When this newspaper’s political reporters broke the story about John “Vul’igate” Steenhuisen deciding not to stand for a third term, the DA leader must have felt that he had been robbed of the opportunity to control the narrative.
So he took to social media with a cryptic message suggesting that reports of his stepping down could be incorrect. This sent the peanut gallery into a spin, with some TV commentators claiming that they were hearing “from their sources” in the DA that party structures had persuaded Steenhuisen to change his mind overnight.
Then, on the day of the announcement, he sought to convince everyone that he was leaving on his own terms, that he had achieved all he had set out to achieve as party leader and was stepping down to focus his energies on putting an end to the foot-and-mouth disease crisis in his capacity as agriculture minister.
No mention of the embarrassment over the saga of the alleged abuse of his DA credit card to order Uber Eats, and suchlike.
Fighting foot-and-mouth disease may be a great cause to take up, but that is not what made Steenhuisen go. The truth is that he had put his own foot in his own mouth so many times recently that the blue party could no longer afford to have him as its face.
Juju’s love’s labour’s lost
Perhaps EFF leader Julius Malema really misses that look of fondness he used to get from Mbuyiseni Ndlozi back in the day, when the latter was the chief praise-singer of the red berets.
Not so long ago Juju told reporters that his former deputy, Floyd Shivambu, was the only person he’d ignore the EFF constitution for and take back as a member if he wanted to return.
Now Malema is singing a different tune, telling the SABC that he would never take back Shivambu, but would roll out the red carpet for Ndlozi.
If it is true that Ndlozi will soon leave his radio gig for the Thabo Mbeki Foundation, but not to rejoin the red berets, expect the flip-flopper-in-chief to once again change his tune.
Yengeni about to be Yengoni
While Malema is still in search of new buddies to hang out with at his party’s Braamfontein headquarters, former president Jacob Zuma is finding new ways to avoid the loneliness and boredom that come with being at the helm of a political party.
The Nkandla Crooner summoned media houses to his favourite Umhlanga curry spot in Durban to announce that his favourite son, Duduzane, would be part of what he called a “Presidential Task Team”, through which Zuma would now run his office.
Among those present at the presser was recently appointed MKP deputy president Tony Yengeni, who didn’t make it onto the task team that is supposed to run the party presidency.
Does his exclusion mean that he will soon go the way of his predecessor, John Hlophe, and that Duduzane is being groomed to succeed him?
Hogarth won’t be surprised if a late-night press statement comes out soon to announce yet another change in leadership.
Lots of ifs but no butts, OK?
When President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed the Madlanga commission to probe allegations by KwaZulu-Natal police chief Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi that some of the country’s top cops were captured by criminals, little did he know that the investigation would end up touching on such subjects as Ozempic and BBLs.
This week’s star witness by far was police Brig Rachel Matjeng, who sought to convince a sceptical commission that she received money from alleged criminal cartel leader Vusimuzi Matlala because the two of them were lovers, and not because he was bribing her. She revealed to the commission that she had asked Matlala to get her Ozempic — an expensive medical treatment that is usually prescribed to diabetics, but is also used for weight loss.
“At least I was using Ozempic and did not go for a BBL [Brazilian butt lift] like others,” she told the commission, taking a swipe at another of Matlala’s alleged lovers.
When one of the commissioners, advocate Sandile Khumalo, asked why she was mentioning a BBL “in the context of this conversation”, Matjeng replied: “I am indirectly responding to … a social media post which I saw … where it was said ‘she is the one with the BBL’.
“So I am just saying no, I did not get the BBL. But they know there is someone who got the BBL in SAPS, hence those comments. Now they are trying to put a face to this BBL person. [But] it is not this one [pointing to herself]”
The commissioners couldn’t contain themselves.
It’s official: South African policing has reached a new low.
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