There’s a meme I can’t get out of my head.
It references how Cape Town-schooled Zohran Mamdani has shaken up the Democratic Party in the US… but his party’s establishment is turning on him versus their real enemy – Donald Trump.
The first frame shows a rampaging Tyrannosaurus Rex from the iconic Jurassic Park movie, captioned with: “Democrats fighting Zohran Mamdani”. The second frame is captioned “Democrats fighting Donald Trump”. It shows the smiling plushie kids’ character, Barney the Dinosaur.
In case you somehow missed it in the tsunami of bad news coming out of the US, there is a young politician revolutionising politics in the country formerly known as the Home of the Free simply by going back to basics: taking voters seriously.
As we told you previously, Mamdani is a 33-year-old democratic socialist with roots in Kampala, Queens… and Cape Town’s southern suburbs. He won the internal party race to be the Democratic Party nominee for New York City mayor, which he is likely to win as Democrats dominate the famous, liberal city.
He ascended from a relative political nobody to triumphing over political heavyweights like former New York state governor Andrew Cuomo with a fraction of the budget. And he did it by, as the New York Times puts it, “beating the drum about the need to make life in New York more affordable… This narrow focus on a single, salient issue drove Mr. Mamdani’s campaign.”
Cape Town’s Zohran Mamdani: Too real for the party of rehearsed politics
In other words, Mamdani listened and responded to what ordinary voters cared about. But, to repeat a theme from that meme, the dinosaurs in the Democrat Party, the supposed defender of progressive rights in the US, are not having it. He’s too left. Too Muslim. Too young.
They would prefer to put forward carefully choreographed candidates like their presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who didn’t even win an open primary, nor offered the natural connection with ordinary voters that Mamdani has in abundance. Or Cuomo, even though the former governor resigned over a sexual harassment scandal. This is a party that endlessly polls changing sentiments on key issues and then makes its candidates adjust their position to conform. It creates a noxious level of insincerity that drives voters away.
Now, instead of embracing this possible solution to Trump’s takeover of US politics, prominent Democrats are either avoiding endorsing Mamdani despite his clear popularity with voters or condemning him altogether.
It kinda of reminds me of another party. The ANC, right here in South Africa, doesn’t even bother to poll voters on what matters to them. They just do what they dream up is in the country’s or party’s best interest.
Despite a historic loss of support in last year’s general election – a massive 17 percentage point dip to about 40% – the ANC seems to think it’s business as usual.
The DA, which has maintained +20% of the vote over the past three elections, helped the ANC stay in power by entering into a coalition with it as part of the Government of National Unity.
But despite this giant rebuke by voters, the ANC, much like the Democratic Party in the US, doesn’t seem to understand that its voters’ concerns should come first. This is what delivered Mamdani his historic win in the Democratic Primaries. And it’s what would save the ANC, if it cared to listen.
ANC’s voter disconnect mirrors Democratic Party mistakes
Instead, Cyril Ramaphosa’s government keeps treating its new position below 50% as a minor inconvenience, and its major governing partner, the DA, accordingly. The DA can be annoying, sure, but the political reality is that the ANC should at least try to maintain a good relationship with them for the good of the GNU, and more importantly, the country.
We can talk about how the ANC can just about manage a majority and stay in government without the DA, as they keep threatening to do. That would mean being held hostage by any number of one-man or one-seat parties (often the same thing), with the rest of the country dragged into the instability that would follow. Or worse, making a devil’s pact with the extremist MK or EFF that would push the country over a cliff.
But the ANC doesn’t seem to care.
Ramaphosa decided to throw the GNU into another bout of instability last week with his bizarre decision to fire the political equivalent of a non-main character. A previously little-known DA deputy minister at the Department of Trade and Industry, Andrew Whitfield, was given the boot for a non-approved trip to the US as part of a DA delegation trying to make nice with the Americans over their repeated threats to South Africa.
In response to the backlash over the decision, particularly from the DA, Ramaphosa released a terse statement on Friday where he basically said: a. Whitfield broke the rules and had to be punished and b. As president, he didn’t have to answer to anyone over cabinet decisions.
