Sometimes one reads something so bizarre, so strange, so mind-boggling, that you have to re-read it to make sure you've understood correctly.
So it is with Gwede Mantashe's stunning admission in a newspaper interview. In this interview, Mantashe had the following to say:
"If the African National Congress wins the elections this year, the performance of its ministers and other politicians will be evaluated by the ruling party's new policy institute, and incompetent ones will be fired."
This is a stunning admission, isn't it? There are 2 implications: 1) there are incompetent ministers in the current ANC cabinet and 2) it is only when the ANC wins the next election, that we can expect incompetence to be punished.
The implication is clearly that up to now, competence was not a criterium when the ANC regime selected its cabinet. Blind loyalty to the Party (intentional capital P) yes, but competence...Until the next election, it's therefore business as usual - stupidity, corruption, laziness, incompetence - you know, the usual stuff we've come to expect from ANC cadres.
It is unthinkable that voters in a normal democracy would accept such a preposterous statement. A European political party that made such an admission would not only lose the next election with an enormous landslide, but would also lose so badly that it would probably cease to exist.
But this is Africa.
Africa, where voters somehow fail to make the connection between their own right to vote, and political accountability. People get the government they deserve, and nowhere is it more true than in Africa. Any voter who continues to vote for the ANC, deserves to suffer poor service delivery, crime, grime and incompetence.
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