Gareth Cliff
The Burning Platform: The Contenders: Rise Mzansi, BOSA, ActionSA

Gareth Cliff and Phumi Mashigo | The Burning Platform: The Contenders: Rise Mzansi, BOSA, ActionSA | 05.28.24

Visuals displayed throughout the presentation.

- Welcome everybody. This is our penultimate episode in our series on South Africa, South African politics, and our historic election, which starts tomorrow. Big, big day. South Africans 27 odd million of us go to the polls.

• Doesn’t start tomorrow. Tomorrow’s the last day.

• Tomorrow’s voting. Yeah. I mean, tomorrow’s the day that everybody goes. It’s only special votes today and yesterday, and by the end of probably Friday at the latest, we should have results. Possibly even Thursday they start to get close to announcing many of the major polls. So some exciting stuff happening. Phumi Mashigo is my co-host. I’m Gareth Cliff. Tonight we are going to be looking at.

• The contenders. Because we have a lot of people on our ballot, but we do have some new entrants who’ve never been on the ballot before in a meaningful way. Two of the, well, three of the four parties that we are talking with you about today are actually a kind of breakaway, right? ‘Cause that’s Mmusi Maimane was the leader of the DA and he started his own party. Herman Mashaba was a DA mayor, actually here in Johannesburg, and he started his own party. And then there’s Patriotic Alliance, which is a dark horse. But we are going to decide about that because yesterday gave us an insight into how much we can cover in this. So we may have to miss out on the Patriotic Alliance, but we are certainly not missing out on the lightning on a blue sky day that has been Jacob Zuma and his almost seven month old MK party. That’s what we are talking about today.

• Yeah, that’s really, that’s the one that none of the polls, none of the predictions could have accounted for. And as discussed, just the other night, if you were watching the episode with Wayne Sussman, it really has caught all of them off guard. You know, we have a, just like in every country, we have a class of political analysts and pollsters and people who are number nerds. And they all had everything worked out a couple of months ago. And then Jacob Zuma decided, I’m going to turn this-

• In December.

• Right, I’m going to turn this whole thing over and make it difficult for everyone to predict the outcome and I’m going to start my own party. So we’ll get to that by the end. But let’s begin, Phums, where do you want to start with?

• I think same as yesterday just for those people who weren’t here yesterday, the Q&A is open. Please send us your comments, your questions. We’re going to watch the first package, which is going to be Build One South Africa with Mmusi Maimane and we will take your questions. We’ll stop and have a refresher and insights from myself and Gareth who did interview all of these individuals. And that’s how we’re doing it. Starting, Hannah, please play for us. We’re going to start with Mmusi Maimane.

[Clip starts]

• This rally, this moment is us taking that freedom to be free, to free us from liberators.

• The most important thing that South Africa has lost in the last 15 years is the capability of government. The state is corrupted. It is incompetent. We were just speaking earlier about just the basic process of getting an ID. People can’t, it’s hard work. Basic systems of being able to say, how do you account? So if you were to say to me, what would a Maimane type presidency look like in the first a hundred days? I can assure you, you’ll spend all of your life making sure the best work for government so that we can deliver. Because that’s absolutely crucial. You can have all the dreams and ambitions you like. The reality of it is that if you are incapable of delivering against it, you’re going to struggle. That’s why even in our model of selecting candidates we wanted the best so that you can send them to departments so they can work hard. In as far as what is important for citizens, it’s job stupid, right? Like it’s a famous line.

• [Gareth] Sure.

• And we’ve got to focus on making sure that we create not only the conditions to deliver jobs, but be deliberate about it. And that’s what the last five years for me, outside of parliament have been.

• New political party has entered the ring to contest the 2024 general elections.

• Build One South Africa.

• Build One South Africa.

• Build One South Africa has officially launched its 2024 election campaign.

• I believe in a South Africa where the economy works for all, and where there’s at least one job in every home.

• Where our children are maths and science champions not dying in pit latrines.

• Where the colour of my skin doesn’t determine my chances of life.

• I believe in a South Africa where all citizens can be proud of their country.

• And where my family will not be the next victim of a violent act of crime.

• A place where those who steal public monies are arrested and jailed.

• This dream is possible. And together we can Build One South Africa. I’m Mmusi Maimane, and on these elections, I’m asking you to vote for Build One South Africa. So one of the problems of this deployment culture that you are alluding to has been a mismatch of skills more than anything, right? Even the fact that people can choose people from their own parties and send them there. The crime has been that you have water problems, but you send doctors there. And as nice as it sounds, the problem fix my water problems. I’d rather send them elsewhere or employ them elsewhere. So we’ve got to be able to craft the skeleton that says actually here are the best skills for these jobs and begin to make it possible for the most professional people to come through. This is true for Japan, this is true for South Korea, this is true for countries that if you started them in the 1994 in the same period as us, we in similar GDP terms. But they’ve outstripped us by far by making sure that their ability to deliver is actually far more effective by employing the best people. And I say this with all the gusto I can put together, if we don’t educate our kids, if we don’t skill them, you are rendering them to permanent unemployment and unemployability.