Ok, sure, Mr President. But for how long?
I’ve long been a much-maligned supporter of you. I regularly get flak on all my social media platforms for supporting your looooong political plays that make you look indecisive and weak. I’ve been an avid supporter of the GNU, despite my concerns about the DA’s lack of commitment to the project of racial transformation. The fact is, they are taking the divided ANC down the right path economically, if investor support for the GNU is anything to go by.
Ramaphosa risks government stability over DA deputy minister firing
We understood your party’s irritation with the DA over their politicking over this year’s budget. We were all also very relieved when that debacle was over. But to blow up the relationship again over… this? It’s beyond a non-issue.
What it really shows is how you and the ANC are incredibly out of touch with ordinary South Africans and our concerns. Do you really think we care about an unsanctioned trip? The DA and other critics have it right when they note this decision is incredibly hypocritical when there are ANC ministers accused of far worse who have kept their jobs, despite the expectation that Whitfield’s firing was part of a wider shake-up. If you had axed Whitfield along with, say, Higher Education Minister Nobuhle Nkabane, it may have flown. We understand it would have been too politically difficult to deal with seeming untouchables like your deputy, Paul Mashatile and your party’s own dinosaur, Gwede Mantashe. But you could have at least packaged Whitfield’s dismissal with Nkabane, over her disastrous handling of the Sector Education and Training Authorities board appointments.
Now you’ve left yourself open to accusations of selective punishment, and it’s ringing true.
Don’t be surprised when a new and fresh politician or party, who actually listens to and cares about our concerns, comes along and upends what little your party has left of its dominance. You can’t keep ignoring what we, as voters, actually care about. As that meme puts it, the dinosaurs in established political parties just don’t seem to get it. And that will eventually lead to their extinction.
Verashni is passionate about empowering citizens to hold those in power to account. She was previously editor-in-chief of the Mail & Guardian and HuffPost South Africa, and won the CNN African Journalism Award, among others.
With the GNU in crisis, SA politicians should learn from Zohran Mamdani
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There’s a meme I can’t get out of my head.
It references how Cape Town-schooled Zohran Mamdani has shaken up the Democratic Party in the US… but his party’s establishment is turning on him versus their real enemy – Donald Trump.
The first frame shows a rampaging Tyrannosaurus Rex from the iconic Jurassic Park movie, captioned with: “Democrats fighting Zohran Mamdani”. The second frame is captioned “Democrats fighting Donald Trump”. It shows the smiling plushie kids’ character, Barney the Dinosaur.
In case you somehow missed it in the tsunami of bad news coming out of the US, there is a young politician revolutionising politics in the country formerly known as the Home of the Free simply by going back to basics: taking voters seriously.
As we told you previously, Mamdani is a 33-year-old democratic socialist with roots in Kampala, Queens… and Cape Town’s southern suburbs. He won the internal party race to be the Democratic Party nominee for New York City mayor, which he is likely to win as Democrats dominate the famous, liberal city.
He ascended from a relative political nobody to triumphing over political heavyweights like former New York state governor Andrew Cuomo with a fraction of the budget. And he did it by, as the New York Times puts it, “beating the drum about the need to make life in New York more affordable… This narrow focus on a single, salient issue drove Mr. Mamdani’s campaign.”
Cape Town’s Zohran Mamdani: Too real for the party of rehearsed politics
In other words, Mamdani listened and responded to what ordinary voters cared about. But, to repeat a theme from that meme, the dinosaurs in the Democrat Party, the supposed defender of progressive rights in the US, are not having it. He’s too left. Too Muslim. Too young.
They would prefer to put forward carefully choreographed candidates like their presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who didn’t even win an open primary, nor offered the natural connection with ordinary voters that Mamdani has in abundance. Or Cuomo, even though the former governor resigned over a sexual harassment scandal. This is a party that endlessly polls changing sentiments on key issues and then makes its candidates adjust their position to conform. It creates a noxious level of insincerity that drives voters away.
