Tuesday, December 18
Dear diary, you know I’ve always been a bit of a mitten queen, but never ham-fisted about the job at hand. Which is why what happened on Monday night after I signed off has left me sooo fragile, dahlink. In fact, I’ve just popped two Prozac suppositories — just to settle the nerves, you know.
Mandla, my 100% Zuluboy, sent an SMS to remind me that nominations from the floor — which should have happened on Sunday at 9.30pm — were finally going to happen, 24 hours later than scheduled. Slowly I’m becoming less optimistic about us reaching service delivery deadlines for 20190 and 2014.
Anyhow, I had figured my own little dirty (turning) tricks campaign was going to sweep my fine ass all the way to the Union Buildings come 2009: have spent the past few days scribbling come-and-get-me pleas in all the toilets on campus and hanging lasciviously outside delegates’ dormitories tarted up in my Manolos and a fish-net outfit with less coverage than MTN on a bad day.
Shock! Horror! Woe is me! The comrades shut down nominations from the floor quicker than you could say premature ejaculation.
What happened to considered independence outside factionalism? What happened to truly testing democracy? What happens to my poor calloused palms after having tugged the comrades ”forward towards enlightenment”, all week long?
I was shattered! Not even Tokyo’s premeditated withdrawal for gender-sensitive reasons worked to my advantage. Baleka Mbete, bah! When will the NEC include a pre-operation transsexual?
So I flounced off to the Network Lounge again to drown my sorrows and paddle a few ministers on their bum-bums.
Thankfully, I finally bumped into a more amenable class of people compared to earlier in the day.
The ANC is proud of being a multi-class organisation, and I gravitated quickly to the S-Class and C-Class types, attempting to rub up against Cabinet ministers like Aziz Pahad, Ngconde Balfour and Alec Erwin (I’m a firm believer that ears are a better indication of manaconda size than noses) and keeping my ears primed for any delicious gossip going around.
Ooh, and was there! The palpable power shift in the organisation is certainly being felt by the old guard. Tottered out for a ciggie and overheard former North West premier Popo Molefe admit that he was ”taking a break from the NEC after this”. Before the first vote had even been cast.
Heard Mo Shaik — whose attempts to get accredited has been met with the ANC heavy rotating Louis Jordan’s Keep A-Knockin’ (But You Can’t Come In) on to his iPod — finally made it into the Big Tent … as a service provider!
Wondered what services he’s been providing? Wanted to warn him that tug jobs just isn’t the way to go with these comrades, but he was probably already celebrating the encroaching Zunami with a pipe.
In comparison, today was miserable and wet. Sticking an X — or six — on a ballot paper isn’t as liberating as one would expect, I tell you.
Especially if your face isn’t on the ballot and you’ve spent the past four hours in the rain watching your Manolos turn soggy while you lose all feeling in your toes.
Life, sometimes, makes tottering impossible. I think that will go into my election manifesto submissions. Quite catchy as an electioneering slogan, don’t you think?
Meant to console myself in the networking tent again, but the smelly, ravenous, post-voting masses appeared to have discovered it. Oh why, Gawd?! Why are you so cruel?
They converged like ants. And, like ants, they carried off loads of freebies which appeared 10 times their weight: bags of goodies from cellphone companies, useless press releases from media companies, apples from Nedbank … leaving behind enough food scraps and empty cappuccino cups to make a landfill site blush with embarrassment.
Maybe this multi-class business has to end. Must try and get Thabo et al into the presidential lounge at the networking centre and convince them that this schism in the party is the perfect opportunity for the middle classes to get the hell out of the ANC. Hope my calluses will be a little softer before Thursday, though.