The ANC speaker of the Beaufort West council placed the mayoral chain around the neck of Truman Prince this week — barely two years after the party expelled the scandal-plagued Karoo politician. And there are strong rumours that Prince will soon be taken back into the ANC fold.
In the past 15 years Prince has been mayor three times as well as municipal manager — each term mired in controversy.
Expelled from the ANC in February 2006, he is now leader of Badih Chaaban’s National People’s Party (NPP) in Beaufort West. The ANC was quick to form a coalition with him after he won a marginal majority in the previous municipal election.
The deal was that if the NPP joined the ANC in a coalition, the latter would not oppose his move back into the mayor’s office. He has also been in an alliance with the DA.
Last year he was fired as municipal mayor by ANC speaker Siphiwo Piti, who inaugurated him this week.
He was accused of misappropriating money from the mayoral fund by paying the legal fees of a friend sentenced for gun-running, of paying himself a performance bonus of R49Â 000 and of bringing the municipality into disrepute.
He was also expelled from the ANC by none other than Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool, after being shown on national television trying to pick up underage girls in Beaufort West’s main road. He vehemently denied the charges.
Prince is involved in 28 criminal cases lodged with the police, either as alleged perpetrator or complainant, ranging from assault to crimen injuria.
He has brought crimen injuria complaints against others for allegedly calling him a ”poes”, while he himself faces exactly the same charge.
”I do nothing half-heartedly. When I cause shit, I cause big shit. Sometimes, when there are no battles to fight, I would pick a fight because it activates my brain,” he said this week.
In an interview with the Mail & Guardian this week, the blue-eyed Prince, who wears enormous Georgio Armani sunglasses and yellow snakeskin boots, described himself as being ”like a prophet”.
”I see things before other people do. I’m a very good political leader and my passion is my people and my people are the poorest of the poor,” he said.
”It’s payback time in South Africa. The rich white people can’t keep on winning the race because you can’t trust white people — they lie.”
In his acceptance speech on Monday he likened himself to Abraham Lincoln. ”His is the story of a man who refused to give up — who turned trial into triumph. So have I. We must roll up our sleeves to better the circumstances of our people,” Prince said to a standing ovation. Even the DA’s outgoing councillors rose to their feet.
People in Kwamandlenkosi, Beaufort West’s township, call him ”Prince Seaview” because he has a special liking for the Holiday Inn in Cape Town, where he insists on a room with a view of the ocean.
Sipping his fifth consecutive espresso, he told the M&G: ”The tabloids have called me the ‘Prince of Pigs’ — while I’m the crown of God’s creation. I am a big man in a small town, with a big brain, a huge vision and above-average intelligence.
”My only problem is that I’ve been vilified by the media and, one day when I am the president of this country, I will curb your profession. There must be a way to control what you people write and I will look into that.”
This week the ANC’s Piti said the instruction to ANC councillors to work with Prince and the NPP had come from the ANC’s Western Cape chair, Mcebisi Skwatsha.
Justifying the move, Piti said: ”We felt that the NPP cares more for the poor than the DA does. Politically we are much closer.”
But not all local ANC members agree. One, who asked to remain anonymous, told the M&G ”the ANC … will forgive him anything — stealing, having sex with youngsters, beating up his girlfriend, threatening his political foes — because he can bring the majority vote to the ANC in next year’s election. The ANC has made offers of a provincial job if he delivers the vote next year.”
The ANC’s Western Cape spokesperson, Garth Strachan, said he is not aware that Prince had reapplied for ANC membership. ”He is entitled to reapply to be a member. We will look at his application and apply our minds, but he can’t apply while he is a member of the NPP.”
Yet Prince clearly believes the party will have him back. ”The ANC treated me badly and those within the ANC who fired me have now come back to me,” he said.
”I got the ANC to where they are today in Beaufort. But then, once they were in power, they killed me. Now it’s all about to change.”
Of the 63% voters who participated in the last municipal election in Beaufort West, Prince got the majority vote by about 500 votes, drawing the attention of the ANC. ”Nobody can dispute that I am the choice of the people here. Both the ANC and the DA — and most of the other political parties — have said that I’m hell. And still the people vote for me because I have a calling in life — to see to the needs of the poor. I’m good at this job and that’s why the ANC needs me,” Prince said.
Election results show that most of Prince’s support lies in Rustdene.
”When he puts his mind to doing something and helping somebody, he cuts through red tape and delivers like nobody else. People like that. Truman is one of us. He doesn’t walk around drinking mineral water,” a 56-year-old resident here said.
”We call him ‘Tru-baby’ because he drove around throwing money out the windows of his car. He makes us laugh and when he promises you things, you believe him even though you suspect that it won’t happen,” said a resident from an old age home.
In exchange for their votes Prince offered to take the home’s residents to the sea. He has not delivered on that promise yet, and the pensioners are still waiting to see the sea.