So what underpins all of this is a skilling for jobs. And so we’ve worked out where, which sectors we prioritise, where the jobs are going to come from. And I’m committed to making sure that in the next five years we can deliver these two million jobs. You know, in 2016 to when I led the DA, we led the coalitions in Joburg, which eventually elected Herman Mashaba’s man, and they stuck it out for three years. It wasn’t even about Herman or anything like that. It was that we sat down and said, here are the things that we’re going to do in government and anyone wants to work with us must focus on those things. And so you spend three years and then you focus all the energy on collaborating with leaders, keeping them goal oriented so that it’s not ego driven. And you make sure that you eradicate some central things like corruption. Make sure that the best people work for government.

And you force, you can ask Herman, you can ask any mayor I’ve worked with, the simple question I put before them is, what are you doing about restoring dignity of people by delivering basic services and ensuring that ultimately we deliver economic growth in all those cities. That was the mantra. So to them, that’s the focus. That’s all you’ve got to do. Now, to come back to the 2024 conversation, we have to, again, with a 10 point plan, that ESKOM, logistics, safety, education, digitization, looking at what we do around healthcare, improvement of certain infrastructural costs across those things, then let’s sit down with parties and negotiate. And on one theme, when you say you want to eradicate corruption, you can’t work with corrupt people to eradicate corruption. So with respect, it would be impossible to work with ANC, for the simple reason that they’ve shown clear evidence-

• So you’re saying it would break down at the point where corruption comes up. You wouldn’t just out of hand say like, we’re not going to work with you. But at the point where you’re sitting at the table and they say, listen, this corruption thing, you’re going to go, Hmm.

• I mean even at this point you could almost say hmm, because here people listed in the Zondo commission. And they will be serving as members of parliament. So your problem with it is that we’ve got this hanging thing, and I’ve asked the questions. I mean, we wouldn’t have Phala Phala today had I not asked President Ramaphosa about a donation to his own campaign that then unravelled into this “there’s money in your couch” business. We wouldn’t have the Zondo commission if I had not asked Zuma about Mcebisi Jonas’s testimony and reporting it to the Public Protector. So that’s been work of fighting.

Now suddenly you’ve been fighting these two major cases, you arrive in parliament and then suddenly people are going, we no longer want to look into this Phala Phala issue, or actually the Zondo commission, let’s just file it under a little bit of a cupboard and then move on from there. I think it would be hypocritical and I think it’d be wrong. So let’s get onto the business of, if you want to work with us, let’s fight corruption. To the parties, I think the pathway for South Africa is a grand coalition of the opposition. I really think so. I think it does two things. It gives the ANC time on the bench, I think is necessary. I don’t think the ANC… The ANC talks about renewal. The best place to renew is outside government.

You can’t renew and fly a plane at the same time, sit down. The second thing is a grand opposition that works in this manner. Now, I know many people might think I’m crazy for saying this. I don’t think you can form a formal coalition with the EFF, but when it comes to issues of voting around the budget, electing a president, a speaker, I think you could sit down with the EFF and say, we need your vote for these things. Because I think these things are going to be important if we’re going to bring change. We are never going to agree on ideology. We’re never going to agree.

• They have come to the party on some of those things.

• And some of these things can come forward. On matters of how do you form that government, if you were clear in your head, this is what a cabinet looks like and then you began to say, how do I attract across the political parties, the best finance minister, the best person who digitization, all of that, bring them all together and form a cabinet that will represent the best of South Africa and deliver for South Africa. I wish that maybe two or three months into the journey, we would’ve been able to stop and say, maybe this is not practicable for us and we were wrong. And be willing to say that to citizens. And I think citizens would be willing to accept a political leadership that’s also honest about saying, we get something’s wrong.

[Clip ends]

• So that is Mmusi Maimane straight out the bat, talking jobs, talking crime, talking electricity. These are the same things that we heard almost everybody talk about yesterday. But he is also talking about how he would see working with other the parties, right? Because there is a lot of conversation going on about coalitions and what a reduced ANC looks like and how you push things through parliament, you know, because that is also one of the big things that their job is at the end of the day.

So Mmusi Maimane, clear plan. And let’s not forget that Mmusi Maimane is the leader of the DA that actually did see a little bit of a growth in his time at the DA, you know, but he’s on the outside now and trying to build something bigger than just himself. I don’t know what his chances are. Even though he has his name, he’s the one leader that has his name in the party name. So the party is officially called Build One South Africa with Mmusi Maimane. I don’t know if the name recognition is enough.

• Yeah, and you know, he also like so many, really talented, and he’s a smart guy and he’s articulate and he’s practical, but like so many black leaders who’ve come before from the little parties, all that he does is he gets white liberals hugely excited. And they, oh my God, this is what we’ve hoped for. It’s the Jesus of politics, you know. We finally found a black man we can trust. And I’ve just, I’m afraid that those white liberals have been disappointed over and over again. They had it happen with COPE, with Mosiuoa Lekota. They had it happen with Bantu Holomisa.

I mean, he still has an effect, but the party hasn’t grown at all. And they’ve had it happen with other parties along the way. So again, I don’t know who they’re appealing to. If they appeal to enough black voters, maybe they’re in with a chance. If they’re just going for the white voters who are desperate to vote for anyone but the DA so they can tell their friends at dinner parties they didn’t vote DA, then he’s got no chance in hell. But that’s just my 5 cents worth.

