INCOMPETENT TRUMP’S VICTORY AT RISK

Trump the self declared omnipotent, every time winner, genius and know all needs fifty - eight percent of the remaining six hundred and forty - one Republican delegates still outstanding in the remaining Primaries to become the Republican nominee for President. The loudmouth better get them or be very close otherwise his chances of nomination could recede dramatically. The reason that there is any doubt to the all conquering hero’s crowning is that the Republican electoral process changes dramatically once there is no outright winner in the Primaries. Trump obviously believes that there is a real danger of defeat as he has already threatened that his supporters will riot should he be “robbed” of the right to contend in November’s Presidential election by the Republican Congress. But the fact that his victory is at risk is really as a result of his incompetence, arrogance and boorish behavior. To all this is added the Cruz/Kasich alliance and the Stop Trump campaign.

Let’s deal with his incompetence first. 

TRUMP UNPRPEPARED AND INCOMPETENT AS TO HOW BECOME PRESIDENT

How Trump has achieved what he has with only three bankruptcies is a testimony to what as a child one use to characterize by the statement, “Bulls..t baffles brains”. Besides his monumental ignorance of the issues facing America he had no clue, as it turns out, of the GOP process in electing a Presidential nominee. He had no idea and therefore effected no involvement in the canvassing, election or choosing of the Republican Congress delegates. The latter are those at the Convention that vote according to the initial Primary contest results. If there is no outright winner on the first ballot the situation becomes much more complicated. Unbelievably, the guy who claims to be the obvious choice to be the leader of the free world didn’t even know how the presidential electoral process works hence his problem.

Now this unbelievable incompetence would only become significant if he doesn’t reach the magic number of twelve hundred and thirty - seven delegates in the Primaries themselves. The reason that there could be a problem if he doesn’t lies in the byzantine way the GOP then elects its Presidential nominee. The delegates assume an incredible importance if no candidate obtains a majority on the first ballot. The Donald should have known that as after all he is running for President. Cruz and Kasich are fully apprised hence they are still hanging in. Not only are Cruz and Kasich hanging in they have just formed an alliance to prevent The Donald from achieving his goal and thereby force a brokered conference. They will be assisted by the Stop Trump Political Action Committees. 

Now each one of the two thousand four hundred and seventy delegates will vote in the first ballot according to the voters choices but even there there are exceptions. If after the first ballot there is no winner anything goes - for practical purposes these delegates can now vote for anyone. So The Donald who has zilch support among the delegates themselves could be heading for a fall.

Not only has the billionaire done feathers to address this key component of being elected, he has gone out of his way to denigrate the delegates themselves as well as the Republican National Committee, (RNC), who have almost total control of the process and therefore can influence the outcome. 

TRUMP ON THE RNC AND ITS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORAL PROCESS

From the outset Trump has made it clear that he was the outsider. The Republican Party better treat him fairly or else he would run as a third party candidate. He tossed off anyone or anybody who was a somebody that was part of the Republican Establishment. It didn’t seem to matter what the latter thought his audience were lapping it all up and that was all that really mattered. The attacks were initially generic but recently he has been concentrating on the electoral process of the RNC Convention. This focus began when the would be leader of the free world clicked as to how the electoral process worked. 

He started a daily rant that the election process was “rigged by party operatives with double agent operatives who reject the decisions of the voters”. He would not let up, labelling the Republican Convention as deceptive and a disgrace. He claimed the delegates were bribed, had their hotels paid for and the like. In spite of Trump ostensibly becoming contrite his son repeated the allegations that the RNC process was undemocratic and used the term bribery again on April 24, 2016. The billionaire’s attacks were a feature of his stump and he even threatened to remove the democratically elected Chairman of the RNC, Reince Priebus. 

Whatever subsequently happens between the RNC and Trump camps the damage has already  been done. The resentment of the everyday GOP delegate at this trashing by this Johnny Come Lately has got to stick. Trump’s fear that the controlling RNC will favor anyone but him is well founded. The last GOP heavily contested convention in 1976 where the Establishment favored Ford they did just that. In addition he cannot undo the canvassing that Cruz and Kasich have already executed. 

