PA peddles politics of pedalling

If you’ve spent any time stuck in city traffic you will probably know the “Think Bike” stickers well. They’re yellow, they show a car sideswiping a cyclist and they are mostly displayed, without irony, in the back windscreens of SUVs.

They are unmissable. That, along with the fact that bicycles have loomed large for Patriotic Alliance (PA) leader Gayton McKenzie at opposite ends of the land in recent days, mean that “Think Bike” could be a useful slogan for his 2024 presidential campaign — if only the party can get the optics right.

PA activists kicked off 2024 in solid populist style by turning back people trying to cross from Zimbabwe to South Africa.

In one video on social media, PA members were seen apprehending a man attempting to cross the Limpopo River on foot with a bicycle on his back and persuading him to return to Zimbabwe.

On Christmas Eve, McKenzie arrived at the hard-pressed community of Borcherds in George with brand-new bikes that were dished out to the awestruck children who then rode off happily into the sunset.

Once the photo op was over, however, the bikes were apparently prised from the kids’ hands, leaving the community with the inescapable impression that Santa Claus is fake but the Grinch is real. Neither is a good look for a presidential hopeful, though given the party’s flirtation with anti-immigrant rhetoric, the would-be biker being sent back across the Limpopo will do less harm to his campaign than snatching Christmas bikes out of the hands of disappointed children.

Party spokesperson Steve Motale says the bikes had to be taken back because the kids did not have safety helmets and that McKenzie did not want them riding around without.

Instead, the bikes will be saved for a children’s bike park to be established in the community at some unspecified date.

Not so much think bike only, then, but also “think helmet”, a useful piece of equipment in politics.