Saving Cope -- the breech baby

If South Africans had any sense of patriotism and forward thinking they would nurture this "breech baby" called Cope into the strong opposition party it deserves to be to keep the ANC honest.

As far as Mbeki goes, Cope should avoid him like the plague! Whatever happened in Polokwane should stay in Polokwane. Cope hooking up with Mbeki is a recipe for failure.

Other opposition parties lack the stripes earned by many of Cope leaders fighting for freedom. Presently, the DA carries too much racist baggage and the IFP is too steeped in tribalism to step into the role of a true opposition party that can stand up to the ANC. Cope is by far a more viable opposition party, even in its infancy, with all its problems, it is still the ONLY hope to maintain a strong multi-party democracy in SA.

The choice of a religious leader muddies the prospects for Cope's progress but its far better than the alternatives out there. South African voters are smarter that we give them credit for. When they look up north to Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa, they shudder at the prospect of descending into a one party state. So in a strange, macabre way, Zimbabwe's downfall benefits Cope.

Even if, like me, you're an admirer of the ANC - the party that brought us liberation, you still have to put South Africa first and VOTE COPE to strengthen our multi-party democracy. I think we will be pleasantly surprised with the support that Cope will garner across the board in this upcoming election.

Sir, you are wrongly informed about why Mbeki was removed.The ANC succeeded in keeping it's secrets away from journalists like you who are happy at nothing but it's carcass.Mbeki will never tell so are all the cadres at NEC.My hat off for that.Blunders seriuos enough to cause conflict within the ANC and between the Conuntry and others had been observed many a time.You missed all those.E.g.Political blunders Darfur (incl John Garang's role),Zimbabwe,the plan for a demise of the ANC,to keep the ANC as a Xhosa fiefdom (read Billy's report if you can lay your hands on it obviously I doubt you will.This is a reborn ANC!), the involvement of the French in our politics etc.You all missed these issues.That is where Vavi and Blade triumphed.This is Politics my friend.Our MK Cdres died in droves under mysteriuos circumstances under Terror,SANDF Arms 'disappeared' in Rwanda etc, Zuma was targetted in supposedly veiled plot that undermined the struggle when we all knew (you also know but for obvious reasons hate the Party)many were hands in the 'cokkie-jar'.

The Party had to be decisive.We will not apologise for that.

Now Xhosas met outside EL and charted a way forward to try maintain their control of the country.Hence the birth of COPE and the appointment of one of their own to lead COPE.There are many still to come that you have not seen nor heard of.

Blunders in their Strategy: 1.The land issue does not feature much in their Manifesto and you never wondered why.I understand why you did not realise that.2.There are many whites encouraging their employees to vote COPE. Why? BEE !!!!!.COPE in their book we have reached a 'levelling of the playing field economically'.Note that all of the leaders are BEE-made Millionaires.

Self-serving individuals working against all what our stalwards had worked and died for.If Tata Govan Mbeki could rise just for a day to see the mess,he will not be thrilled.

So you are pedling propaganda.NOTE:We know wholiberated us, and we will stand by them exactly like in all 3 Trials of the 1958-1963.

i agree with you. It is important that the midwives of Cope should be proud of their achievement for the delivery of hope to all south africans. Therefore they should allow every south african to participate and contribute to the nurturing of the baby, so that all competent, hardworking citizens of this beautiful country can be truly servants of the nation unlike the deployees who were and still incompetent, lazy and arrogant.

Your story and analogy is somewhat correct. You may also be correct that COPE missed the opportunity to be an opposition with no past bargage, except that its founders carried a different bargage from that of racism. They are power mongers, and I think that bargage is worse than that of racism. I think the DA is benefiting from the COPE blunders. For the first time in its history, the DA can be compared to a viable party of the size, and it is winning the comparison. I predict, as a result, that the DA will do better than COPE in the next elections.

