ANC‘young lions’are kittens

I could not resist a hoot of laughter when I read that “ANC young lions smell blood” (August 12) and that Fikile Mbalula and Malusi Gigaba are waiting in the wings to take over. If there are two people who are less impressive than the current ageing lot at the top of the ANC, it might well be these two.

Mbalula is regarded by most adults as a joke. His recent tweet in response to the local government elections was a classic: “DA is a white Racist, Facist, Minority party. The narrative that they are growing is hogwash at best.”

He presides over a ministry that is big on spending money on gala occasions, celebrations and “bashes” and paying huge fees to celebrities but has failed to provide reasonable opportunities for our young people to acquire the sporting skills needed for representative sport. While being loud-mouthed about the necessity for transformation, he does little to advance it.

As for Gigaba, one has only to mention his two portfolios to date, public enterprises and home affairs, to know that this is not the man who is going to get the South African economy moving again.

He failed to do anything discernible to sort out our public enterprises. His pig-headedness about the visa regulations cost thousands of jobs in the tourist industry and millions in badly needed revenue.

My advice to the ANC: if you want to reverse the disastrous fall-off in support, you need to become a modern political party serving the real needs, aspirations and interests of South Africans. Accept that this is 2016, not 1966, and tailor your policies accordingly.

And if you want to have new leaders attractive to the voters, then try to counter Mmusi Maimane with a candidate who is even vaguely a match for him in terms of competence, brains, integrity and commitment.