Best the DA has to offer?
It is laughable that the DA’s Athol Trollip is putting himself forward to replace Tony Leon at national level (“Trollip in race for DA’s top job”, January 12).
Claiming that he can fill Leon’s shoes, albeit with difficulty, Trollip boasted on TV: “I am white on the outside and black on the inside.”
The noticeable lack of supporters to restrain him from making such a pitiful spectacle suggests an absence of genuine friends in his public and private life.
Countless Eastern Cape residents speak both English and Xhosa, yet Trollip presents this as his primary qualification for national leadership.
Any person with appropriate humility would not presume to equate speaking an African language with experiencing life as a black person.
South Africa has many official languages and those in touch with public sentiment know the majority want non-racial, non-sectarian and non-partisan national leaders.
An official opposition must match the intellectual and academic abilities of the best government leaders to be a credible alternative government.
The Eastern Cape DA leader’s performance in the provincial legislature has rendered the position insignificant. Trollip’s ineffective public profile does not lend him the required stature of a national leader.
And his apparent ambition to upstage national DA press conferences by promoting himself as a nominee is unbecoming for a provincial leader.
This latest embarrassment to the DA should be a clarion call to replace Trollip with a provincial leader who would do the position justice. Otherwise, he may become a national “icon” of Eugene Terre’Blanche’s proportions.
If Trollip is so sure of his party support, why did he not allow himself to be re-elected by the 2003 electoral college?
And why did he fail to hold the 2006 provincial congress, which might have elected delegates to support him as a national leader nominee at Federal Congress?
If he wasn’t the Eastern Cape leader, he wouldn’t even be in the provincial DA caucus. If I believed Trollip is the best the DA has to offer for provincial or national leadership, I wouldn’t have voted DA in the past.
South Africa needs a healthy opposition for democracy to be effective. — Mary Woodhall
A media fiction
The fixation of the media on the “successor” to President Thabo Mbeki is a dangerously misleading phenomenon. That Mbeki is going to step down and be succeeded by someone is a product of the imagination of people like yourselves who have created and sustained the figment that he is no longer available to lead the ANC.
He has not said whether he will make himself available and accept nomination from ANC branches. Even ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma has not indicated whether he will accept nomination.
The media is planting a “succession battle” in our minds. There are also intimations that we should ready ourselves for a coup d’etat, where Mbeki would be ousted by forces aligned with the SACP and Cosatu in the ANC.
The “informed”, like yourselves and other media columnists, are selecting suitable candidates when the ANC’s provinces and branches have not yet gone through a nominations process. If they choose someone you don’t like, they will have erred in your eyes.
What is surprising is that the anointing of leaders by the media is limited to the ANC. What about the DA, which will be electing its new leader in April?
In contrast with Mbeki, Tony Leon has indicated that he is stepping down — yet the Mail & Guardian is not alerting us to a “succession battle” in that party.
Is the lack of media speculation about leadership conflict in the DA because it is seen as a civilised and mature organisation that cannot get entangled in succession battles, while the ANC is seen as a typical African liberation party struggling to transform itself into a “modern political party”.
The South African media seemingly has not learnt any lessons from the saga of the “generally corrupt relationship” between Zuma and Schabir Shaik — a term it coined and put in the mouth of Judge Hilary Squires.
It should avoid inventing terms like “succession battle” when we have no concrete proof, in terms of people confirming their availability for the leadership, that such a thing exists. — Tembile Yako, Windsor Park, Johannesburg
The ANC is heading for anarchic disaster, with leaders who cannot agree at a political or government level. This will land the party in disrepute and, eventually, compromise those who look to the ANC to better their lives.
I believe the differences in the alliance revolve around individual leaders of the alliance partners, rather than the broader leadership and membership. But the fact is that we don’t have time for personal squabbles and sycophancy — we need proper political leadership and service delivery.
The problem is that the ANC does not have tried and tested leaders who are viewed as neutral, as it did in the 1991 congress when Walter Sisulu came to the rescue during the lively contest over the deputy presidency.
Now we have to choose between people associated with certain cabals. The only possible approach is to ask what will take the ANC forward, not the individual.
The long-term answer is to get rid of two centres of power. The first option is that the national executive committee is bold enough to discourage both Mbeki and Zuma and their preferred candidates from standing.
The second is to give Mbeki the presidency of the ANC at the forthcoming congress and temporarily amend the ANC constitution to provide for a two-year term of office. That would mean that the general election of 2009 would take place after a new ANC president has been chosen, who would automatically become the South African president.
I believe that the ANC by then will have sorted out its unnecessary internal conflicts. South Africans would enjoy the benefits of a new and united political leadership and the service delivery that is long overdue to them. — Sphelele Ncanana, Durban
Misrepresentation of the facts
I was very distressed to read the misrepresentation of facts in Matthew Krouse’s “The A to Z of cultural catastrophe” (December 21) in regard to Brett Goldin and Richard Bloom.
Knowing the family personally, I am privy to the real facts.