• Oh, I am very much looking forward to Mmusi Maimane getting at least once seat. I would like to see him in parliament.

• [Gareth] Yes.

• I would like to… I would actually very much like to see him in parliament, but I would also like to see him in the provincial legislature. He’s got a very strong candidate in the Gauteng legislature. He is, and Annette, putting a thing saying he’s very articulate, and he’s very clear, he’s very clear in how he’s thinking about this. But if I were him, I would have waited my turn out in the back benches of the DA because he is a talented politician and he could do more with what the DA can do. But we’ll see. A lot of the pundits are putting him at the one to 2%.

• So that being the case, even if it’s 2%, no more time needs to be wasted on him. What else have you got on the menu for us tonight, Phumi.

• Next up, a second DA breakaway, Herman Mashaba, who is actually got quite a big name recognition in South Africa. He’s a former businessman who’s done really, really well in the 80s and the early 90s. And he was mayor who did relatively well in Johannesburg, but he was there for a very short time before he was ousted out of the DA. And he does have some pretty outlandish views, especially when it comes to our neighbours and how we treat migrants in our country. Next up is Action SA with Herman Mashaba. Let’s press play please, Hannah.

[Clip plays]

• Former DA Johannesburg member, Herman Mashaba has officially launched his own political party, Action SA.

• Action SA launched its election campaign earlier today.

• I’m Herman Mashaba, former mayor of Johannesburg and president of Action SA. To fix South Africa, we must start fixing our cities. As mayor, I hired more police officers to keep residents safe, invest that in basic infrastructure, and begin reclaiming the inner city to create jobs and affordable accommodation. This is only the beginning. Our work is to fight poverty, not poor people. This is a distinction that matters. Action SA will be the first political party to table a comprehensive alternative aimed at inclusive socioeconomic empowerment over the empowerment of the narrow class of tenderpreneurs. The first thing I will do is to invest in law enforcement agencies, made sure that that the citizens of this country are protected, that I don’t have to sit in a country where 86 people are being murdered every day. I don’t have sit in a country where every 11 men, a woman is raped. I’ve got to deal with this drug cartels uptake in South Africa as a playground.

So I need to capacitate law enforcement agencies, reestablish as a matter of agency, the scorpions. I need to reestablish as a matter of agency, what we used to call the Brixton Madden Robbery squad. That for me, it’s important because if I don’t really start by making sure that we don’t have July eight days, eight days in July, I’ve got to ensure that I’ve got our law enforcement agencies in place. I’ve got to, as a matter of agency, deal with this draconian laws. Thirdly, I have to ensure that in our statute book, we remove any race-based legislation. South Africans, I need all South Africans to be South Africans, regardless of§ their race, gender, and whatever. I need a United South Africa because once a nation is united as one nation, I can tell you everything else will follow. Cannot buy into the spin that this government should be trusted to load shedding because there’s an election next year when they have not addressed this problem in 16 years.

As long as we continue to rely predominantly on capture state and entities like ESKOM for the provision of quality services, we will continue to find ourselves, unfortunately, in the dark. Ladies and gentlemen, Action SA will produce a caring government that deliver responsibly to the needs of communities and our residents. This means that we have to be unapologetic about being a pauper in our service delivery agenda. A few years ago on a campaign trail in Alexander, I met a young woman with my delegation. This lady had a presence that would’ve made her had a home in a corporate boardroom in life, had life been fair. I saw she had no toilet. I asked her how she survived. You know what she told me. I’ve trained my body to only need the toilet at my place of work. This incident broke my heart. It’s for such people that we have to deliver services that provide the dignity that will come from living in Action SA municipalities.

• [Reporter] Illegal immigrants have flooded South Africa. Human trafficking, drugs, counterfeit goods. The government has failed us supporting disastrous immigration policies. Why are they not creating jobs and fighting crime in our communities? Do you want a government that puts South Africans first and creates jobs? Change is coming. Herman Mashaba has always fought for secure borders, and Action SA always will. On 29 May vote Action SA, 'cause only action will fix South Africa.

• We must continue encouraging people of the world to come into this country, but however, they must come here legally. And when they’re in South Africa, they must respect the laws of our country. Can you imagine in this country, want to bring national health to whatever, the NHI? In the meantime, we’ve got what, 600 unemployed medical doctors. This country was built, you see the South Africans in this house, that’s how God wanted it to be. I believe very strongly that we need to really coexist. We need to really learn to coexist.

• Yeah, Herman, on the assumption that you end up being very successful, but you have to form a coalition government at that point, is it going to be a sticking point for you if the DA ends up being the people who have a presidential candidate to put forward that then gets elected?

• Look, fortunate enough, we signed the multi-party charter agreement in front of South Africa and in the world, and we agreed as part of that contract, and it’s a public document that, not that the president is not going to be elected from someone coming from the party that measure as the biggest. So we said, we’ll come out with a mechanism where we can consult South Africans as to who’s the best person in the coalition to actually lead the party. I mean, did the government do, whether it’s comes from the DA, IFP or Freedom Front Plus, ACDP and other parties, I think we comfortable. I think our motivation behind being part of the multi-party is to ensure that we can work together as South Africans to remove this curse called ANC from government.

