The ANC parliamentary caucus is running its own election campaign and to grace the launch it ran a number of ads in Sunday newspapers to celebrate its illustrious 15 years in Parliament.
It mined the archives to reflect the good and great who had graced the benches of Parliament: Nelson Mandela, Joe Slovo, Trevor Manuel (with movie-star moustache), Frene Ginwala (in cool-mama sunglasses), Jeff Radebe (looking decades younger) —
But the party appears to have forgotten many of the more notable recent parliamentarians, so the Mail & Guardian has decided to help a little. The ANC has had a string of remarkable chief whips, all of whom it left out of the original advertisement. We’ve put them back in.
On the bottom row (second right), we’ve added the dandy former chief whip Tony Yengeni, who faced corruption charges and was fired from Parliament for failing to declare a massive discount on his Merc.
In the centre row (second left) is the unforgettable Mbulelo Goniwe, who faced sexual harassment charges for abusing a parliamentary aide; and in the second row is Nyami Booi, the incumbent chief whip who is facing criminal charges in relation to Travelgate.
We’ve also included Bathabile Dlamini (top left), the supporter-in-chief of ANC president Jacob Zuma — she pleaded guilty to several Travelgate charges — and we’ve also remembered Oupa Monareng (top row, third right), who headed last week’s charge against prosecuting chief Vusi Pikoli and who was revealed to be guilty of bribing a police officer after he was caught driving a stolen BMW.
And with Valentine’s Day looming, how could the ANC leave out its former MP Malusi Gigaba (bottom second left), the deputy home affairs minister who sent his wife sweet-nothings on his ministerial expense account?
Is this the worst example of political revisionism we have ever seen?
We think so.