ANC and BDP in freestyle 'boogie'

Staff Writer | Wednesday November 5, 2008 00:00

 The Lekidi Football Development Centre was turned into a free-style dance hall as leaders of South Africa's youth organisation 'boogied' with their rather unadventurous Domkrag foils.

As the DJs spun their discs and everyone got down to it, it seemed the object was to prove that contrary to mainstream thinking,(pseudo) revolutionaries and dyed-in-the-wool capitalists (read reactionary) do have a lot in common - at least on the dance floor.
ANCYL was led by its president, Julius 'Kill-For-Zuma' Malema, famous for 'predicting' Thabo Mbeki's fall only a few days before it happened, while the hosts were led by BDP Youth League Chairman Kenaleone Motsaathebe.But if anyone was wondering how political organisations, with almost mutually inimical ideologies like ANCYL and Domkrag youth could, find a common rhythm and frolic together should fast-track to a babalaas-filled Sunday morning at a press conference in Phakalane.

They (ANCYL) actually want to 'strengthen' the youth wing of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) from which they hope to learn how a party stays in power forever and how to bridge over factions, Malema said.

While it is not being made in so many words, the resipiscence is hardly surprising, seeing as how the spitfire's outrageous outbursts has rent Africa's oldest political organisation asunder after Thabo Mbeki's forced exit from office.

In fact, as Malema and his reprehensibly irrepressible lot partied at Lekidi, erstwhile ANC stalwarts  - among them former Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota and former Gauteng Premier Mbazhima Shilowa - were cobbling a new political party into shape in South Africa.

The occasion had drawn thousands of supporters, including existing opposition parties that have expressed a willingness to work with the new party in next year's elections.
At the press conference, Malema displayed a loathing for the subject of ANCYL's role in the sacking of Mbeki, preferring to dwell on their relationship with Domkrag youth and ANCYL's present visit.

Indeed the visit achieved an unparalleled blending of the two purportedly disparate groups, at least in outward appearance. With everyone kitted out in red BDP-emblazoned shirts and baseball caps, the occasion could easily have been labelled the branding of ANCYL as Domkrag, invoking a scene from George Orwell's book, Animal Farm:

'The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.'

Journalists were only able to tell 'pig from man' when the visitors were introduced and pointed out as: ANCYL Treasurer General Pule Madi; Chairman of ANCYL's Limpopo branch and member of ANCYL's national executive Letlhogonolo Masuga; member of ANCYL's national executive and CEO of ANC investment company Limbede Investments Limbo Simbala; Member of the Executive Council (ANC MEC) and member of ANCYL's national executive Kenalemang Mohale; and Chairman of ANCYL's Mpumalanga branch and member of the national executive Shirley Makhubela.

Contact between the BDP and the ANC is becoming more frequent. BDP Chairman Daniel Kwelagobe led a delegation to the ANC last month. Quick on the heels of that visit, ANC Treasurer Mathews Phosa was in Francistown as the guest speaker at a BDP women's wing fundraiser where he also donated funds.

The Chairman of the BDP women's wing, Tebelelo Seretse, has plans to visit the ANC women to see 'how they do things'. Similarly, the ruling party's Secretary General, Jacob Nkate, intends to visit his ANC counterpart to exchange notes.

Mmegi learns that among the 'notes' in this exchange is the controversial Media Practioners Bill which the ANC government wants to use as a foil for its own media gag laws to stem the tide of bad press its divisions have generated.