Julius Malema takes the words out of Jacob Zuma’s mouth….
I have decided, rightly or wrongly, that this is going to me my viewpoint, on Julius Malema, from now on. I had for a while felt that Julius Malema was simply a person seeking the limelight and that he made controversial utterances, some of which I am sure he himself did not understand, to capture headline news.
I simply did not give him much thought, after initially giving him quite a fair amount of air time on this site. I then felt to simply not talk about him and hoped that the political landscape and the people in it would be robust enough to force him out of it. I was wrong. This has left me feeling the way I do now and seems to be supported by the fact that he goes unchecked in his utterances.
In his last few public appearances, I get the distinct impression that he has been charged, by the top leadership of the ANC, to say the things that they (including Jacob Zuma) wish they could say. He seems to have been given the licence to offend, without any fear or rebuke from the leadership. If this is the case then certainly the ANC cannot, but expect the declining performance they showed in the local elections.
My point though is not about their showing in the polls, because they appear to not be worried about this. My concern runs a little deeper. Julius Malema, may be the president of the ANCYL, but he is not a young man. He is in fact 31 years old! He acts though, like a spoilt child as far as treating those around him with respect goes.
His calling of Lindiwe Mazibuko (DA Spokeswoman) a “tea girl” are extreme. They amount to defamation in my view, they are crude comments from a crude individual. They have no place is our country and serve only to drive greater divides into our society. I, for one, wish that Lindiwe would press charges for defamation of character against Julius Malema. While they may not amount to much, I think that they would at least further serve to show what damage this guy is doing to South Africa as a whole.
To the polls now…..
A simple view of the statistics of South Africa show that the White, Indian and Coloured voters make up around a 10th of the population in South Africa. The DA on their own achieved around 23% of the total vote. This means that at least 50% of their voter turnout came from the black voters. Now it would be a stretch to call this the most democratic party in the country simply because of this fact, but one does have to wonder whether or not the ANC is big enough to realise that the tide is turning.
I would go out on a limb and say that the 2014 national elections will see the ANC loose even more support than what the local elections show. I think that we will see them drop 5% to 7% by the time the counting is down. This I put down to the fact that opposition parties failed to capitalize sufficiently on the feelings of unhappiness with the ANC’s rule. I know of people who did not vote, because they did not want to vote for the ANC, but equally did not make their mark for the DA or others.
Should the DA be successful in growing candidates that represent further the needs of the majority then I think my 5% to 7% prediction may be too low.
In closing I am hopeful that Julius Malema will be removed from the stage that he currently enjoys, I am not calling for the ANC to disown him. I merely want him to be cut down to size. His utterances are vile and despicable, he looks for popularity and controversy over the needs of the people.
