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Dumisane Lubisi
I understand that January and February are the longest months on our calendars. So much so that there have been memes about how many months there are in the first month of the year.
This is mostly because South Africa goes into holiday mode as soon as the second weekend of December ends. The country then wakes up again from the holidays after January 15 to pick up the pieces of the many lives that we lost on the roads due to speeding, recklessness, drunken driving and criminality.
But one thing we all know way too well is how to count – especially the number of days before your next pay cheque will come. So, often, the country’s working masses start to accept that they are in the new year only after the February payday.
Cutting a long story short, I was doing some calculations of the days – or is it months in this case – to the swearing-in of one Brian Molefe as an MP. The story has dominated the news – with denials and confirmation as to how many branches he belongs to. A lucky fellow who is claimed and denied by many alike. Freedom of association, I guess.
Let me not digress, so on January 30 – in my calculations, exactly 27 days ago to this day, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe told the country it was near impossible for Molefe to become an MP – at least not for the next 12 months.
In making his point clear, and in response to a Sunday Times story that the North West ANC wanted Molefe for our national legislature, Mantashe said: “We don’t wake up one day, put Brian Molefe on the list and he goes to Parliament. It doesn’t happen that
way.
“There should be two things that happen. They should wait for the anniversary of the amendment and at that point, it can reprioritise the list. If it prioritises Brian, then he will be the first to replace whoever is out of Parliament when there’s a vacancy.”
Another way was to wait for the list of parliamentarians to be depleted and then include Molefe’s name when the list is replenished, adding that there was already a list of parliamentarians registered with the Independent Electoral Commission that can’t be amended before those parliamentarians finish 12 months on the job.
It is either I’ve been sleeping or my calculations have failed me. Has it been 12 months yet and has the already existing list been depleted and replenished to make way for Molefe?
Please help me count, Comrade Mantashe...
The secretary-general’s silence this week was deafening. It reminded one of the time Mantashe promised that there would be action when that family landed at Air Force Base Waterkloof...
We are still waiting, Nobhala.