TRUMP’S DAMAGE CONTROL

Trump at this late stage of the game is courting delegates. He has even mooted entertaining and wining and dining them. He has after all the entertainment infrastructure available. Trump belatedly appointed Paul Manafort Ford’s successful conventional floor manager in the 1976 brokered Republican convention. Manafort has also successively represented Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Bob Dole.

Manafort promptly held a meeting with the RNC to alleviate their fears about the loose canon he was representing. To his embarrassment his presentation to them was recorded and then leaked. Manafort explained that Trump was just playing to the gallery and there was a different Donald who could be Presidential. This recording on the Presidential trail would be as devastatingly negative to Trump as Romney’s division of America into the “givers” and “takers” was.Trump is unashamedly labelling himself as a hypocrite who is hoodwinking his supporters. In any case why would the GOP Establishment be mollified by the revelation that they were just being smeared off the face of the earth to get votes. 

BOTTOM LINE

If Donald Trump does not march into Cleveland with the majority of delegates he thus has a grim battle on his hands. Whatever happens the GOP will continue shattering. They would accept Cruz under sufferance as he too has attacked the Party. It is all really getting worse and worse and with the Koch brothers announcing that Hillary is the most qualified candidate for Presidency the GOP are wondering where it is all going to end. One thing is for certain is that the Party and its delegates will stop Trump if they can. Much focus is on the Indiana Primary where the winner receives all fifty - seven delegates. Cruz is thought to be ahead and he is not much in evidence in the five North Eastern States that are at stake this week. He is in Indiana and with Kasich out his chances increase. His objective is to keep The Donald from attaining the fifty - eight percent of the outstanding delegates available. Kasich argues if he can get two hundred and fifty delegates on the first ballot he too is in with a chance. Their newly announced deal not to get in each others way so as not to benefit Trump shows they are serious and exacerbates The Donald’s problem.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

Trump of course trumpets on in total denial that it is a result of his incompetence that he is in a position to be losing his hard earned popular vote victory. This is such a basic mistake that one wonders how anyone can have faith in his decision making ability as President.The good news for Trump is that he still has to be the favorite to get the nomination. (If he wins Indiana it is all over bar the shouting). The bad news is that even if he does obtain the nomination there does not appear to be a pathway to the White House. Just to look briefly at three facts: Romney carried twenty - seven percent of the Hispanic vote in addition to a record number of the white vote, (fifty - seven percent) and was trounced. Trump would be lucky to garner fifteen percent of the Latinos and it is estimated for the GOP to win the Presidency they need close to forty percent. Then can you imagine all those denigrated Republican delegates working their hearts out for Trump in their constituencies? Finally, thirty percent of GOP voters in the Primaries have attested that they will not vote for Trump if he is the nominee. 

WHAT IS IT ABOUT POLITICS THAT BERNIE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND?

There is little doubt that Bernie Sanders crystallized and lead, what he calls “A Movement”, far far exceeding the wildest expectations of anyone, pundit or other. The fact that his prominence and exposure was catapulted and magnified by a media desperate to turn Hillary Clinton’s nomination as the Democratic presidential challenger from a coronation into a dramatic horse race does not diminish his amazing achievement. He has singlehandedly corralled millions into spotlighting onto, what has been the issue of the ages and the focus of activists, philosophers, philanthropists, economists, humanitarians and of course politicians, - the concentration of wealth into just a few and the process needed for a more equitable distribution. His ambition was far greater than creating an awareness and even a “movement” he wanted to effect his policy and goals by becoming the President of the most powerful and influential country in the world. He called it a revolution.

Sanders has in the recent past abandoned his approach just to focus on the issues and has become increasingly negative in his stump speeches attacking Hillary personally. His New York campaign and his mean spirited grudging concession speech is leaving a sour taste. This comes strangely from a contender whose strongest claim to electability was that he was not just another politician. This change of tactic by Sanders not only smacks of desperation but evoked, for the first time, a rebuke from the Clinton communications director, Ms. Palmieri, who challenged Sanders to desist from his destructive path. 