The hype out there is not only about COPE. There are ANC supporters and sympathisers who were inspired by Polokwane. They were even more inspired to be active in the ANC by the birth of COPE. I therefore predict that the ANC will do better than in the previous elections.

Birth of COPE should have been one of those proud moments for S/Africans in strenghtening our democracy. Unfortunately it was not to be, reason being, wrong people formed COPE. The very reason why these individuals cannot be the face of COPE should have prevented them from being its face when it was first formed, and instead they should have at least facilitated that people like Dandala form COPE with their support on the background. There are two reasons in my mind that propelled them to form COPE in spite of their baggage. Their plan to defect from the ANC had been on the cards since their defeat in Polokwane but they never expected the ANC to recall Mbeki. They were somehow caught with their pants down, hence the haste with which they formed COPE without proper planning and consultation, and this explains their failure to attract the known Mbeki-tes still within the ANC. The second reason is that they may well have been driven by personal interests to secure themselves political jobs after it became clear to them that with the new ANC leadership their political ambitions had reached some dead end. My view is that it will not be long that we will begin to see a split of COPE, especially after the elections because the reasons for its formation may not have been noble, at least for all the three men (Lekota, George, and Shilowa). My own assessment is that what motivated the first two gentlemen to form COPE was much more of personal interests than Shilowa was made to believe. The moment you have camps in any organization it is a sign for disaster, and the more you deny these the more these become pronounced and more dangerous.

Your article Nic makes a good reading and your analogy somewhat address some of the issues. In a way, I also think you missed the plot though. The reasons for Terror Lekota, Sam Shilowa, Smuts Ngonyama, Mluleki George, Saki Macozoma, etc to start Cope had nothing to do with Mbeki being recalled or them wanting to uplift the poor. These individuals lost power democratically in Polokwane and could not accept that because they believe that they are the only custodians of our democracy, how sad. By their own admission they want political power which guarantees them access to business opportunities which they have been getting under Mbeki.

You hear people like Lekota, Shilowa and co. talking about the ANC being corrupt and having neglected the poor for the last 15 years as if they were not the ones who were in power, who had power to stop corruption and provide basic services to poor communities. The unfortunate thing about journalists in this country is that they are too galible. I think many of them lack basic journalistic skills because at the very least, our journalists should be asking these people to account for what they did in the last 15 years when they were in government and ask them why should people of South Africa trust them when they failed and only lined their own pockets while they were in power.

The current leadership of the ANC who were elected in Polokwane have not been in power there fore cannot be said that they have failed the people of South Africa. From where I am, it is the ANC under the chairmanship of Terror Lekota taht failed this country in many areas such as health, education, Zimbabwe, housing, even ib BEE, which by the way enriched them and they ow want to do away with it.

I do believe that we need an alternative to the ANC but I do not think shikota is that party. These people think South Africans are stupid. They have nothing to offer in terms of policy and leadership. I think the DA is better than Cope and will also do well in the elections becasue they offer something different to the ANC unlike people who lost power in the ANC who now believe we should vote for thenm because they are no longer in the ANC.

In conclusion, the ANC will do better than in the previous elections because many people would rather have the ANC than Shikota.

Should COPE be saved! I do not think so. This has to do with the idelogical orientation of the party. The space that COPE want to occupy is already full. The DA, UDM, ID, IFP all are seeking the same votes - people with with a liberal/social democratic orientation. The only stumbling block for all these formation to come together is the egos of their leading lights. Your Ian Davidson, Mike Selfe, Ryan Coetzee in the DA,Patricia De Lille and her coterie of 'leaders' in the DA, the Prince of Zululand in the IFP and the self righteous General in the UDM.
The effect of all this is that the ANC will continue to get the biggest slice of the votes. This, though,does not mean that people are not fed up. It just indicate that there is no viable alternative. A situation that the article correctly chronicles.
Until the parties to the right of the ANC pull their lot together the ANC will rule 'until the second coming....'