Because if you want to destroy a nation, destroy the rule of law. Growing up, under apartheid, I learned that life is a struggle. The struggle of growing up poor while wanting to succeed. The struggle of building a job creating business during apartheid. And today, the struggle of living in a country that remains unequal and divided, rich versus poor, black versus white. This is not the future I want for my country. As the mayor of the city of Johannesburg, we made progress. In just three years, we electrified over 10,000 households, insourced 6,000 cleaners and security guards, resurfaced over 1000 kilometres of roads and put 1,500 more police on the streets. And now Action SA’s plan to fix our country includes a basic income grant for all South Africans.

Harsh penalties to keep criminals off the streets and securing our non-existing borders. Our country needs action. We need patriotic South Africans who aren’t afraid to stand up to the corrupt political system. We need them to fight for a shared prosperous future. On 29 May I’ll ask you to vote for Action SA because only action will fix South Africa.

[Clip ends]

• Thank you Hannah. So before we come to your question, Hazel, I just want to point out that even Herman Mashaba, he of all the new candidates has the highest track record, right? So because he was mayor, he’s got stuff that he can say, I’ve done this, I’ve done that. And he spent a lot of time in this past campaign talking about all his successes as mayor. He spent a lot of time talking about action, hence the name of his party Action SA. And also reminding everyone about the successful business that he built. I do think, however, that he forgot that we do have another business person as the president of the country right now. And people are deeply unhappy.

• backside. He’s about as business person as someone who gets a handout at the traffic lights and manages the turn from one Rand into two. He didn’t even get that right.

• Gareth, he’s a successful businessman, that’s where we’re going to leave it. But Hazel, your question is quite right. Hazel is asking the question about the 600 unemployed doctors that Herman Mashaba alluded to when he was talking about the NHI. The NHI is the National Health Insurance, which has recently, last week I think, signed into law by the president. But we do have this big problem of unemployed doctors because the system is unable, unable. The people working the system have been really bad at allocating doctors because the doctors, all our doctors, when you finish medical school, you have to do I think two years of rotation in various communities where you’ll get posted where there is a need for doctors, but there’s a backlog in posting the doctors. T

here’s a lot of young people who are graduates who are doctors and willing and waiting to be posted. And you can’t get into private practise without having spent those two years. So the system is definitely not working and we don’t know how NHI is going to work going forward. That’s the unemployed doctor saga that we are facing Hazel. But the other thing that I’d like to just point out with Herman is he may have good ideas, but he struggles to inspire, hope, joy, anything. This guy wants to be the president. And every time he says something, he’s struggling with the words, he’s struggling with the words. And I think for South Africans right now, what we are looking for, and as you can hear, all of them, what they have to offer, it’s the same.

Jobs they’re saying, crime, we are going to fight with, unemployment, we’re going to deal with, we’re going to deal with this, we’re going to deal with that. All of it is the same. And I think the thing that’s going to change anyone’s fortunes is really going to be about whether they can inspire people to go out and vote for them. And I don’t know if Herman Mashaba has got that in his feather.

• Yeah. I don’t know. You know, these small parties for all the love in the world, they have a real problem kind of getting the turnout on the day. And there’s lots of excitement. And I saw Herman did a rally over the weekend. I saw Musi did a rally as well. And they’re both very likeable people. I mean, there’s absolutely nothing about either of them that’s immediately off-putting. But you know, in South Africa, it’s not necessarily… I mean, we’re a country that really likes a little bit of controversy and some grit, which is why Jacob Zuma was so popular. It’s why Julius Malema is so popular. It’s why, you know, the people who make the news all the time are the ones who don’t kind of walk that middle line and who are easily marketable to corporates and to brands and to liberals because the kind of people who get people’s attention in South Africa are often the ones who rub people up the wrong way.

And where I will say Herman has done a pretty good job is he hasn’t flip flopped. You know, we accused Julius of flip flopping yesterday and there are very recent examples of precisely that. I think Herman means what he says. And having spent probably more time around him than any of the other leaders of any of the other parties, there’s a lot to like. But again, whether he manages to actually canvas enough people to be able to turn out for him and his substantial list of candidates that come after him in Action SA, I’m not entirely sure. I think they’re going to be an also ran party. But again, I don’t hate the fact that there might be a seat or two for the Action SA people in Parliament.

• I think there will definitely be a seat or two for them. There will definitely be a seat or two for them. And it’ll be interesting to see what kind of dynamic Herman Mashaba brings to the National Assembly. But speaking of people who are not afraid to ruffle feathers, people who are not scared to say what they mean. Our next candidate, Gayton McKenzie. Now Patriotic Alliance is actually a party that’s not in our National Assembly, but it’s a party that is 10 years old and was never on the radar of many people until Gayton Mackenzie got his hands on it. We don’t quite know how he got his hands on it. The man does have a colourful past. Like Nelson Mandela, he is an ex-con, but he is not a political-

• [Gareth] Not for political reasons.

