“Is reality kicking in that you will never govern this country?” What began as a calm, co-operative and innovative live-streamed election debate hosted by OppiTV in the television studios of the Africa Media Matrix at the Rhodes Journalism School on Wednesday 30 April, descended into a contest of disparagement.
“Is reality kicking in that you will never govern this country?” What began as a calm, co-operative and innovative live-streamed election debate hosted by OppiTV in the television studios of the Africa Media Matrix at the Rhodes Journalism School on Wednesday 30 April, descended into a contest of disparagement.
The debate was deftly chaired by Politics Honours student, Fezokuhle Mthonti.
Representatives from eight different political parties were in attendance, and responded with varying levels of eloquence to the questions posed by Mthonti.
Topics of discussion were, amongst others: basic education, unemployment, and tertiary education.
The political sharks that had circled slowly at the start by reading pre-prepared speeches, finally showed their teeth towards the end of the debate.
Studio guest and South African Students Congress (Sasco) representative, Siyabonga Jam, urged the United Democratic Movement's (UDM) Mncedisi Faltein, to step down "because you [the UDM]will never govern this country".
By the end, the political representatives at the debate had abandoned their efforts to sell their parties' policies to the audience, and had resorted to airing each other’s dirty laundry.
Agang specifically pointed to the continuing poor levels of education in South Africa, while several party representatives were highly critical of corruption in the ANC.
Congress of the People's (Cope) Nosipho Plaatije declared that what this country needs is female leadership since “women are not corrupt – men are corrupt".
Kevin Mileham of the DA said, “The thing with corruption is that the ANC has a culture of corruption – it is corrupt from the head down. We have a president who has 783 charges of corruption hanging over his head [which]he has not answered for in a court of law and he dodges the bullet every time.”
In its closing statement, Mluleki George of the newly-formed United Congress (Unico) urged people to “vote Unico so we can fight the cancer of corruption which is destroying our country".
At Rhodes University's Barratt Lecture Theatre, where the debate was being streamed live, the large student-dominated audience was hostile to the ANC's explanations of corruption scandals like Inkandlagate.
“Holomisa is clean, vote UDM,” said Faltein.
