ANC party would not be the same without the cake

TFor the rest of the country, it’s the crumbs from the table of the anointed that we will have to content ourselves with

he hardy annual that has become the ANC’s birthday jollification is once again upon us. Naturally, it’ sa time of exaggerated exuberance among the comrades. For others, by contrast, celebrations such as they are will be muted. One thing is for sure though — all eyes will be on the birthday cake.

Forget the grand promises, the hints at further expropriation and the vows to actually implement those supposedly wonderful policies for once. The cake is the thing that really matters. So the difference between those who will actively rejoice and those unmoved by the event has much to do with who gets to eat the gaudy confection served up in front of birthday bash attendees.

The image of ANC grandees stuffing themselves with slices of a baked monstrosity iced in black, green and gold speaks volumes about what is wrong with our society, exemplified by a government whose leaders eat cake while others make do with the more mundane staple of mere bread.

If they’re lucky.

Man (and especially ANC office bearers) does not live on bread alone. Cake is a critical measure of success in a society riven by conspicuous consumption and revelling in its status as the world’s most unequal.

In the case of the significantly anointed in the upper echelons of the ANC, this is especially true given the party’s emphasis on cake as reward for having delivered yet another grievously underbaked year in the kitchen of our great democracy.

Since the last big celebratory cake was cut, in the Free State this time in 2023, our Eskom disaster has been joined by the implosion of Transnet, the hoped-for retribution and punishment for state capture has vanished and accountability at all levels of government has taken a nosedive.

Crime is rampant, business demoralised, and the ANC is crackling with quixotic schemes designed to lure voters in time for the elections later this year. Policy has become an afterthought.

Little wonder, with the ANC government ever more manifestly a drain on public finances and morale, that the January 8 celebrations have become an empty ritual whose forced bonhomie (or is that camaraderie?) is emblematic of the loud and empty vessel that the

ANC has become.

For what it’s worth, President Cyril Ramaphosa told the 111th celebration in the Free State, to understandably lukewarm applause: “Those who are corrupt and stealing public money will be sent to jail. The time for talk is over, we will have to act decisively.”

Formalities thus dispensed with, cue cutting of lurid multicoloured confection and Twitter explodes into action. It seems the ANC may be given a generous berth by voters, but when it comes to the visual standard of the cake, a far less forgiving attitude is at play.

Take this commentary on the cake offered by the Chris Hani region and which the masses viewed from a distance as part of the ANC’s 2018 celebrations in Eastern Cape. “What an ugly cake. How does one even bring a cake like this to a client? How does the client accept and pay for it? Look at these atrocities. Are things that bad in the ANC? The one cake looks like a Grade R project while the other one is in the colours of Dikwankwetla Party!”

When it came to the main celebration at Buffalo City in the Eastern Cape in 2018, the ANC took no chances with the cake and engaged the services of a loyal DA baker to see the project through. Said Nadine Taylor of East London: “I am the baker. It didn’t hit me until I was actually doing it because I didn’t realise the magnitude [of the cake].”

The cake of 2020, when the ANC took its party to Kimberley, may well be remembered as an improvement on earlier efforts, even if the same cannot be said for that other fixture of ANC celebration, the empty talk from baker-in-chief Ramaphosa. On that occasion he said: “We are correcting our own ways so that we serve our people with diligence and commitment. We want to get rid of the tendencies of the past, like corruption.”

Whichever way you slice it, the ANC will celebrate no matter what. For the rest of the country, it’s the crumbs from the table of the blessed that we will have to content ourselves with. When the ANC next marks its birthday, and it has been forced into a coalition as some are predicting, can we expect a fourth colour in the mix? A layer of blue maybe? Red velvet, anyone?