• He was not for political reasons. He was actually a, I think cash-in-heist kind of guy back in the day. But he has managed to capture the imagination. Here in South Africa, for those of you who don’t know, we have a racial classification called Coloured, which is historically mixed race individuals who were lumped in with the black back in the apartheid days And even now they still classified as part of the black, coloured and Indian classifications. So they do get access in terms of affirmative action, BEE, they get preferential shares and treatment. But this is a racial classification that have felt very much that in the past, during apartheid, they were not white enough. And now during this new dispensation feel that they’re not black enough. And Patriotic Alliance led by Gayton McKenzie have really been able to capture the imagination of that particular demographic. So let’s see Gayton McKenzie and what he stands for.

[Clip starts]

• [Announcer] Our beautiful South Africa, known for its beautiful rainbow nation. Change is coming.

• The PA is here to stay. The PA is growing. We are emphatic about the fact that we put God first. God will be put back into our schools with immediate defect.

• [Announcer] In a land where unity and equality ceased to exist, the Patriotic Alliance is here to unravel the ground that has once been laid before you.

• Patriotic Alliance.

• Patriot Alliance.

• Patriotic Alliance may have a few surprises up its sleeve.

• We don’t define ourselves as politicians. We are community activists because community activists have got the heart for the community. We’re going to create jobs in order to help us to fight crime. We’re going to realise the Rainbow Nation that Mandela dreamt of. And that is only going to happen in the Patriotic Alliance. We are not a coloured party, we are colourful party. We are the chosen ones to make sure that we bring this country together. I say thanks to God that he put someone in place to look after us.

• We are going to win these elections. We are going to make an impact.

• It’s our time. And that time is now.

• [Announcer] A movement in the atmosphere that is bound to bring about a shift.

• We are going to write off all the outstanding debt. All illegal forms will be in jail or outside. We didn’t come with promises, we just came to deliver.

• [Announcer] So make your mark and cast your vote.

• When I say I can’t you say.

• [Crowd] We can.

• [Announcer] We are the Patriotic Alliance, your last hope.

• Salute, leaders, salute.

• [Announcer] We are one nation, and as one, we can.

• The unions in South Africa are the most hopeless you can get. You’ll never see these leaders visiting Gugulethu, visiting Langa, visiting Mitchells Plain, visiting Westbury, visiting Valhalla Park, visiting Kraaifontein.

• But I need to understand how you think with the 10% party, you are going to be able to affect the legislative change that is required to achieve the things that you want to achieve.

• All right. First , even 10%, you need 1% and you can be president of this country. 1%, don’t go far. The city of Joburg, we have a mayor currently that I think got 2%. I can show you 20 other places in South Africa. So 1% can make me the president of South Africa, 1%, because coalitions is a different animal. And people need to educate themselves more about coalitions because coalitions are about when you need that percentage, you know, when you need… I remember we were talking in a place called and we had two seats only.

And the DA was laughing at me when I told them, no, we want our guy to be the mayor. I mean, this lady couldn’t stop laughing, like, are you crazy, with two seats? I said, ma'am, do you take the offer or not? And she said, no, you will never be mayor. And I said, alright, watch me. The next day I met with other parties, we sat down and they decided to be mayor. So coalitions come with a different dimension of what we used to know. That’s what I’m saying to you is 1%, one seat. You know, if there’s an independent that gets one seat, he can be president of this country.

• So Gayton, can I just ask you, on that note, because we are talking coalition politics and going into the selection, it looks likely that there will have to be coalitions. Who are you prepared to be in a coalition partnership with? And are there people that you will not deal with? And where would you find most of your friends-

• Who are the natural alliances?

• Yeah, in the other parties. I mean, you know, if you could have it your way, obviously you would like to have an outright majority in places where you wouldn’t have to deal with others, but I think that’s unrealistic in some places. So who would your friends be and who would you ally yourself with?

• You know, before, in 2021, immediately after the election, the media asked me the very same question, and they asked every politician that question. I was the only politician that said, I will work with anybody. Even if the AWB and the political party, I would’ve gone into coalition with them. For me, it’s about my aims and objectives and promises I’ve made to my people. Whether I’m going to cross the river on the back of a crocodile in order to keep my promises to my people. You see, they are lying. Politicians are lying to all of you. And they say, I will not work with this one. I will not. They are lying. When the lieu of power, I am saying to you, I’m in politics for power. We need to make sure we get people, we are in trouble. This country is gone. Foreigners are done with. Illegal foreigners are done with us. International mafias, I will say Interpol. When ever Interpol arrest big wanted criminals, where do they find them? South Africa.

We had a guy here in Cape Town, the nicest guy you can ever meet. People told me he worked as a security guard. The family left him with the children at the wine farm. He was the best mannered person you can ever meet. This guy was the boss of the killings in Rwanda. He was part of the genocide in Rwanda. And they looked for him for 18 years and look where they found him. Every mafia, I can call you international mafias that are, some are hiding, some has been arrested in South Africa. We need to clean up this country. We need to take our country back. Now when I go and look at who’s this illegal foreigners that get preferences, I can understand why people say we are only chasing Zimbabweans and Mozambicans. But when I go to the hospital lines, it is only Zimbabweans and Mozambicans. I don’t see Serbians, I don’t see Italians, I don’t see, and that’s the truth. We don’t want the legal foreign here.