Brett and Richard were not a couple. They were lifelong schoolfriends and Brett was saying goodbye to Richard at his vehicle before leaving for a working trip abroad, when they were accosted by a gang of murdering thugs. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And how dare Krouse claim they were “trashed”? The autopsy revealed quite the opposite.
Also, the timing is misrepresented. They left the dinner (not party) together before 11.45pm — definitely not the “wee hours” of the morning.
Krouse has caused more pain to the families, who have suffered enough. He should have confirmed the facts before writing insensitive rubbish to create a sensation and boost newspaper sales. An immediate correction and apology would be in order.
Sooner or later, people like Krouse, who do not do their homework, may find themselves with a lawsuit on their hands. — Shana Mink
We apologise for any misrepresentations. The M&G‘s ombud will deal with the matter in next week’s edition — Editor
A childish vendetta
John Matshikiza’s vile and vitriolic attack on Ronald Suresh Roberts (“Unliked, unlikeable and unavailable”, January 12) has taken journalism (once again) into the gutter. Although he says he has nothing personal against Roberts, it is clear that he is settling a personal score or two.
Matshikiza has a right to an opinion, but it is highly unprofessional to use column space for playground vendettas. He has revealed a dark side that shows him as a mean man with no spiritual gravitas.
I am not a friend of Roberts, but I did read his book on Nadine Gordimer. It is well researched and gives an intelligent insight into the life of one of our top writers. To dismiss the book as trashy reveals Matshikiza’s ignorance.
Grow up, John. There’s nothing sadder than a bitter and twisted old man. — Herman Lategan, Cape Town
Roberts brings a fresh insouciance to our hypocritical and chickenshit public debate.
The ad hominem attacks on him harbour the same old nauseating reality — the assertion by certain quarters of the population that polemics are no place for bantus.
How else are we to explain the fact that the most outspoken members of the intellectual lynch mob come from the white liberal posse? — Nomfundo Jones, Eden Grove
It’s easy to be angered by Roberts’s egotistical tantrums, but it’s good to remember that arrogance is a symptom of intensely low self-esteem. The space between Roberts’s ears can’t be a very happy place. — WL Mason, Johannesburg
Keep the coach
Many football fans are calling for the resignation of Milutin Sredojevic as Orlando Pirates’ coach — but he arrived at an already troubled sea. Kosta Papic took the team to great heights and twice nearly won the league. Pirates management, however, let him go.
There are many coaches who raised Pirates’ performance, but were relieved of their duties. Remember the days when Gordon Igesund won the league and Viktor Bondarenko won the African Champions league?
Will chairperson Irvin Khoza tell fans why he cannot keep a coach for five to 10 years? If he did not change coaches so often, perhaps players would have a sense of stability. How can they perform at their best when coaches are changed at a drop of a hat? — Anele Hokwana, Tshwane
Politics vs results
Your report on the higher grade maths and science matric pass rate of about 5% (January 5) reminded me of an idea put to the Gauteng education department after the end of apartheid. Given the massive shortage of maths and science teachers, and the many highly skilled Eastern Europeans desperate to move, why not recruit them to fill the gap?
Oh no, was the response, we have all these unemployed teachers — we’ll reskill them to teach maths and science. That worked, didn’t it!
A sad irony of post-apartheid education is the embracing of the fad of outcomes-based education for curriculum design, while implementation is based on the opposite philosophy: the outcome doesn’t matter, as long as the politics is good. — Philip Machanick, Australia
Distortion
Kwanele Sosibo (“”Drink, drive and walk free”, January 5) distorts facts and indulges in sensationalism.
I was never suspended by the Cape Metropolitan Council, because I did not violate the council’s code of conduct. Facts are stubborn and no amount of spinning can twist them.
Perhaps Sosibo should investigate whether I was properly convicted of drunk driving in the first instance, given that the result of the blood test was inadmissible as evidence. I believe there was a miscarriage of justice.
My indiscretions pale to insignificance with present challenges. I paid for my mistakes and no people toyi-toyied in my name. — Mzukisi Gaba
In brief
The latest idea for gun-toting gangsters is to hold up car showrooms, and steal four or five cars at a time! This hardly warrants a mention in the newspapers, as they are full of murders, rapes, muggings and shootings. Alan Paton was right: “Cry, The Beloved Country!” — Edward Ndhlovu, Durban
Tony Yengeni’s early release, the Zuma saga and BAE’s undercover benefit schemes are the symptoms of a much greater malaise. The real culprits are our Cabinet ministers, many of whom were around when we irresponsibly spent up to R30-billion on military hardware we probably don’t need. The graft and corruption bill pales to insignificance. — Mathias
The biggest freebie (January 12) cellphone companies could give to attract customers is decent service. If their call centres answered promptly, with a human voice, and their coverage was reliable, I would move my contracts immediately. — Marcus Henkel
Watching President George W Bush’s speech on the troop “surge” in Iraq, I couldn’t help but wish he had ended each of his pronouncements with “because of my failed policies, lies and deceptions”. — Herb Stark, New York
The Vatican should stick to fleecing its flock instead of making ridiculous statements about motor sport (“Vatican decries latest death in ‘irresponsible’ Dakar rally”, M&G Online, January 11). — Kevin Smith
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