Asmal may have had a point ...

Share current article via Email Share current article via Facebook Share current article via Twitter Share current article via LinkedIn As the ANC and the Electoral Commission of South Africa argued over whether it was the party's tardiness or the commission's system failures that resulted in scores of ANC candidates not being registered on time for the coming elections, Hogarth could not help but remember the words of the late Kader Asmal. Now, Hogarth is not pointing a finger at anyone in Luthuli House for the mess, but he does recall how Asmal reacted in 2009 on hearing the news that one of the former presidents of the ANC Youth League had the ambition of becoming a future ANC secretary-general, the so-called 'engine' of the organisation. 'I have this former head of the youth league,' the late ANC stalwart told journalists, 'who aspires to be secretary-general. Ha, really, I hope I won't be alive.' Asmal died at 76 in 2011. In an unrelated development, the ANC elected Fikile Mbalula as its secretary-general in 2022. See no evil, hear no evil When former Hawks boss Lt-Gen Godfrey Lebeya first appeared before the Madlanga commission and insisted that everybody call him 'Dr' because he now holds an LLD, Hogarth feared the ex-top cop was setting himself up for failure. Like many other witnesses who come before the commission, his first day went by smoothly — with the Good Doctor proving to have a very good memory, even telling the commission which of his colleagues in the police had been improperly promoted some 15 years ago. But as the days went on, his memory seemed to fail him. Hogarth remembers watching a video of the retired cop in which he boasted that, as a supercop and anti-organised crime boss in his time, he knew 'what was happening in Gauteng at any given time'. However, when the commission asked him if he knew Jothan 'Mswazi' Msibi, KT Molefe and other members of the so-called Big Five alleged syndicate, Lebeya played Dr See-No-Evil-and-Hear-No-Evil. No wonder the Hawks never had any real control over organised crime. Lost his seat, kept the house There has been so much havoc in the MK Party that Hogarth can no longer keep up with who is who among its members. He is not alone, it would seem. Even parliament has been struggling, so much so that in the Cape Town village where the National Assembly houses our lawmakers, parliament has been accommodating a squatter who long ago stopped being an MP. Bongani Mfiki was among the first MK Party members to become MPs when the party came to parliament in 2024. However, a few months later, the Nkandla Crooner's people removed Mfiki from their list to make way for another party member they now preferred. While Mfiki accepted that he could not keep his parliamentary seat, he was not prepared to let go of free housing in Cape Town. And so he stayed on in the parliamentary village despite numerous attempts by the department of public works to evict him. He stayed in the property for two years, apparently paying no rent, no taxes and no rates. The courts have now ruled that he must move out and has until the end of September to do so. Perhaps MKP rival the EFF should be his next home. Here is a potential member who has demonstrated an ability to expropriate property without compensation. Same Stalingrad, different president Speaking of the MKP, the party's famous legal mind, Dali Mpofu, was at the high court in Cape Town this week fighting President Cyril Ramaphosa's latest attempts to evade accounting for the origins of the under-the-sofa dollars at his Phala Phala game farm. Hogarth was following the advocate's arguments keenly until he said: 'All we are here for is just to waste time, delay, delay, delay … an archetypal Stalingrad, complain about this, stop the evidence leader, the weather and all sorts of things to just avoid accountability …' By the time he finished speaking, Hogarth wasn't sure whether the learned friend was still talking about the sitting president or if he was now confusing him with another president, his client Jacob Zuma.