• One of the things that apartheid did very well, for me was conscription. I know guys that would’ve ended up in jail with me if they were not in the Army. And that’s the fact. Whether they were on the wrong side, they were on the wrong side of the Boers. But the fact remains is that we need to make sure that young people, you know, my businesses have got a lot of young white boys there. No, not young, 45 upwards. And you ask him, you only got standard four. He only did like grade six. And this guy knows so many things. And you ask him, where did you learn all these things? The army, sir. The army, sir. So the army is not just shooting, I don’t think ours can shoot, but the army, there’s a lot of stuff you can learn, you can learn at the army. So I’m taking this young people to the army, whether you gay, whether you straight, whether you white, whether you black. When you reach the age of 18 years old, you’ll go to the Army, you’ll go and learn a skill. You’ll learn the skill. You’ll not be paid 350 to sit at home and act like there’s something wrong with you.

• What about the race issue? What about the race issue in South Africa?

• What we going to do with, you see, South Africans need to understand, are we going to do what Nelson Mandela wanted us to do? We need to cancel white, black, Indian coloured. We need to be known as South Africans. When you fill in a form, there might be ways of redress, cancel BEE, replace it with a national empowerment fund, a proper one, and make sure that people are known. You know, when everywhere are South Africans, we prosper, but when you white, you black, you coloured, we don’t go forward. We’re going to cancel race.

[Clip ends]

• Thanks, Hannah. A lot of things there.

• Yeah, you can tell from that. I mean, he’s got tremendous energy. He’s got some very, very crazy policies. But they will appeal to people because a lot of people in this country are desperate. And what Gayton’s doing, which the former two that we had aren’t really doing is he’s injecting a whole lot of vim and vigour, and I don’t care into the mix. I mean, I mentioned how Herman Mashaba isn’t scared to say what he thinks. Well, Gayton Mackenzie isn’t just not scared to say what he thinks. He will actually go out of his way to speak truth to power and sometimes even just power to power. He has a very strong opinion on what we should do with illegal immigrants. He has a very strong opinion on what we should do with criminals. And for many people in this country that really appeals to them.

Even the conscription thing would appeal to a lot of people because we have huge youth unemployment. And this would be a way to at least assuage some of that really, really detrimental effect on the economy. I don’t know whether he’ll be able to get more than two 3%, but if he does, he’s going to mostly get it from what Phumi was explaining earlier as the coloured population who now finally have a choice. They really only voted along with the DA before and a couple of them with Patricia de Lille, who is the only real alternative for them. Now they’ve got someone else who’s loud, who’s proud, who doesn’t give a damn. And frankly, if you ask me whoever the next government is, they should make this guy safety and security minister just so he can go after all those gangsters he was talking about.

• Well, you know, you talk about the demographic that he’s going after. He has also ruffled the feathers of the DA, which is the governing party in the Western Cape. So the Western Cape of our nine provinces, the Western Cape is governed by the Democratic Alliance. And really they govern the Western Cape because of quite a large number of coloured people who have voted for them and who have voted along with the white population for the DA. And to see how much he has raffled the feathers of the DA, you can hear by, in these last couple of weeks how the DA have actually veered away from their messaging when it comes to what they are campaigning on, and have actually started fear-mongering, is what I think it is with regard to Patriotic Alliance and some of the other smaller parties, telling people that if they vote for the Patriotic Alliance, they will actually be giving their vote to the ANC because as Gayton has plainly stated, he will vote with whomever he needs to vote with to deliver what he wants to deliver.

So it’s not outside of the realm of possibility that when it comes to voting in parliament, when it comes to voting in parliament, when it comes to making decisions, he’s not outside of giving his vote and the constituency to the ANC, which scares the DA. I think he’ll do very well in the Western Cape. I don’t think he’ll do better than one, maybe 2% nationally.

• Right, so the last one.

• Which we have all been waiting for. We’ve been watching with amazement at times here in South Africa with incredulity at times as well, and again has captured the imagination of not just South Africans, but the world. I saw at BBC, one of the clips that we have in our package here is actually from a BBC interview. Because Jacob Zuma is a former president of the ANC and for nine years was the president of South Africa, he is also the man who under a very big cloud, was forced to resign because of corruption and allegations of corruption alongside the Gupta brothers. And on the 16th of December last year, he surprised us all by saying he’s not going to be campaigning for the ANC as is historical, and more importantly, he’s not even going to vote for the ANC. Here’s a package about Jacob Zuma and his MK party.

[Clip starts]

• Former president Jacob Zuma is not going to campaign or even vote for the ANC next year. At the weekend, he announced he’ll be voting for a brand new political party called Umkhonto Wesizwe.

• This devoted crowd travelled hours to see him.

• I’m so happy to see Zuma.

• The dispute between the rights to the name, Umkhonto Wesizwe still looms to trademark was registered by legacy projects, which is an NPO is now seeded into the ANC, meaning the government now owns this trademark.

• ANC has lost its bid to have Umkhonto Wesizwe party change its logo and name after accusing it of violating the Trademark Act. The High Court in Durban this morning dismissing the governing party’s application with costs.

