WeeklySA_AdminDAYDREAMING: Solly Mapaila (above) and company caught napping ahead of crucial municipal polls…
THE South African Communist Party (SACP), an affiliate of the ANC-led tripartite alliance, is a romantic partner that takes political marriages seriously.
It does not take kindly to being double-crossed or rejected.
That is why, feeling jilted after its alliance partner, the ANC, went into bed with the DA and eight other parties to form the Government of National Unity (GNU) following last year’s general elections, the party of Joe Slovo and Chris Hani jealously announced it would go it alone in the forthcoming local government elections.
Accusing the ANC of selling out “black people’s aspirations” to neoliberalism and white monopoly capital, its fiery and sabre-rattling secretary general, Solly Mapaila aka Solly Afrika, used various public platforms to inform everyone who cared to listen why the party “took a principled position” to contest the 2026 municipal elections.
“I am very stressed by the situation; it is giving me sleepless nights,” he told Sizwe
Mpofu-Walsh on his SMWX podcast recently.
“I think they (the ANC) will be judged harshly by history. And I call on history to judge them badly for the betrayal of our people,” he said
It is interesting, though, that Mapaila should claim he spends sleepless nights thinking about the ANC sellouts and how to rescue the revolution.
The truth is that he and other SACP leaders are just an assemblage of lethargic somnambulists who are dozing off through a revolution. They breathe fire and brimstone and hurl invectives while they are fast asleep at the wheel, snoring and daydreaming. They must thank the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) for waking them up from their slumber last week to remind them that their credentials as a registered political party were about to be rendered obsolete in a few days.
The self-proclaimed vanguard party of the working class had been half-awake and half-asleep since contesting, and winning, a by-election in the Metsimaholo Municipality in Sasolburg, Free State, more than seven years ago.
Now, with the March 25 deadline for re-registration looming, Mapaila & Co were abruptly brought back from dreamland, hurriedly rubbed their eyes and rushed to the IEC offices in Pretoria to submit hastily filled in forms to avoid deregistration. They were, to use a boxing parlance, saved by the bell!
Elections in South Africa have proven to be unkind to chancers and daydreamers. The forthcoming local government polls will not be an exception. They will prove whether the SACP is an electoral sleeping giant or just a band of hallucinators.
SAME WHATSAPP GROUP
TO be fair to the SACP, the party of Moses Mabhida is not alone in this hapless WhatsApp group. It is one of 192 registered Mzansi political parties that the IEC has flagged, giving them notice until this coming Tuesday to get their house in order or face deregistration.
It is not surprising why they are all on this troubled list of losers. They are long on dreams but short on vision, capacity, capability, expertise, experience, sophistication and the wherewithal to govern a small rural village, let alone a country as complex as South Africa.
Anyway, what would anyone realistically expect in the way of deliverables from parties with names such as All Things Are Possible, Our Last Hope, All African Change Academy, Rainbow Colors Matters, Move, Peace, Uniting People First, Strength of Humanity, South African Political Party, Appropriate Mutual Understanding Party, African Health Assurance and African Credible Leaders?
What do many of these names actually even mean?
One also wonders what, for instance, a seemingly one-person party with the name African Born Freedom Fighter can possibly achieve where multitudes of ANC freedom fighters sitting in our Parliament, provincial legislatures and municipal councils have already spectacularly failed to accomplish in the more than 30 years of our democracy.
Only one party out of this whole lot, called South Africa First, seems to, at least, have a faint idea of its vision, makeup and character and what it wants to achieve. The party has seemingly styled itself around US President Donald Trump’s America First and Make America Great Again (MAGA) philosophies.
But the fact that it is on this list of political delinquents, and facing the chop come Tuesday, means it is just as clueless and hopeless as the others.
POLITICAL SUICIDE
BY continuing to stubbornly insist it will contest the 2026 local government elections, the SACP is, wittingly or unwittingly, undertaking a political suicide mission.
It must just ask other left-leaning parties such as the Thami ka Plaatjie’s Pan Africanist Movement of Azania (PAM) and Lybon Mabasa’s Socialist Party of Azania (SOPA), both of which are also in this WhatsApp group of 192, about the brutality voters tend to unleash on political parties, irrespective of their history, struggle credentials, ideology or lofty ideals on election day.
PAM, an offshoot of the once great Pan Africanist Congress, was last heard of after garnering a measly 1 736 (or 0.00%) of the vote in the 2016 local government elections. Ka Plaatjie later dumped his own baby to join the ANC, the same party the SACP is now seeing to divorce itself from.