So it is crunch time for Senator Sanders to decide who and what he really stands for in this crucial election which will dictate the direction this country will go. Does he want to spread his message while racking up support and leverage for the Democratic Party Convention or does he want to escalate a losing battle and go for broke at the risk of undoing all he has achieved to date?

SANDER’S ONGOING DENIAL

So Sander’s problem is that now that it is patently obvious that he will not achieve his Presidential goal where does he go from here? The Berne currently is in perpetual ongoing denial. He refuses to program into his reality that he is not going to be the Democratic nominee and as a result forces even his most ardent followers to question what are his ultimate objectives and how good is his judgement. Who and what is he really? Is he willing to risk a Trump or a Cruz Presidency because he really believes that philosophically Hillary only wants a $12 an hour minimum Federal wage because she has been bought off by Goldman Sachs? Or will he accept the explanation that her compromise is a political calculation from caucusing that that an increase from the current $7.25 to $12 just might get through? He surely too has enough political nouse to compute the fact that it is a myth that he and his Movement could be elected into the White House with such an overwhelming countrywide majority that Congress will cry uncle and just enact his agenda! That is what in fact he is still arguing when confronted with hard political questions. Has he forgotten the closest anyone reached such a broad populist swell with two million citizens at his inauguration was Barak Obama and the Republican Congressional response was to block him on every turn on issue after issue. 

BERNIE WANTS NON DEMOCRATS TO ELECT HIM DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE.

All of the above and much more indicates that objective facts are not moving Bernie. So what else does he just not get? He now argues that the reason that he will win the Democratic nomination is that the 502 “super delegates” pledged to Hillary will join the 38 he has in his column. He forgets that not so long ago he declared the whole concept of this mainly non elected group of delegates undemocratic!  Also he has for decades shunned the Democratic Party so why should the party faithful back him to be the leader of the Party against the wishes of the Primary electorate? Then there is his paranoid attack that Clinton and the Democratic National Party are working hand and hand. The reason for his assessment is that some of the Clinton fund raisers are for other Party candidates in the General election. 

Just in case he hasn’t irritated the Party faithful enough he claims that one of the reasons he isn’t going to win the Democratic Party nomination is that in many of the Primary contests they only let the Democrats vote!. Some of his Democratic critics claim that his purist credentials are somewhat dented by the fact that if he really was so congruent, honest and pure he would have stood as an Independent and not unashamedly become a Democrat to increase his chances of becoming President and then wail that his non Democratic constituency cannot always vote for him. 

So Bernie’s continued stated argument that the Democratic “super delegate” establishment are going to anoint him the Party’s leader is singularly lacking in judgement.

BERNIE IS THE BEST MAN TO BEAT TRUMP/CRUZ

The Sander’s camp rationalization as to why the Democratic Party hierarchy must throw out one of their own is that he has by far the best chance of winning the Presidency. He quotes some of the polls that back him up. These polls are as valid as those that he frequently trots out that at the very start of the Primary Campaigns gave Hillary a seventy percent lead over him. He was unknown then and the polls reflected that. So far he has not been tested or hammered by the Republicans and the polls are indicative of that as well. The Republican PACs in several Primary fights against Hillary helped Sanders. To date the GOP system haven’t laid a finger on him and he should ask himself why? Neither has Clinton. For example, Hillary never countered I will tell you what I said to Goldman Sachs if you release your talks in Cuba and Russia but Trump will mercilessly harp on that. If he became the Democratic nominee his socialist past will be blasted off the face of the earth. His attack on Israel has gained minimal attention in the Democratic primaries as he has focussed on Netanyahu. However, Israel is an article of faith with the GOP and the electorate generally. Israel is not only an emotional issue in the United States it is a security issue and Sanders’ policies and foreign policy ignorance generally will be at kindest a handicap.

While the outcome between Cruz/Trump and Sanders is not discernible at this stage and could go either way the Republican Party have given up on either of their standard bearers beating Hillary. The Koch brothers have pulled their billion out of the GOP convention to nominate the Republican Presidential challenger in Cleveland.

