Pigs did a fly-past and president coloured inside the lines
Eish! There they were, looking down on me, hundreds of them, wearing smug looks on their faces as they flew in a formation the shape of a pork pie.
The formation was excruciatingly apt given what I said about pigs in this column two weeks ago.
In case you missed that column, in my customarily acerbic manner I argued that pigs would fly if former president Jacob Zuma did not deliver the state of the nation address on Friday and Cyril Ramaphosa was elected interim president of our beloved country. Did pigs fly? Well, is the pope Catholic?
This humiliation notwithstanding, some of my best friends are pigs and they cannot fly. Now, let me turn my attention to the other … I mean … politicians.
After the pigs landed safely, Ramaphosa delivered the state of the nation address, after wiping the blood off his nose.
Following the failure of the top six of the ANC to persuade Msholozi to resign, Ramaphosa entered the fray in a one-onone contest with Nxamalala, a skilled and hardened negotiator.
To cut a long story short, Zuma won the early rounds, got too cocky, started doing the Muhammad Ali shuffle and Ramaphosa gave him a buffalo kick in the tuchus towards the end of the last round, thus averting what would have been an embarrassing motion of no confidence for the governing party and its former president.
I suspect, though, that the resignation of the man from Nkandla must have left EFF leader Julius Malema livid and sad.
This was supposed to be Malema’s moment of sweet revenge against a man at whose behest he was told to voetsek from the ANC.
Malema was going to be the first speaker had Zuma been told to vamoose through a motion of no confidence in the National Assembly.
No wonder Ramaphosa giggled like a coy schoolgirl every time that Malema looked at him. But Malema is still very young.
The ANC may, one day, long after I am gone, produce another leader of Zuma’s ilk.
Giggling schoolgirls notwithstanding, Ramaphosa delivered the state of the nation address with oodles of charisma and said all the things that South Africans and ratings agencies wanted to hear.
Whether he said what we needed to hear is another question altogether.
All I know is that Ramaphosa’s wish list is second only to Zuma’s charge sheet in length.
As far as economic policy is concerned, I have no doubt that the ANC will continue being what it has been since 1994.
It will use all the colours in its box of crayons to colour in pictures that were drawn by SA’s cultural majority and its allies in the international and domestic economy. The picture will stay the same but the promises of a better economic life for all will remain as colourful as ever.
With Ramaphosa as our president for a year-and-a-half, or six-and-a-half years, or 11and-a-half, we are going to be citizens of one of three countries: first, a nirvana of prosperity, democracy and good governance.
Second, a country governed by a fidelity to a political culture grounded in the appeasement of the cultural majority.
Since I am a rabid nonracialist, I am not going to refer to this as a political culture that is appropriately sensitive to white approval.
Third, a country paralysed by indecision as old divisions mutate into new cleavages in the governing party, with Ramaphosa having very little room to pursue his agenda without the consent of his opponents in the ANC.
However, we can choose to live in a country where our potential is not tied to Ramaphosa’s successes and failures. ● Matshiqi is an independent political analyst.