Despite his brave and excellent leadership of the Black Consciousness Movement-aligned AZAPO at the height of apartheid persecutions in the 1980s,
Mabasa failed dismally to steer SOPA to some sort of electoral success in the new and democratic South Africa, achieving a meagre 9 062 (0.06%) and 14 853 (0.10%) of the votes in the 1999 and 2004 general elections respectively. Sensing total annihilation in the run-up to the 2014 general polls, Mabasa announced he would work with Julius Malema’s EFF. He subsequently went to ground, never to be seen again.
Parties on the right are not finding it any easier either. Those trying to resuscitate Democratic Party and Progressive Party (Progs), the forerunners of Helen Zille’s DA, have also been given notice until Tuesday to wake up or go bust.
Maybe the SACP is just dreaming as usual, who knows? We can only hope it will wake up and honestly confront reality.
MADE IN HEAVEN
WHEN you find yourself going through a purple patch, don’t feel sorry for yourself; seek divine intervention instead. You will have me to thank afterwards. Ask Manchester United, one of the most popular sides in the English Premiership League side that went into a slump after the departure Sir Alex Ferguson, the most successful coach in the club’s history.
All the coaches that came after him – eight in total if we don’t count the incumbent, Ruben Amorim – brought misery instead of success to Old Trafford. Financial troubles and player ill-discipline added more woes to a club that had become an institution and the envy of European football.
However, confidence seemed to return to the club and glory days have started beckoning after the surprise acquisition of a relatively unheard of 18-year-old player with an unusual surname of Heaven.
Ayden Edford Heaven, a centre-back who joined from rivals Arsenal, is pure magic. His touches on the ball and movement off are, so to speak, out of this world. Ever since he arrived at Old Trafford, heavens have opened up as far scoring of goals is concerned. He is a player you would say is made in Heaven.
DEVIL’S ADVOCATE
MANCHESTER United fans are probably relieved that their cries to high heavens have finally been heard – and positively responded to.
But, to be honest, it would be naïve for them to think there won’t be a regression in the near future.
That’s mainly because there is still the small matter of the club’s nickname. They have to decisively and urgently deal with this niggling issue if they are to regain their foothold on the English and European football landscape.
You see, being called the Red Devils, as Manchester United have been known since time immemorial, is not only problematic, it also effectively constitutes a serious conflict of interest, “holy-stically” speaking, if you like.
There has been no space for the devil in Heaven ever since the over-ambitious, rebellious and pompous fellow was cast away from the holy abode and dropped on his head here on Earth following a ferocious war between him and Archangel Michael and his angels (Revelation 12: 7-9) many eons ago.
In Heaven the devil is essentially a persona non grata (apologies to United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio).
In the face of this predicament, a diehard fan has just whispered to my ear that “The Born-Again Saints of Manchester” could be a more appropriate mantra for the club to adopt in the wake of the global soccer powerhouse’s near-magical rebirth of late.
A ZULU ON MY STOEP
DOMESTICALLY, if there were a soccer club that had been going through a hellish spell and desperately needed a heavenly rescue ASAP, it would be none other than the beleaguered Kaizer Chiefs.
The brainchild of former Orlando Pirates star Kaizer “Chincha Guluva” Motaung, the Phefeni Glamour Boys had for many years been synonymous with success coupled with a huge following.
Their trophy cabinet had fast been running out of space in their long and colorful history as they clinched title after title every season. However, their fortunes inexplicably went pear-shaped about 10 years ago when they started losing matches they should easily have won, their seemingly unlimited financial resources and tons of lucrative sponsorship deals notwithstanding.
The club tried everything under the sun – but seemingly not above it – to reverse their misfortunes, including changing coaches season after season. But nothing worked.
It would appear that for the glory days to return to Naturena, Amakhosi have to emulate Manchester United. They need to start scouring the valleys and plains of KwaZulu-Natal as well as the townships and villages of Mpumalanga and Gauteng for gifted young soccer players answering to the surname Zulu (isiZulu for, yes, Heaven).
One such footballer would have been former Mamelodi Sundowns player Siyabonga Zulu. But he sadly died in a car accident last month while on the books of second-tier ABC Motsepe League side called, interestingly, Phezulu FC.
All we can say to Amakhosi is to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Who knows, maybe there is a Zulu sitting on someone’s stoep somewhere in Mzansi who will answer their call.