SANDERS TO CONTINUE THE FIGHT TO JUNE 

The Sanders team has with irrelevant nuances said they are continuing and they can still win. The message is mixed as to how. One line is that there are the super delegates and another is that they can still win the Primaries. Their latest rationale for continuing is that they owe it to their supporters who have worked so hard. They cannot disappoint them so they have to continue. What a crock. Surely this is all about changing the direction of the country?  If Bernie continues on his all or nothing approach laced by increasing personal attacks on Clinton this is really going to turn ugly. Trump is already quoting Sander's attacks on Clinton on the stump. Hillary will have to drop her conciliatory tone that there are far fewer issues that separate Bernie and her than divide them.  It is already hotting up. Obama’s former campaign manager, David Plouffe, has alleged that Sanders is committing fraud by collecting money when he has no path to victory.  

At the end of the day Bernie by continuing full throttle in his attacks on Hillary  is not advancing his cause he is merely weakening it by exposing himself as an opportunist and weakening the philosophy that he ostensibly believes in. 

Mercifully, there are five more Primaries in a week in the North East of America where the demographics are similar to New York that may make the Sanders team look at their options again. Even if, against the trends, Sanders eked some wins it cannot impact the outcome as Hillary has such a commanding lead. 

So what are Bernie’s other alternatives?

BERNIE’S PATH TO POSITIVITY

There is very little doubt that Sanders has made a remarkable contribution to the American political debate. He has irreversibly committed the Democratic Party to a stronger position on the equitable distribution of wealth. If he calms down after the next set of Primaries just pushing his agenda and attacking the GOP he will go to the Democratic convention with a lot of clout.  He has to be able to influence the platform. He can insist, for example, that some of his key priorities become campaign issues such as the minimum wage or free public universities. There is then the possibility of starting an activist movement building on the foundations of his success. Also maybe there is a cabinet position in Hillary’s administration where he can oversee some of his priorities.

In so many ways Bernie’s whole life has been centered on issues - at least as much as anyone in politics is able to do. In this campaign he has to have to have achieved more than he could ever believed possible. He could not have imagined when he started out nearly a year ago that this would end with him in the White House. So cash in your chips Bernie and capitalize on your success. 

WHAT HAS MADE SANDER’S TICK

All in all Bernie Sanders has been caught in the dilemma of his whole of his life. On the one hand he has sought not to have compromise on principle and on the other he has desired to get things done. As an independent he has been able to live with himself while making the limited compromises and trade offs he has needed to to effect change in the rarefied atmosphere of rural Vermont. His most momentous compromise to date was joining the Democratic Party to give him a shot at becoming President. In the process of this campaign he has connected and inspired on a monumental scale. However, he has a new set of rules by which he now operates and that includes not sabotaging progress and being a team player. The choice is his  - call it quits while he can still persuade his following to back him thereby retaining influence. Or he can fight to the bitter end considering anything but the main prize a defeat for his objective of change. He and the values he has fought for will then be the big loser.

NON VIOLENT CHANGE IS PAINFULLY SLOW

At the age of seventy - four The Berne should have learned that change, unless it occurs by violent revolution, is a slow process. Let him read, Gandhi, Mandela and Luther King. Bernie is calling for a revolution - non violent revolutions just don’t happen. 

You can declare your intentions and beliefs -  “All men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights”. The 1776 Declaration of Independence then continues “… that to secure these rights Governments are instituted … deriving their powers from the consent of the governed”  - but it is a long long movement to non violently effect them. Slavery was only abolished nearly a hundred years later. It took another sixty years for women to gain the suffrage and yet another forty for Civil Rights for African Americans to be enshrined. Maybe the time is nearing for a much more fairer and equitable distribution of wealth but it needs the consent of the governed. The alternative is change by force which Hobbes so eloquently explained over four hundred years ago is easily reversible by another force. It would be trite of Jay H. Ell to remind Sanders that the most outstanding examples of revolutionary change in Europe in the last century were based on Marxism/Leninism. Most of the countries effected became totalitarian and all failed. 