Now, instead of embracing this possible solution to Trump’s takeover of US politics, prominent Democrats are either avoiding endorsing Mamdani despite his clear popularity with voters or condemning him altogether.
It kinda of reminds me of another party. The ANC, right here in South Africa, doesn’t even bother to poll voters on what matters to them. They just do what they dream up is in the country’s or party’s best interest.
Despite a historic loss of support in last year’s general election – a massive 17 percentage point dip to about 40% – the ANC seems to think it’s business as usual.
The DA, which has maintained +20% of the vote over the past three elections, helped the ANC stay in power by entering into a coalition with it as part of the Government of National Unity.
But despite this giant rebuke by voters, the ANC, much like the Democratic Party in the US, doesn’t seem to understand that its voters’ concerns should come first. This is what delivered Mamdani his historic win in the Democratic Primaries. And it’s what would save the ANC, if it cared to listen.
ANC’s voter disconnect mirrors Democratic Party mistakes
Instead, Cyril Ramaphosa’s government keeps treating its new position below 50% as a minor inconvenience, and its major governing partner, the DA, accordingly. The DA can be annoying, sure, but the political reality is that the ANC should at least try to maintain a good relationship with them for the good of the GNU, and more importantly, the country.
We can talk about how the ANC can just about manage a majority and stay in government without the DA, as they keep threatening to do. That would mean being held hostage by any number of one-man or one-seat parties (often the same thing), with the rest of the country dragged into the instability that would follow. Or worse, making a devil’s pact with the extremist MK or EFF that would push the country over a cliff.
But the ANC doesn’t seem to care.
Ramaphosa decided to throw the GNU into another bout of instability last week with his bizarre decision to fire the political equivalent of a non-main character. A previously little-known DA deputy minister at the Department of Trade and Industry, Andrew Whitfield, was given the boot for a non-approved trip to the US as part of a DA delegation trying to make nice with the Americans over their repeated threats to South Africa.
In response to the backlash over the decision, particularly from the DA, Ramaphosa released a terse statement on Friday where he basically said: a. Whitfield broke the rules and had to be punished and b. As president, he didn’t have to answer to anyone over cabinet decisions.
Ok, sure, Mr President. But for how long?
I’ve long been a much-maligned supporter of you. I regularly get flak on all my social media platforms for supporting your looooong political plays that make you look indecisive and weak. I’ve been an avid supporter of the GNU, despite my concerns about the DA’s lack of commitment to the project of racial transformation. The fact is, they are taking the divided ANC down the right path economically, if investor support for the GNU is anything to go by.
Ramaphosa risks government stability over DA deputy minister firing
We understood your party’s irritation with the DA over their politicking over this year’s budget. We were all also very relieved when that debacle was over. But to blow up the relationship again over… this? It’s beyond a non-issue.
What it really shows is how you and the ANC are incredibly out of touch with ordinary South Africans and our concerns. Do you really think we care about an unsanctioned trip? The DA and other critics have it right when they note this decision is incredibly hypocritical when there are ANC ministers accused of far worse who have kept their jobs, despite the expectation that Whitfield’s firing was part of a wider shake-up. If you had axed Whitfield along with, say, Higher Education Minister Nobuhle Nkabane, it may have flown. We understand it would have been too politically difficult to deal with seeming untouchables like your deputy, Paul Mashatile and your party’s own dinosaur, Gwede Mantashe. But you could have at least packaged Whitfield’s dismissal with Nkabane, over her disastrous handling of the Sector Education and Training Authorities board appointments.
Now you’ve left yourself open to accusations of selective punishment, and it’s ringing true.
Don’t be surprised when a new and fresh politician or party, who actually listens to and cares about our concerns, comes along and upends what little your party has left of its dominance. You can’t keep ignoring what we, as voters, actually care about. As that meme puts it, the dinosaurs in established political parties just don’t seem to get it. And that will eventually lead to their extinction.
Verashni Pillay
Verashni is passionate about empowering citizens to hold those in power to account. She was previously editor-in-chief of the Mail & Guardian and HuffPost South Africa, and won the CNN African Journalism Award, among others.
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