The famous motto in the early 1900s, “sin that you may obtain forgiveness”, was explored by one of the early “self-created” holy men, Gregory Rasputin.
Rasputin was the most notorious Russian monk and a drunkard, who used religious orthodoxy to manipulate people through their weaknesses, beliefs, social status, political standing and religion to achieve personal acceptance and approval in the royal family and society as a whole.
Similarities could be drawn between the origins of the unholy coalitions after the recent local government elections between the EFF, ActionSA, FF Plus and ACDP which saw the ANC losing both the Ekurhuleni and Joburg metros to the DA.
Notably, EFF commander-in-chief (CIC) Julius Malema and ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba stood out as the most controversial protagonists of such a lustful arrangement.
The current socioeconomic trajectory in the country and the adverse impact of Covid-19 led to political opportunism coupled with sentimental fraud by those who seek to appoint themselves as wise men, elders and leaders.
This coterie of new born-agains, particularly the leader of the EFF, through a combination of manipulative techniques such as falsehood, distorted economic generalisations and political orthodoxy, has made it his sole responsibility to make glaring findings on the gains achieved thus far against the leadership of the ANC-led government – that is 27 years of reconstruction and development.
He uses his expulsion from the ANC as a weapon to “teach the ANC a lesson”. In doing so he commits a fatally unconscious misgiving by teaming up with the DA – despite the DA leader’s remarks that they want nothing to do with the EFF – to oust the ANC in these municipalities.
Like Rasputin, he uses his own political orthodoxy to declare himself the holy one above his supposedly left- leaning organisation to fulfil his lust for self-gratification and self-importance. EFF members have first-hand experience of white minority rule and bore the scars of white spatial development as represented by the DA and Action SA. Their loyalty to their CIC, for economic freedom in their lifetime, has taken a turn for the worse. They are in bed with their slave master!
So what do their members gain from this relationship? Would the land be back in their hands? Would the Reserve Bank be nationalised? Would the DA establish a state bank and would the DA honestly scrap Die Stem from the national anthem? The DA would not agree to those demands.
On the contrary, the ANC has taken a resolution on the state bank and there is a legislated process on land expropriation through parliament. The EFF is aware of these developments.
In their pursuit to dethrone the democratically elected government through an unholy coalition, a lot of unfounded proclamations and insinuations are made that the ANC government has under-performed and the apartheid government was better than the current government. In one on these unholy pilgrimages, the CIC of the EFF told the world that our founding father, the late Ntate Nelson Mandela, sold out.
Both leaders of the EFF and ActionSA chose to bow down to the DA request in return for the gratification of “teaching the ANC a lesson”. Like the Biblical Esau who sold his birthright to Jacob for a plate of food, Mashaba and Malema sold what their voters entrusted to them – that is the continuation of a better life for all.
Lastly, beyond the 2021 local government elections there will still be a huge gap between most black South Africans and the white minority, Mashaba and Malema will still be living in affluent suburbs while ordinary poor people still live in townships. The DA-led municipality will be strict in enforcing bylaws, like they do in Cape Town, to exclude black hawkers from accessing opportunities in areas deemed not suitable for such business.
The DA-led municipality will re-prioritise services to affluent areas as opposed to what the City of Ekurhuleni was doing under the ANC. This would be the reality of the unholy supper for the majority of black people in townships across Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni.
• Matsemela is a civil servant and SACP provincial executive committee member in Gauteng. The views are his personal views and do not constitute the views of the SACP
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