SOUTH AFRICA:  EMERGING LEADER OR BASKET CASE

Alan Paton captured, in the very beginnings of apartheid, the immoral morass and conflicts that the racist and totalitarian policy was bringing about in his iconic novel Cry the Beloved Country. Nearly fifty years later Nelson Mandela established the Rainbow Nation and together with others that were in the “struggle”, such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, both of them Nobel Peace winners, began to move forward towards a democratic equitable and forgiving South Africa. Tutu was a key player in moving the healing process by heading the Truth and Conciliation Commission where those apartheid criminals who confessed and asked for forgiveness could be pardoned. Mandela for his part, together with the Afrikaner visionary De Klerk, was busily crafting a democratic society which was epitomized by a far reaching, and even revolutionary Constitution. This latter document would allow jurisdiction on anything and everything to achieve the objectives of the new egalitarian society and never allow South Africa to slip into racism and totalitarianism again. The Constitution would be interpreted by an independent Constitutional Court. Mandela had a touching trust in the judiciary notwithstanding his life time in prison. 

With this as a background who could ever have forecast that twenty - one years into the New South Africa that Archbishop Tutu would proclaim that the government of the African National Congress, (ANC), of Luthuli, Tambo, and Mandela under the leadership of President Jacob Zuma was worse than apartheid. Tutu continued, “I am warning you like I warned the Nationalists…. You are disgraceful….. You represent your own interests…. Watch out…. The Nationalists had a huge majority …They bit the dust…. Watch out ANC. “ 

 THE SEVEN YEAR LEAD UP TO THE CURRENT SOUTH AFRICAN CRISIS

Mandela’s South Africa has been on the slippery slope to hell ever since the election in 2009 of Jacob Zuma to the Presidency. (Blog: Mandela’s South Africa - One Minute Before Midnight). In essence it began two years earlier in 2007 at the ANC conference at Polokwane when Zuma was elected the leader of the ANC replacing President Thabo Mbeki. The latter a remote intellectual who had spent the apartheid years in exile. As his Premiership advanced he had grown more and more remote from the Party representatives and operatives. He had driven all and sundry to distraction with his unbending refusal to recognize the need to treat HIV with the then costly antivirals. His ostensible argument, with some American scientific crazies backing him up, was that there was no proven link between HIV and AIDS. AIDS was in the process of ravaging Africa and very few did not have some connection with a victim. So Zuma although already mired in controversy with a recent well publicized rape trial where he was found not guilty and with his financial advisor in jail for being found guilty of bribing him, emerged triumphant.

What Zuma lacked in vision, integrity, education and principle he more than compensated for in political skill, a canny intuitive sense of decision making and ruthlessness. Following his election in 2009 he had a twofold objective - to eliminate the institutions that investigated and prosecuted corruption and to surround himself with beholden sycophants thereby enriching himself and his cronies. In the process South Africa went steadily downhill. Just some of the sequelae included the fact that her credit rating is now just above junk bond status, the rand has devalued a hundred percent in relation to the dollar since Zuma signed in and the government owned South African Airways has lost money making it unique in relation to the industry whose profits have skyrocketed with the three fold drop in oil prices. The infrastructure has not kept up and electricity shutdowns are the order of the day. The civil service is overburdened with people lining up in the early hours in the morning so as to be one of the relatively few to be able to register for needed documents such as identity and passports. Birth certificate copies never seem to arrive and on and on. The education system has gone to hell in a hand basket as South African students fail to matriculate and score on the lowest level compared to other countries. 

Zuma continues oblivious to scandal after scandal that erupts around him. He has a bizarre relationship with the Gupta family that has enriched itself with State deals and in the process employed many a Zuma relative. The Guptas enjoy such a bond with the Premier that they offer cabinet positions and utilize military airports…. 

Opposition is roughed up even on occasion even in parliament and so it goes. 

