Once installed, Shack Windows comes up with a friendly message: ”Welcome to the African National Congress, the only South African political party where you have to walk downhill to reach the moral high ground.” From here on it’s a doddle.
Vision 2004 shows that the ANC places a very high value on ”delivery”. Point your mouse thingie at the housing icon and triple-click. A drop-down menu offers a list of limited available accommodation options now that a sizeable chunk (R140-million) of the housing budget has been re-allocated to pay for the international banquet and biblically proportioned piss-up when guess-who gets re-inaugurated as president.
The 4 500 loyal ANC-voting families waiting in line for the houses the R140-million could have built are instead invited to choose from the ANC’s new ”Squatter Statement” range of tasteful tin and reinforced-cardboard residences. They can opt for a ”Ronnie”, a hovel within 500m of a water tap; a ”Kader”, a hovel with a fitted blackboard; even a top-of-the-line ”Manto”, a hovel with a small garlic and beetroot patch.
Vision 2004 is very strong on the ANC’s core message: A Better Life For All. To see how conscientious party supporters will benefit go to View, click on Options then interrogate the lengthy list of appropriate categories.
Among the top contenders for a better life are convicted rapists, murderers, hijackers, drug dealers and fraudsters. The constitutional rights to democratic equality for these misunderstood souls are guaranteed in Vision 2004. Go to Freecell, hit the Escape key and they’ll be back on the streets before you can say Jackie Selebi.
Among other better life recipients are Mpumalanga Health Department managers, the anonymous beneficiaries of presidentially backed Nigerian oil contracts and anyone with access to the ever-productive Arms Deal Kickback Cache Files. If you qualify for the latter, open your expansion slot, engage the broadband switch and start sucking.
For new users, Vision 2004 offers a Getting to Know Us guided tour around the highest levels of ANC government. Here you start at Central Administration and choose from a list of provincial premiers. Enter the details required in Bureaucracy Queue and then hastily re-boot your computer in safe mode. With ANC provincial premiers, ROM stands for Rip-Off-Maneengi.
Vision 2004 is very strong on communications. For best results use the Shack Windows Browser, which will take you straight to the ANC’s Default Message Server, the SABC news department. Use the serial port to hack into the department’s external domain controller, e-dot-pahad.
A visit to the ANC’s Favourites menu is not without the occasional delight. A double-click will yield a ravishing set of icons, the top 10 in Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s ”idols” list. Clicking on these icons produces glowing profiles of Robert Mugabe, Moammar Gadaffi, Fidel Castro, Charles Taylor et al. When scrolling through these proud liberation heroes don’t be surprised if your mouse suddenly turns into a rat and starts eating your hand.
Job creation is central to all the political manifestos, but none so much as in the ANC’s Vision 2004, which promises not only jobs but much other inspirational colloquy. Click on Tools then Find then Employment Opportunities and download the party’s visionary new strategies. In 2004 alone there will be 28 new temporary jobs created early in June when work starts in earnest at the Johannesburg and Cape Town airports on the two R12-million private air terminals for President Thabo Mbeki and his personal airliner. Skills development is catered for in a government-sponsored training scheme for 50 new labour-intensive BMW and Mercedes washers and polishers at the Union Buildings. The ANC never lets its sense of reality trip over its enthusiasm.
South African taxpayers — affectionately known as ”Manuel labourers” — will be delighted to see that the country’s economy has been growing apace, just like many other features of the triumphant first decade of ANC rule. Go to View, Explorer Toolbar then History and Shack Windows will run an audio and sound presentation showing how, as a result of careful management, tax assessments have kept pace with the soaring crime rate, thriving HIV/Aids mortality, runaway brain drain and very nearly keep up with Jacob Zuma’s overdraft.
As with all digitalised election manifestos Shack Windows offers a little on-board entertainment with its popular games: Holidays in Haiti, The Passion of the Heist and Joe Modise’s old favourite, Corvettes.
I hope these dummies guides have been of some use to an electorate never quite sure where they should place their crosses.