• For us this win shows the whole world that the ANC has been trying. They had no facts and they knew that we are going to win the elections. So they’re doing this in order to stop us, but they can’t stop us. So we’ll always win.

• New Kid On the Block, Umkhonto Wesizwe party led by former president Jacob Zuma is pulling its last muscles ahead of the May 29th elections. On Saturday, the party launched its manifesto and among several things, Umkhonto Wesizwe party said, it is focusing on reclaiming and revitalising the economy.

• We wouldn’t be a good nation if we said things can’t be fixed, he says. We’re fixing things now. He’s feeding off of rising discontent and splitting votes with his new MK party at a time when the ruling ANC is more vulnerable than ever. 30 years since the vote that brought South Africans freedom, the party that liberated it is being tested from within.

• There is no other party that’s having sleepless nights at the moment because of MK other than the ANC. And this is a victory that should silence ANC leaders. But ANC members must take note that the law and God is on the side of MK party.

• Now we turn to South Africa, the country’s apex court made a ruling today. It has disqualified Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s former president. He cannot stand in next week’s election. This is because of a prior prison sentence. In 2021, Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in prison. Anyone who’s sentenced to more than 12 months cannot contest in South Africa’s election. That is the law. After months of back and forth, the courts have upheld this law. Jacob Zuma is disqualified. It’s a blow to his new MK party. And it looks like a boon for the ruling party that is the ANC, the African National Congress. So how did this happen and what does this mean for Zuma in the upcoming election?

• I know that some decisions are being taken about me wherein the democracy of this country that has been praised throughout the world exercises the opposite of that. I’m a man who fought for freedom and went to prison for it, and even went to exile and used everything I had to fight for freedom, perhaps what at times we call democracy. And I’ve done nothing in this country, done nothing but the people who are in certain authorities in this country have decided to tell a lot of lie about me. For an example, they’ve said I was the most corrupt person in this country, but they’ve never produced a single evidence as to what is it that I did wrong.

• For the last couple of months, it has been incredibly difficult to tell what MK actually stands for and what the value proposition to the South African voters were. You found out about the party as and when Jacob Zuma felt he wanted to share about the party. And every once in a while, he would say something seemingly outrageous or something that resonates with its voter base, such as, when they come into power that they will undo same sex marriage, for instance.

That they would put girls who fall pregnant or girls who fall pregnant during teenagehood into some sort of concentration camp on Robben Island. And all these sorts of things have been said over the last couple of months. The manifesto is supposed to be a single document encapsulating the entire vision of the party. Does it do that? Does it do it well enough? And does it include some of the stuff we have heard over the last couple of months? Or is it a much more refined documents than what we’ve heard?

• Well, quite a key point that you’ve made that although it is a brand new party, it is led by the former president, someone who is a known political figure in our country. A large presence of what we saw was religious leaders, interfaith leaders, as well as indigenous groups. That is the Khoisan. We may remember in 2012, I think that was a state of the nation addressed there, where he addressed this need for the recognition of the indigenous groups. And some of those indigenous groups rather feel that that work is not yet done. And we’ve seen the former president say that there’s a lot of things that he started in his presidency that he would like to achieve.

And it is those particular groups that we see a common theme in and a common large number of supporters arriving in support of former president Jacob Zuma to realise their interests in this current democratic dispensation. So a lot of those groups, and we’ll see how that translates in the maples, as you know that churches lead huge communities, so do traditional leaders. And then of course indigenous group, although it is a small group that is still a significant voice in the fabric of our society.

[Clip ends]

• Yep, and that is Jacob Zuma. We don’t know what he stands for. We don’t have a manifesto. It has been a very chaotic campaign that he has run. And Merner’s iPad is asking about why he was deposed. Jacob Zuma was deposed, actually, he was held in contempt of court because there was a commission of inquiry and he was asked to come and testify and he refused to testify. He arrived on one day and refused to speak and never came back. He was asked and asked, never came back.

• I think she’s also asking why he was deposed, why he was recalled in the ANC.

• Oh, why he was recalled.

• Yeah, the ANC .

• If you want to find out a little bit more about Jacob Zuma and state capture, we did have an episode, and you can go back and check it out with Colin Bundy who spoke quite extensively about that, about two weeks ago. And why he was recalled from the ANC, Gareth.

• Correct. Yeah, I mean the ANC, they have this game that they play internally where they shuffle deck chairs on the Titanic and it was his turn to go. He became unpopular because he became someone who was useful as a scapegoat primarily. I’m not one of those people who likes to blame everything on Jacob Zuma because look what’s happened since he’s gone. It hasn’t necessarily improved. All those people who thought, oh, Jacob Zuma is the problem, and the Gupta and the corruption and the state capture and the nine wasted years, I say to them, well, what’s happened since then in Cyril’s wasted five years, absolutely bugger all. So I’m not one to believe that the removal of one man by the machinery of a party that’s so diseased, it wouldn’t know a good thing if it jumped out of their Rice Krispies and bit them on their faces.

