Splashing our way through paddle politics

Our politics increasingly resembles a chaotic version of musical deckchairs, on the SA Titanic, only with lousy acting and worse music.

There goes Mzwanele Manyi, paddling first for the African Transformation Movement and then, probably wisely, altering course for the leaky but still just afloat EFF before joining Jacob Zuma’s MK Party.

Kicking off from the other side of the ship is former DA rising star and Midvaal mayor Bongani Baloyi who, after finding life aboard the good ship ActionSA not much to his liking, jumped overboard to form a party named Xiluva before abandoning that leaky raft and paddling hard for the bright lights of the MK Party boat.

(Baloyi reportedly claims a “comforting conversation” with former EFF deputy Floyd Shivambu helped him decide to join MK. He made no mention, however, of Xiluva, which means flower in Tsonga, scoring just 0.02% of the vote in the May elections, according to the results dashboard.)

Over in the capital, DA mayor Cilliers Brink is about to be left on a desert island following the ANC’s third motion of no confidence in him, with ActionSA now joining the ANC, EFF and ACDP to push the Tshwane skipper overboard.

Things are hardly better in Gauteng where premier Panyaza Lesufi is apparently looking at working with ActionSA to blunt the DA’s political ambitions in Joburg, even if the ANC and the blue party are supposed to have a firm hand on the nation’s rudder.

The GNU’s ongoing troubles bring to mind a lovely song by the long-gone music hall duo Flanders and Swann about a man who mistakes a wildebeest for a bison.

“I’m a g-nu,” sings the animal, “a g-nother g-nu, I wish I could g-nash my teeth at you. I’m a g-nu. 

“How d’you do? You really ought to k-now wa-who’s wa-who ...”

To which we can only say, none of you are making it easy.