Jet-Letter by Rhynie Greeff: Comical politicals draw many votes

The forest kept shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe because they thought that, with its long wooden handle, the axe was one of them.

And now, shiver my timbers, the South African forest will be voting in national and provincial elections again on 8 May 2019.

This beauty contest between 48 parties proves South Africa is a democracy but it also has some comical aspects.

Although I respect President Ramaphosa is it not a theatrical farce that most of the votes will probably go to his leading party with so many corrupt members who, with no approval, expropriated money for themselves? (Interestingly, the French word farce means stuffing as in the stuffing of a turkey. I notice many turkeys in politics stuffing taxpayer money in their own pockets. Bonjour Monsieur  Molière.)

I agree land expropriation is historically complex but is the policy of the ANC and the EFF on this not satirically funny? Voters, vote for us! Why? So that, without compensation, we can take away the property of those other minority voters who pulled the unfortunate short straw to produce food for you! Is satire not wonderful? Show me a country where a seriously recognised party leader would sing: Voters, vote for my party and then we will shoot to kill all those other food producing voters. We will axe the voters we dislike. Vote for the gun. Paf-paf. Show me any country where a recognised party leader shoots an assault rifle on stage in public and never gets charged. Okay, aside from Saddam Hussein.

I respect DA leader Maimane but his party had an internal quarrel which many outsiders found farcical and so confusingly boring that a splinter party arose with the name Good – probably to explain that Good’s candidates are not as badly corrupt as those other ones in the Parliament Comedy Club.

South Africans are national herd voter with no individual candidate choice, just a party choice. And each party’s own internal politics determine which individuals are finally elected. So the final list of a party’s parliamentarians could have many individuals who rub each other’s back with one hand while holding the other hand behind their backs in a cupped manner for “gifts”.

Maybe South Africa needs a new comical protest party with equally bizarre policy proposals as those I see in the pot for 8 May. But where in the world can one find good examples?

Let us start with the United Kingdom where a far-sighted man, Screaming Lord Sutch founded the Official Monster Raving Loony Party and clocked up losses in more than 40 elections.

His slogan was: “Vote for insanity; you know it makes sense.”

He proposed bringing back the village idiot, that joggers and the unemployed should be forced to power a gigantic treadmill to generate cheap electricity (are you listening Eskom?) and that January and February should be banned to shorten winter. Also that fish should be bred in a European wine lake so they could be caught already pickled and that dogs should be forced to eat phosphorescent food so that one could see their droppings at night. I believe this proves there is always a ray of light in toilet humour. 

Screaming Lord Sutch died in 1999 but his dream lives on under the competent leadership of Howling Laud Hope who, with his cat Catmando, became joint leader of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. In 2017 Howling Laud Hope stood against the current British Prime Minister Theresa May in her constituency and finished a meritorious ninth out of 13 candidates.  However, he ran into trouble after being successfully elected in a town council election because his party’s policy was that, if you were successfully elected, you were immediately expelled.  Fortunately for Laud Hope the rule was changed (probably with a deciding vote from Catmando) and so he became mayor of Ashburton.

The most famous satirical candidate for the presidency of France was Ferdinand Lop (1891- 1974). He promised the elimination of poverty but only after 10 pm, reducing pregnancy from nine to seven months, providing a pension for the widow of the Unknown Soldier and to move Paris to the countryside for fresh air. He also wanted brothels to be nationalised to give prostitutes the benefits of public servant status. I think bureaucratising prostitution would be less disruptive than the policy of one of the current South African satirical parties for 8 May insisting they want to create nationalised civil servants in the pharmacy sector, in banking, farming, mining and who knows what else.

America has a perennial candidate on local, state and national levels, a certain Vermin Supreme, who wears a boot as a hat and walks around with a giant toothbrush. Well, why not?

According to him all politicians are vermin and he is Vermin Supreme. Vermin supports zombie apocalypse awareness and video surveillance through two-way bathroom mirrors. He wants to legally bind people to brush their teeth and he would establish detention centres for preventive dental maintenance.  His policy calls for a free pony for every American so that motor vehicles could be banned and the planet not be destroyed by fossil fuels. Vermin’s proposal is in line with the May 8 election platform of South Africa’s Black First Land First Party that the recent cyclone in Africa was an ecological “assault” by the white West and that the USA and European Union should pay reparations for “mass murder”.

Ecuador had a strange political footnote (yes it is a word play). In 1967 a foot powder company advertised its product, Pulvapies, as a candidate for the city council of Picoazá (a town with a current population of 19,000). The foot powder was elected as councillor and, quite interestingly, won more votes than any other candidate. One small step for man, one giant leap for foot powder.

I think, if South African politicians stood as individuals and not as jobs-for-pals party list members, many of them would be roundly stomped out by any foot powder.

In a protest action during 1959 a candidate with a South African link drew more than 100,000 votes and was elected city councillor of Sao Paulo in Brazil.  Her name was Cacareco and she was a five-year old black rhinoceros in the city zoo. Tragically her political career was cut short when she was disqualified but her success led to the Rhinoceros Party of Canada whose founding leader was Cornelius the First, supposedly a descendant of Cacareco. Two legged candidates of the Rhinoceros Party rammed their way through three decades of elections with important promises such as that they would revoke gravity, promote higher education by building taller schools and recognise illiteracy as an official language.  They also stood for the abolition of the environment because it takes up so much space and is difficult to keep clean. They promised to sell the Canadian Senate on an antiques auction, to transfer the national debt to Visa and to ban both guns and butter because both can kill you.

And finally, the USA has a perennially special presidential candidate.

In 1975 the journalist Arthur Hoppe proposed a certain Nobody as candidate for the American presidency. Why? The answer was and is: “Nobody is the best candidate. Nobody cares. Nobody keeps his election promises. Nobody tells the truth. Nobody will defend your rights.” In July 2015 President Obama even stated at the African Union in Addis Ababa: “Nobody should be president for life.” In the last US presidential candidacy debate of 2016 against Hillary Clinton current US President Donald Trump lauded Mister Nobody by stating: “Nobody has more respect for women than I do”.

With such support from both Obama and Trump this Nobody chap sounds to me like a strong potential leader for the next South African general elections.

Rhynie Greeff has a doctorate in commerce and a background in international business related to diplomacy, chemicals, minerals and telecommunications.

Remember to come back every second week for Jet-Letter by Rhynie Greeff, exclusive to TheSouthAfrican.com.

Read his previous Jet-Letter here.