Bantu Mniki Frankly Speaking ANC, masters of the politics of gimmicks in SA

According to the Cambridge dictionary a gimmick is “something that is not serious or of real value that is used to attract people’s attention or interest temporarily, especially to make them buy something”.

As gimmicks go, SA produces some of the best gimmicks.

The thing about gimmicks is that they actually produce a certain euphoria, a certain thrill.

Sometimes the thrill feels so good that the gimmick justifies its own existence.

It is not rare for some of us to get into unsustainable debt at the end of the year just to feel the thrill of owning fancy things knowing very well we will soon lose them.

Sometimes the thrill is a weekend of debt-fuelled boozing just to impress friends.

However, the true master of gimmicks must be the ANC.

The ANC has single-handedly made the politics of gimmicks the face of South African politics.

So deep is the entrenchment of the politics of gimmicks in the ANC that 30 years after democracy, we must ask whether our democracy was ever real.

Was our world-acclaimed constitution possibly tainted by the politics of gimmicks?

Was there ever any genuine intention to make it a true guide for a new society or simply a ruse to “attract people’s attention or interest temporarily, especially to make them buy something”?

Over the years we have bought plenty from the ANC, mainly empty promises.

Our votes consistently brought it back to the position of leadership of our society.

Similarly, virtually all political parties have bought the ANC version of politics, the politics of gimmicks.

Those parties which broke away from the ANC, particularly after 1994, have largely used the same emotionstroking politics of gimmicks, from COPE, the EFF to the absolute gimmickiest, the MK party.

So strong is the lure of the politics of gimmicks that even opposition parties such as the DA have bought a slice out of the politics of gimmicks. Their flag-burning advert is just one such example.

It is perhaps telling that the man who was instrumental in the formulation and adoption of our constitution has just pulled off one of the biggest gimmicks in 30 years.

When President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the National Health Insurance (NHI) bill, ignoring inputs from academics and business experts, he did just this.

He knowingly stamped his name as perhaps one of the greatest masters of the politics of gimmicks, alongside his predecessor, Jacob Zuma.

I suppose being through and through political animals they just can’t pass up an opportunity to tickle the senses of a people starved for dignity and the proverbial “equality”.

The NHI, as it stands, is unfeasible, unaffordable, and unimplementable. The tragedy is that the masters of the politics of gimmicks know this.

They have no intentions of implementing the NHI, save only as a political cow from which to milk for the next decade or so.

Besides the obvious cash cow for patronage politics, tenderpreneurs, and political elites, the NHI will serve as a useful gimmick for a long time. The stage is already set for this.

If it were not so tragic, it could be said that the ANC has pulled one of its cleverest political strategies here.

Unfortunately, it will destroy the country with the willing but unintentional participation of many South Africans.

The ANC has established who the enemies of the NHI are. Anyone who views the NHI with simple common sense has already been cast as a critic, and someone who refuses to share the goodies of private health care.

Little is said about the unforgivable destruction of the public health system at the hands of the ANC to begin with.

Add to this the ANC’S favourite gimmick, the race card, which has served ANC rule for close to 30 years, that it is “white” people who enjoy the goodies of private healthcare.

This is of course a blatant lie. Private healthcare is driven mainly by civil servants who are mainly African.

The ANC has also established that the NHI will be rolled out over many years. This is designed to allow the ANC to scapegoat its lack of implementation, something inevitable, over many years.

With these two provisions in place, the ANC will claim that delays in this unimplementable policy are due to those who challenge it, for instance.

With no concern about playing off South Africans against each other, the masters of the politics of gimmicks hope to prolong their luck.

However, South Africans will soon catch on and put an end to this cruel game.

They have no intentions of implementing the NHI, save only as a political cow from which to milk for the next decade