ZUMA BACKS DOWN

A crack appeared in the Zuma facade as covered in the most recent blog on South Africa’s situation, “Mandela’s South Africa - One Minute Before Midnight”. It related to the Premier’s attempt to replace his Finance Minister with a yes man in order to have no opposition to the acquisition of nuclear power plants from Russia and airplanes for the shockingly managed  South African Airways. All hell broke lose on the financial markets and Zuma uncharacteristically backed off after representations from top ANC officials including Cyril Ramaphosa the Deputy ANC leader. The crack in the Zuma facade is widening as evidenced by the fact that his major benefactor, the Gupta family, are packing up and leaving. All major financial institutions have withdrawn doing business with them perhaps heralding scandals yet to unfold. 

THE NKANDLA HOUSE OF CARDS THAT MIGHT BREAK THE CAMEL’S BACK

There has been a simmering infamy that finally broke this month known as the Nkandla affair. The latter involved the unashamed allocation of two hundred and forty - six million South African Rand for the building of a private residence for the President. The extravagances were astounding - visitor’s centers, accommodation for his several wives, a chicken run, a cattle kraal and an amphitheater. The justification for this outrage was all this was needed for the security of the President. The flagrant abuse was highlighted by the fact that the rural area that Nkandla is situated in is awash with poverty and short of essential services. Tax payer money was diverted from other departments to make this all possible. Needless to say this travesty was under constant attack from all quarters and Zuma’s sycophants produced no less than six investigations clearing their leader of any malfeasance and accepting the canard that the expenditure was justified in the interests of security.

However there are still institutional provisions to address such excesses and more importantly brave souls to see that they still have teeth. One such office is that of Public Protector and one such hero is a soft spoken gutsy woman Thuli Madsonela.

INVESTIGATION BY PUBLIC PROTECTOR MS MADSONELA

Advocate Madsonela, a highly qualified jurist with a number of Doctorates of Law, lead the investigation into Nkandla. Throughout the process of her probe she was harassed and bullied by Zuma’s ministers who told her to stop. The cherry on the top was the threat by the Minister of Police to arrest her if she released her preliminary report in 2013. She ignored his bluster as she maintained that his ranting had no basis in law. Her detailed report was released in 2014 and was met with unprecedented criticism and attack by the Zuma defense cadres. The ANC Youth League called for her resignation, she was accused of being a “counter revolutionary” by a deputy cabinet minister and Zuma’s ANC supporters piled into her.

She remained unmoved and responded to Zuma’s reply to her submission that he repay the treasury for those buildings that were patently not geared to his security by telling him she was dissatisfied with his explanations. Madsonela was gaining more and more national and international support and recognition for her courageous dedication to duty (Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world for 2014). The major opposition parties the Democratic Alliance and the Economic Freedom Fighters laid a charge against Zuma with the Constitutional Court . They argued that Zuma and Parliament in failing to accept the Public Protector’s findings and recommendations had defied the Constitution.

CONSTITUTIONAL COURT  RULES ON NKANDLA AND ZUMA DEFIES

In an unanimous ruling the Constitutional Court ruled that President Zuma failed to uphold, defend and respect the Constitution and ordered him to repay a large portion of the money back to the State. The Chief Justice Mogoeng praised the Public Protector calling her the biblical David fighting against the Goliath of corruption. Mogoeng called the decision a profound lesson for the young democracy. If nothing else Mandela’s faith in an independent judiciary had prevailed.

Zuma unabashedly declared victory for Democracy and accepted the Court’s decision . In contrast he declined to accept responsibility. He claimed that he had been wrongly legally advised to oppose the Public Protector’s ruling and had acted in good faith. Understandably none other than the Party faithful bought this and the calls for his resignation resonated from every quarter including from ANC stalwarts of the ‘“struggle”. A vote for his impeachment was beaten on straight party lines in Parliament but even the party faithful squirmed as they had to face the question as to whether the Constitution that had been fought for in blood and tears was meaningless.

But at the end of the day politics is about winning elections and that means one of two things Zuma and his cadres are voted out by the ANC or the ANC are voted out by the electorate. 

