[imagesource: GCIS]

The campaign trail does strange things to people.

Issues that have been ignored throughout the election cycle are suddenly front and centre, t-shirts are handed out with glee, and voters are promised the world.

With the ANC, that comes with a caveat, which is essentially the party saying “Look, I know we’ve failed miserably on every front for two decades, but this time we’re going to be better!”

Fun fact – the ANC’s service delivery is so shite that they now celebrate the opening of a tap.

I kid you not. Here’s KZN premier Sihle Zikalala, with media in tow:

So he opened a tap .. and the photographers were there. He opened a tap!!
pic.twitter.com/ko7eawZRQu

— Denzil Taylor (@DenzilTaylor) September 29, 2021

Yes, that tap opening is part of the launch of the provincial government’s Water Master Plan, but it’s telling that 27 years after being voted into power, this is heralded as some sort of victory.

But we’re getting side-tracked, so let me return to President Ramaphosa and his delusions.

He’s pictured up top bumping elbows with disgraced former health minister Zweli Mkhize, who has now been exposed for his part in the Digital Vibes scandal.

But Cyril wants you to know that while Mkhize was implicated in the looting of around R150 million in the midst of a deadly pandemic that has killed at least 87 525 South Africans, he’s not all bad.

This from TimesLIVE:

Ramaphosa on Wednesday defended former health minister Zweli Mkhize, saying the fact that he was implicated in the damning Digital Vibes scandal did not take away the contribution he made in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

“He has served the nation well, and I think as much as we want to be gung-ho and send him to the gallows, we do need to also recognise some of the things that he has done. Minister Mkhize has served the nation well,” said Ramaphosa.

Sorry, what now?

Who told our president that publicly defending Mkhize was a shrewd move?

Ramaphosa went on to say that while he was the face of the pandemic response, Mkhize was “the soul” and “we were able to navigate our way around the pandemic because of his experience”.

The delusion doesn’t stop there:

“The ANC has committed itself to act against corruption. That is a clear policy position. This is precisely what the ANC stands for, so I don’t see this affecting the ANC negatively,” he said.

In fact, he said, this will paint the party in a good light.

“People will say hitherto [that] we have been very light on taking action against people who have done some wrong. We are now doing things differently. We are after up and… we may not really be able to do it with the pace and the intensity that you may want to see but, truth be told, we are acting on it,” he said.

Spare us this garbage, man.

The ANC is barely a political party these days, it cannot pay its staff, and it’s just cadre after cadre lining their pockets while South Africans suffer.

News24’s Pieter du Toit isn’t buying Cyril’s spiel about the ANC being anti-corruption:

…this is the real ANC, one where cadre deployment ensures that pliant and corrupted individuals are assigned to key positions before the process of mass rent extraction can begin.

And once the system and architecture of the government and governance has been modified to enable extraction, no rules apply. Then it’s all about loading money on the conveyor belt out of place. It happened during state capture, it happened after state capture, it happened in the Gauteng government, it happened at Eskom. It happened everywhere.

That’s the real ANC the president should be speaking of because that’s how deployment works, and that’s how the most senior leaders in his organisation behave.

While voters may look at the ANC and pin the party’s worst days on Jacob Zuma, the difference with the Digital Vibes scandal is that happened right under Ramaphosa’s nose.

This, says The Daily Maverick, could sting them at the polls:

…money flowed from the health department to a luxury holiday in Turkey, [and] as Mkhize was warning South Africa about the forthcoming second wave of Covid-19, Taheera Mather was spending R90,400 at a Gucci shop in Sandton.

It is likely that this scandal will continue and will not be forgotten on the day voters gather at the polls, 1 November.

This is because some of the officials in the health department are still in their posts. These include the director-general, Dr Sandile Buthelezi (currently on “precautionary suspension” with full pay), and a deputy director-general, Dr Anban Pillay.

Even when you are suspended, like Ace Magashule, you still bring home the bacon.

As the extensive investigative reporting shows, the Digital Vibes scandal was pulled off with extensive participation by Mkhize.

Our minister of health, feeling no shame as he aids and abets corruption in the middle of a pandemic should really be the nail in the coffin when South Africa goes to the polls on November 1.

Unfortunately, we have opposition parties who appear to have neither the skills nor the desire to expand beyond their existing voter bases.

That, coupled with the free t-shirts and false promises, points to more of the same.

Ramaphosa remains delusional, but so too are those who cast their votes for the ANC.

[sources:timeslive&news24&dailymaverick]