GARETH VAN ONSELEN: Makhosi Khoza and brave warrior syndrome
Former ANC MP Makhosi Khoza is set to start a new political party she plans to call Change, and says she has learnt the requisite lessons from the likes of Agang SA and COPE to avoid failure. That, however, remains to be seen. It is significant that she considers COPE to be a failure. It got 7.4% in the 2009 national elections (more than the 6.6% the EFF managed in 2014). To suggest the party is a failure means she is setting her bar very high. Even the UDM managed only 3.4% in its first election in 1999. Khoza hasn’t given much detail on her new venture, aside from a lot of anti-ANC rhetoric. But few people in SA are actually interested in the details when it comes to these sorts of experiments. We are a nation in love with "Big Man" politics, and it’s all about personality. That, in turn, means South African politics is dominated by personalities who think of themselves as the one missing piece of the puzzle.SA has its fair share of them: Bantu Holomisa, Patricia de Lille, Mosiuo...
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