WHAT MECHANISM CHANGE ?

The ANC has been steadily losing support but still have a majority of the electorate vote. They control sixty - two percent of the four hundred legislative seats. Nine opposition parties share the remaining one hundred and forty - one members with the Democratic Alliance having eighty - nine of those. The opposition represents the spectrum of political philosophy ranging from Trotskyite Leninism to right wing fundamentalist religion. Hardly a recipe for forming a coalition government to topple the ANC.

The electorate’s lingering enchantment with the ANC is understandable. It is the Party of Mandela and the vehicle which brought about change. Periodically the party trot out pictures of the ailing Mandela embracing Zuma just in case they have forgotten. They reinforce that abandoning the savior now is tantamount to treachery and would be the rejection and betrayal of all that the revolution was about. Voting against the ANC is voting for apartheid is the not so hidden message. 

So the hope of those that want to rid the country of this venal cabal lies with reclaiming the ANC. The ostensible main protagonist for this task is Cyril Ramaphosa the Deputy Leader. He was after all Mandela’s choice as his successor. However having been outmaneuvered by Mbeki he made an untold fortune in business before returning to government. This former Trade Unionist has a dented image and was implicated in a police massacre of striking miners. One of the architects of the Constitution he needs to risk and a make a move. There is little doubt that he was one of the deputation that forced the first dent in Zuma’s facade by compelling him to backtrack on his axing of the Minister of Finance. However, the reality is that there are so many of the ANC leadership that are there because of cronyism and this has to make his task unenviable. Zuma has foreseen the fight for his successor claiming that the time has come for a woman leader - namely one of his ex wives.

The strategy of beating the ANC at the polls is the next best hope. Nkandla is slowly sinking into the country’s consciousness. It cannot be forgotten too that South Africa has a sophisticated first world financial and economic infrastructure. Nothing is impossible as many of the forces that assisted in the axing of apartheid are still around. De Klerk has considerable clout and there are other foundations and non governmental agencies such as the Institute of Race Relations. The media have to a certain extent been overtaken by Zuma forces but that has been more than nullified by the social media. The University students are unhappily more concerned with the past than concentrating their energies on the corruption of their current government. The opposition Democratic Alliance is growing in strength and their new charismatic leader Mmuse Maimane is a rallying point. They are expected to make big gains in the next municipal elections but at the end of the day their nidus are the whites and are so easily prey to the smear that they will bring back apartheid. 

There is one other option. The ANC itself has to have a substantial group who actually believe that the struggle was not to create another despotic Zimbabwean Mugabe surrounded by venal sycophants while the rest of the country rotted into a third world quagmire. If they were to break and join with key opposition elements a majority of the electorate would easily be attainable. The situation is ripe for key negotiations and indabas that preceded the creation of the new South Africa.  There are more than enough credible groups to set this up. 

The failure to rid the country of the current culture of corruption will not mean that that business as usual will continue. The fact that the key financial, educational, infrastructure and civil management parameters are worsening together with an almost twenty - five percent unemployment figure must sooner or later spill into the streets. The years long drought will only add to the misery, frustration and anger. 

ONE FACTOR THAT REMAINS CONSTANT…..

South Africa as Alan Paton wrote over a half century ago in his novel "Ah but your land is beautiful" is as heavenly as ever. On the surface nothing has changed. It is a tourist mecca with its game parks, its rolling mountains and its beaches and oceans. The indescribably dazzling Cape Town with three of the top ten hotels in the world has real estate that has attracted the whose who on the world stage. The Garden Route with its jewel in Plettenberg Bay enchants busloads of gaping visitors who have passed through the wine lands of the Cape where the charming towns of centuries old Stellenbosch and Fransch Hoek offer sophisticated cuisine. The rolling hills of Natal with its beaches and the game parks in Gauteng all add up to the constant refrain, regardless of the political situation, “Ah But Your Land is Beautiful”. One can only pray that the beauty can once again accompany a thriving society that is an example to the world and not another third world basket case. South Africa is after all not one of the G20 nations for nothing