By Steven Lang
What do Taylor Swift and Jacob Zuma have in huge overflowing barrels while John Steenhuisen is lucky to scrape off the bottom of his teacup? Well, both Zuma and Swift can sing, and although I’ve never heard Steenhuisen do it publicly, he can probably do it in the shower – but that is not what we are looking for.
We’re searching for the essence of what makes Swift and Zuma so popular – and Steenhuisen, not so much. Swift is a gifted performer and songwriter who sings about the anxieties of young women – nothing new there. Zuma is a politician who talks about the aspirations of his followers – nothing new there either. Yet they are both insanely popular in their respective constituencies.
Zuma and Swift extol the importance of their people’s feelings. They are relatable. Their words suggest empathy and approachability. They have exceptional interpersonal skills. They have charisma.
Steenhuisen has management skills. He wants to rescue the country by getting things done.
As a journalist, I have met Jacob Zuma twice and on both occasions he was charming and polite. He was warm and friendly to me and my colleagues at the SABC to the extent that none of us dreamt of mentioning the 1999 Arms Deal.
I have never had the privilege of meeting Taylor Swift, but she seems nice enough. A journalist whose name I cannot remember, described her Eras Tour as a celebration of: “Hey you guys, we did this together!” In her own words, “How can I keep our connection going?”
She is one of us, She relates to us, just as millions of South Africans relate to Jacob Zuma. The Arms Deal, the Guptas and state capture are secondary.
Even as the ANC implodes, the DA has not been able to pick up their disaffected supporters. Turnout was low in last month’s election because even as citizens reject the wholesale corruption and incompetence of the ANC, they cannot bring themselves to vote for the DA. That would feel like a betrayal.
Citizens could either choose not to participate in the election, or to vote for spoilers in the EFF or MK. No matter how bad the ANC is, the DA has not been able to get much past one fifth of the vote for more than a decade.
There are several reasons why in its present state the DA stands no chance of securing much more of the popular vote. Its lack of relatability and charisma are evident, but so is the perception of its ‘whiteness’.
The DA is quick to tell whoever is listening that most of its members are either coloured or black and it is therefore the most multi-racial party in the country. This disingenuous retort disregards the fact that the visible leadership of the party is distinctly white. It is not easy for the majority of South Africans to relate to Steenhuisen and Helen Zille and the recently refurbished Tony Leon.
Perhaps in their efforts to become part of a government of national unity, the DA leaders aim to become the tail that wags the dog.
What a waste
We had three ballot papers instead of two in last month’s elections to accommodate independent candidates. The IEC had to print an extra 30 million ballot papers – so that each voter could have three – and not two.
In recent years there have been persistent calls to include independent representatives in the National Assembly and provincial legislatures. It was deemed unfair that a citizen had to belong to a political party in order to be elected to Parliament.
The notion of independent representatives is not as strange as it may seem because we’ve always had independent ward councillors in our municipal councils.
As it happened, not a single independent candidate received enough votes to take up a seat in the National Assembly nor of any of the provincial councils.
The extra expense and time spent on dealing with the extra ballot papers and lists seems to have been a wasted effort.
It is not that including independents in various legislatures is a bad idea, it’s just that another system needs to be developed. The current one, hurriedly rushed through the legislature and courts for the May 29 elections, was not properly thought out.
In fact, the whole electoral system needs to be rethought in order to make representatives more accountable to the people they supposedly represent.
In the current system, Members of Parliament are directly responsible to their party whips and not their constituents. This means that once you have voted for your party list they can effectively forget about you until the next time they need your vote, five years later.
There have been several serious attempts at drawing up a better system, but none that has suited government bosses.
