They told us what they think of us. Believe them

On November 4 we will queue again for local government elections.

Potholes, water cuts, streetlights, sewer leaks, billing chaos. The politicians will tell us to vote for service delivery, for stability or for change.

We should also vote with our memory. The reason? South African politics is never boring. It is a masterclass in gaffes — moments when the mask slips and leaders say out loud what they really think of us.

As we walk into that voting booth, remember this: “I went to a hotel to bath.” When Gauteng has no water, we all have no water. Taps run dry in Soweto, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Ekurhuleni, Sharpeville. Mothers carry buckets. Pensioners push wheelbarrows with 25-litre containers. Small businesses close.

Premier Panyaza Lesufi, when asked what he does when there is no water in his suburb, told the nation that he checks into a hotel to bath.

He probably thought he was being honest. He was. That was the problem. It was a moment of pure, unfiltered disconnect.

Marie Antoinette never actually said: “Let them eat cake.” Historians agree the 18th-century French queen was framed by pamphleteers.

But Lesufi actually did say it — let them book hotels. The issue is not that a premier can afford a hotel. It is that he thought that was a relatable answer.

In a province where a family lives on R3 500 a month, a R1 200 hotel room to bath is not a solution; it is an insult. It tells you he has stopped feeling the crisis and he is managing it from a distance.

Water is not a provincial competency, his defenders will say. True. But empathy is.

On November 4 remember this again: “O bua masepa (You are talking s***).” Johannesburg has had nine mayors in less than 10 years. Nine! At this point, the mayoral chain should be on a rental contract, not engraved.

One of them, current mayor Dada Morero, was at a service delivery meeting in Tshepisong. A resident, angry about water and roads, called him a thief. The mayor’s response, on camera: “You are talking s***!”

Again, brutal honesty. But think about that exchange. A resident — your boss, the ratepayer who pays your salary — tells you he thinks you are stealing, and your best defence is profanity. No figures. No audit. No “here is what we spent”. Just “you are talking s***”.

It is how power speaks when it has run out of ideas. When accountability becomes too tiring, it turns into abuse.

Johannesburg is broke, dirty and dark. The Auditor-General says the city lost R1.4 billion to irregular expenditure. The streets say the rest.

When a voter calls his mayor a thief, even if he is wrong, the mayor’s job is to prove him wrong with facts. Not with a street insult. That clip is not just a gaffe. It is a governing philosophy in eight letters: Contempt.

On November 4, remember who thought you were talking s*** when you asked where your money went.

And the freshest of them: Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina is in Loerie, Kouga Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape. A resident who lives with a physical disability heckles her. A video shows the minister shouting back: “Jou ma se p***.” It goes viral overnight.

National outrage. Disabled People South Africa calls for her dismissal. The DA lays an ethics complaint. Six days later, the apology. Notice the pattern.

When a vulnerable resident confronts her about water — her job — the minister does not answer about water. She answers with the same profanity she says was aimed at her.

This is not just bad manners. This is the state talking to its most vulnerable citizen the way people talk in a tavern brawl.

The best gaffes are accidental truths. President Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged what every Auditor-General report has said for years — that DA-run municipalities are efficiently run, clean, and well governed. He did not mean it as an endorsement. He meant it as a throwaway line, a moment of candour. But the presidency does not get throwaway lines. When the president of the ANC tells the country that the opposition runs municipalities better, you cannot un-ring that bell.

Think of the irony. For months ANC canvassers have been telling voters that the DA will bring back apartheid, that it is racist and that it cannot govern. Then their own president says: actually, they govern well. It is the most damaging gaffe of all because it is true. Ramaphosa, the skilled negotiator, accidentally negotiated himself into a corner. He told the truth. On November 4, remember who admitted the other side does it better.

On November 4 also remember the deadline everyone knew except the ANC. The most expensive gaffe is the one where you don’t say anything because you missed your turn to speak.

In 2021, the ANC — the party that governed for 27 years, wrote the Constitution and knows the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s timetable by heart — failed to register candidates in 93 municipalities before the deadline. In 35 of those, it had no candidates. Unopposed losses. An open goal, missed. The excuse was chaos in the system. The reality was chaos in the party. No list. No branch quorums. No leadership. That was egg on the face that never washed off.

Politics is not boring because the gaffes keep happening. Politics is terrifying because we keep forgiving them. Lesufi’s hotel, Morero’s insult and the razzmatazzing secretary-general.

They are the same mistake in three forms: distance, contempt and incompetence. Distance from how people live. Contempt for what people say. Incompetence in doing the basic job. Let them eat cake was never really about cake. It was shorthand for a governing class that could no longer imagine other people’s hunger.

On November 4, do not vote angry. Vote with receipts.

• Mbatha is a current affairs analyst

Nhlanhla Mbatha