Evita Bezuidenhout doesn’t need a crystal ball to see into the new year. Here are her predictions...
Cape Town -
I have always believed we don’t need a crystal ball to see what will happen to South Africa tomorrow – 2014, probably the most important new year in our history because for the first time, every young voter will vote without the baggage of apartheid on their back.
The born-frees are a force to be reckoned with, especially as we will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of our democracy. And the sadness starts there: Madiba will not be with us to blow out the candles. He took us on a final long and slow walk to his next freedom and blew out his own candles.
The ANC office in heaven is in a turmoil. Someone has arrived earlier than expected to check their books.
Predicting a path forward in politics is a slippery slope. After making a list, one is tempted to hope that it never comes true. I wish for good news above bad news. Once it was possible to depend on that, but those days are over. Now there are just too many cameras, too many smartphones, too much “breaking news”. Sometimes it feels as if news happens before it happens.
Education will become the non-negotiable goal for the government. After the horrors of Bantu Education, the last thing we need now is to replace it with Cadre Confusion. So schoolbooks will be delivered on time. They will be printed on high-protein paper full of vitamins and roughage, so if the learners can’t read them, at least they can eat them.
The public protector will keep on protecting the public, even if she has to go into hiding. Thuli Madonsela will also take over the SABC as the ultimate public protection.
Nkandla will be the focus of much speculation, especially after oil is discovered in time for the election. President Jacob Zuma will then take a new Saudi wife for obvious reasons. She will be declared a National Key Point so that no media photograph ever appears of her eyes.
As a loyal member of the ANC, I will carry on as head of catering at Luthuli House. The cabinet is on a diet and by March, results should be seen when some ministers will be able to fit into economy- class seats on SAA, as Pravin Gordhan has instructed.
Job creation will also be introduced at Luthuli House for the many young women who queue up in anticipation of employment. They can’t all be taken on, but those who are will obviously have to leave before the nine months is over.
There is talk of extending free e-toll travel to all members of the party, although the Austrians are not yet convinced.
President Zuma will bow down to pressure from the people about the cost to the taxpayer of his wives.
By election time, they will all have been reclassified as members of staff, for surely no one could have a problem with a president having four secretaries.
Lesotho will join the Republic as a 10th province for two months, then revert back to the ninth province after Limpopo is ceded to Zimbabwe – on condition that all Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa are moved to the vicinity of Polokwane.
The world will be shocked and confused to hear that the president of Zimbabwe died in 2007. A series of cloned Robert Mugabes has managed to hoodwink the world media.
But then again, if Meryl Streep could look like Margaret Thatcher, one supposes that anyone could look like Robert Mugabe!
By August the Chinese government will open a series of factories manned by Chinese guest-workers to fabricate fire reservoirs for commercial usage. It simply will mean that if flames break out in the home or on the property, the fire will need to be moved and deposited in the pool. They will be called Nkindlas.
As we move into 2014 we will realise that while apartheid would never ever come back again under the same name, one should not underestimate the sly inventiveness of bad politics.
It will be back for the simple reason that it made money for a political elite then; it will do the same now. Not as the segregation of colour, but of language, of tradition, of ritual and of toll lanes.
Next year’s general election could go many ways, all in favour of the ruling party. Sausage rolls and T-shirts will do the trick in many areas.
POOlitics and BOOlitics will make inroads in the Western Cape and dusty areas of the Northern Cape.
The Eastern Cape will not take part in elections. Even though they have again stolen their annual deficit, the local provincial structures will have ceased to exist by early April as most officials will have fled to the Western Cape as refugees.
The ANC will win the election. While the party will be badly shaken by the lack of expected support at the ballot box, a secret deal with the Economic Freedom Fighters will allow them to go into coalition with this new radical party of the left.
Julius Malema, who only a few months ago couldn’t even rub two cabbages together, will become president. Jacob Zuma will retire with full amnesty and Cyril Ramaphosa will become premier.
By mid-June, the present Tripartite Alliance will be known as the Paraplegic Alliance and with its two-thirds parliamentary majority will be able to change the constitution.
Helen Zille will take up her diplomatic posting as South Africa’s first ambassador to South Sudan.
Afrikaans rabble-rouser Steve Hofmeyr will appeal to the Constitutional Court against media rumours that he and a leading young radical political aikona plan a civil marriage after having met while visiting a police station.
The Mandela family will be thrown into disarray after being offered the US reality television show to be vacated by the Kardashians.
As a final prediction: if we the people do our job as citizens and use our vote constructively with passion and optimism, the government will follow our lead.
@TannieEvita
www.evita.co.za
* Evita Bezuidenhout is a member of the ANC and therefore cannot comment on anything. She writes here in her personal capacity and will be joining the satirical cluster in Pieter-Dirk Uys’s ADAPT OR FLY at the Theatre on the Bay, January 7-25.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Newspapers.
Cape Times