Readers’ views

CHANCERS WILL FILL POLITICAL VACUUM

Response to Speared: will the MK party be the end of JZ?, 13 January

In the late 1990s I never thought that as a country we would find ourselves in this situation. Everything was booming; the future was bright; one would wake up in the morning with a purpose. I thought we were heading somewhere as a nation because we were living Mandela’s dream in our diversity.

Then came the ANC’S Polokwane conference. Things started to fall apart right in front of our eyes.

There’s a political vacuum right now, so whoever comes up with loud voices will get to the masses, who are illiterate and want change only to find that a particular individual wants everything for himself and those around him.

Sibusiso Maphanga

Responses to Letter from the editor, 13 January

To quote your editorial, “many of these flyby-night new parties are about individuals who have lost access to the feeding trough, or who want access to it”.

A more succinct description of these flyby-nighters would be hard to find.

However, no element of the EFF comes close to a “pragmatic and truly servant leadership-focused” ethos and the ANC, well, the less said the better.

For me, Julius Malema resembles an individual who the world saw in Germany in the 1930s. Thank God we don’t have a portion of the population that can be isolated, corralled and painted as scapegoats for the nation’s misfortunes, otherwise things would have the potential to turn south indeed.

Senzo Moyakhe

It seems that most of these 200 parties are more about the egos of their founders than about what should matter most.

Politicians are notoriously egocentric and do not understand the concept of South Africa first, so let us put aside our differences and build a society that we can be proud of. Afrikaners understood this well when they put shoulder to the wheel in collaboration with their conquerors to rebuild the country after the destruction of the Anglo-boer War.

Carl Steyn

It’s time for the ANC to come clean, drop the Radical Economic Transformation faction and create a new corruption-free middle to lead SA into a prosperous future for our children post 2024.

Richard Weirich

The ANC, for the past 30 years, has done everything and nothing at all. It has built new schools while at the same time the education system has fallen apart. It has built new roads and bridges while at the same time most roads have become dilapidated. It has created the most unequal society in the world. It is now more expensive to be poor in South Africa.

The DA is still failing as an alternative to the ANC with all its political grandstanding. It has done well in the Western Cape, but for whom?

The EFF has made inroads into the political space, but Malema has become a dictator of sorts. Without Floyd Shivambu, he is an empty vessel with no political or economic strategy.

The other parties, the newly formed MK included, leave one without much to write about, unless taxi rank and shebeen politics are your thing.

Sonwabo Meyi