I wouldn’t say that those processes are to be trusted as to be considered a turn in the right direction. What I feel is that a lot of what MK is is a retirement plan for the old man and his family. I mean, his daughter is very involved there. But I think they will pick up a lot of votes because many people in this country are very aggrieved by the fact that the system isn’t working for them. And they see an old man who has really, without any dislike or like of the guy, you can be as objective as you like here. And you’ll have to admit that he’s dedicated his life to what he calls the struggle. In many cases, you may see the struggle to enrich himself and his family. But the guy has done what very few people have done before him. He’s put everything on the line.

And while he was in charge of the ANC, he did have a pretty firm hold, a firm grip on power. And I think that Jacob Zuma still carries a lot of sway in Kwazulu Natal, not only because he’s the man who brought KZN into the ANC fold in the nineties, and he did a huge job of that, which is why he was eventually made deputy president. It was a reward for all the hard work that he’d done. He’s a foot soldier. He goes out there, he meets people, he’s charming as hell. He has a personality, he dances, he sings. People love him. And they’ve never loved Thabo Mbeki. They’ve never loved , and they’ve never loved Helen Zille like this. So whether you love him or hate him, he makes an impact.

• But he also speaks to the people. You will have seen in one of those clips, he had a huge rally, all of them had rallies. You hear, even when we looked at the IFP package yesterday, you hear everybody speaking in English, not Jacob Zuma. When Jacob Zuma is standing in front of that crowd, he is speaking to them in a language that resonates with them. He is connecting with the voter. And voting is an emotional experience.

• You know what, listen, it’s going to be a very exciting thing. He is 82 years old and many people say, look, it doesn’t matter what you do now, it’s really if he gets, he can’t become president because the Constitutional Court said he can’t. But he can still play a role and perhaps that role-

• He definitely will.

• And he will. But that role could be in parliament and he might be outside of parliament, I don’t know. But the MK party is absolutely the unknown quantity in this election.

• So Barbara is asking if the MK will join with the ANC after the elections, because again, huge anomaly, Jacob Zuma is still a member of the ANC. He has hamstrung this party. He has hamstrung the ANC. They have not known what to do with him at every turn. They really have not known what to do with him. He is still a member of the ANC, but I think it is highly unlikely that he would join up with the ANC in any meaningful way because he is in a fight with Cyril Ramaphosa. All of this is truly just… You will hear him say the ANC of Cyril Ramaphosa. He doesn’t say the ANC, says the ANC of Cyril Ramaphosa no longer stands for what the people need it to stand for.

• I want to try and answer Dennis’s question. How can Zuma be so popular after his corrupt government hurt South Africa. It’s all about being populist and having Zulu support. Well, not entirely, because as I said, a lot of people feel he’s the victim, right? He’s been scapegoated here, and we know the power of that. We all know what victimology has done in the United States, for example. There isn’t a person under the age of 30 who isn’t being lauded because of their victimology.

• In that last part of that package, you hear him say, no one has ever come to show any evidence. He doesn’t say, I’ve avoided going to court for 15 years. He says, no one’s got evidence, but they call me corrupt.

• The second part of the question, what is the prediction of Gareth and Phumi as to who the ANC will choose to form an alliance with? I think the ANC will form an alliance with whoever the hell they can. Their choices are curtailed because there’s some parties that won’t, they just won’t work with them. You heard Mmusi Maimane. You’ve heard Herman Mashaba, you’ve heard the DA. They say they won’t work with the ANC. What’s more interesting is who might ally with MK? And that’s an open card at this point. The dance card is completely open.

It could be a DA and the MK for all we know. It could be the EFF that comes to party with them. We don’t know. And the reality is that there are a lot of policies that MK have, which you would consider very right of centre. There are a lot of policies they have, which are very left of centre. So it’s difficult to position them because they are a complete anomaly in so many ways. So we’ll have to see. And honestly, Dennis, you know, I wish I could answer that for you in a sentence.

• My prediction though, before we go, last word from me until after the elections, my prediction is that the ANC will get over 50%. I think they’ll probably get 52 ish or something around there. And what that means is they won’t need alliances as much as we think they will. But they will have to be very disciplined about getting every single one of their members to parliament on days where they need to vote on legislation and that they don’t do very well either.

• Oh, I mean, they’ve got a really revolting record of doing that so let’s see what happens. But again, if it does, if it does end up just south of 50%, there’ll be some very interesting coalitions formed. It’ll be very rocky. And I frankly am in favour of less government. So the less government do in the next six months, the happier I’ll be because everything that they have done in the last six months, including forcing through legislation like the NHI, National Health Insurance, some other acts that they’ve passed by in a hurry to try and get votes, I think those have been very, very destructive. So I’m hoping that government is deadlocked for at least six months and that they all squabble amongst each other for as long as that. And then after that we’ll see whether dust settles.

• Hmm. We’re 12 hours away. It’s one minute past seven, and tomorrow morning at seven o'clock, as we say in Zulu, . There will be no more dreams to be had because here we are at the polling station and we’ll see all of you in a week or so after the dust has settled to talk about , where to next for South Africa, and what coalitions, if any, are going to be there. Thank you for joining us.

• Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you.

• Thank you, Hannah.

• [Hannah] Thank you Phumi and Gareth.