Facing reality proves the right move for Mashaba
One thing that was almost as certain as the sun setting on May 29, the day of elections, was that the governing ANC was about to lose a substantial share of the vote.
Ahead of what turned out to be watershed elections, other political parties were salivating at how they would share the spoils post the anticipated fall of the giant that is the ANC.
Plans were afoot, with formations such as the Moonshot Pact coming into the equation.
All was set in motion as the wait was then about how the cookie would crumble as the nation balloted to decide who should govern and how the people preferred to be governed.
It is now history that the ANC was forced into forming a government of national unity, which in essence is a coalition with the opposition right-of-centre DA, viewed largely as a party that represents the interests of the white section of the population.
The GNU is in its early infancy and the dust is just about to settle after the whirlwind, nope, the tornado that was the elections.
With a semblance of normalcy now returning to our politics, it is only natural that the pre-election dreams and aspiration be replaced by realpolitik.
Sooner or later, reality hits home as people or parties are eventually confronted with that which works as opposed to holding dogmatically to ideological rigidity.
What this country needs now is solutions to the manifesting evil of lack of service delivery, which in the end hurts the poor, worsening their situation.
It is in this light that we welcome that changing attitude of the party of Herman Mashaba, ActionSA, regarding the idea of working with the ANC at local government level in the City of Johannesburg.
Mashaba has been a vociferous opponent of his party’s toenadering to the ANC to a point of irrationality.
It was good that he himself announced the shift after some introspection, admitting that the party has taken the decision despite what he as the leader thought of the move.
Now ActionSA has offered to team up with the biggest party in the biggest metro in the country. The shift came with conditions, of course, which the erstwhile mayor of the city was happy to trumpet.
Realpolitik, we hope, will bring even more sobriety to our politicians. And one of the lessons it should teach them, fast, is the absurdity of the typical pre-May 29 loud-hailer diplomacy that relative political novices like Mashaba need to learn is simply not good for co-operation with other not-so-like-minded parties.
Anyone would be hard-pressed to find any Joburger who believes that Kabelo Gwamanda is nothing more than a puppet mayor. But he would have been removed quietly and replaced with whomever the talks between the would-be coalition partners agreed on without Mashaba’s unnecessary noise.
All it did was to harden attitudes as egos would have come into play on the other side where some would have been uncomfortable to be seen to be kowtowing to demands from once sworn rivals.
In the end just do what is good for Johannesburg, a once great city.
