Somewhere in South Africa printers were rubbing their hands together ready for the 2014 general election.
They knew out of the 33 registered political parties contesting in national and provincial elections they’d bag millions with printing party posters that will get tied to every pole next to a road.
Dirt roads included of course, as the people living in informal settlements where tarred roads are a foreign concept are an important part of the voter base that needs to get reached by these posters.
They’ll need to read on a rectangular cardboard tied next to their route home that they’ll get some nice things like roads and food and jobs and water after the election. Not just a chicken leg and a flat coke in a cup.
Although it must take a strong stomach on the printers’ side to see thousands of posters with the queasy smiles of party leaders such as Jacob Zuma, Pieter Mulder and here in Gauteng provincial premier candidate Mmusi Maimane whiz by, how could they sulk?
Printing might just be one of our country’s lesser-known goldmines, where owners of presses could be seen as modern day Randlords, raking in Mandela’s from simply printing images to cardboard. Why care if they are printing propaganda, and likely a few skilfully worded lies?
What I’m saying is that posters are important for parties, the voter base and printers. All the parties are likely guilty of up-playing the words decorating their posters, but they need them. And we need to read it. And printers need to feed their families.
But the world of political posters doesn’t just end with the poster.
Somewhere it is more than likely that a DA leader is shouting at his constituents that the ANC has more posters than them in wards. In a little Keeping up with the Joneses game, COPE, Agang and Freedom Front Plus (or any party with deep pockets for their poster budget) joins the game and sticks up more and more posters to out-do other parties active in the area.
Soon, poles become so cluttered, that the ANC decided to stick some posters on trees on Jan Smuts Avenue heading to town.
By playing Myne is groter as joune with other parties, the ANC yet again broke the law.
The law states that no posters are allowed on trees, road signs and bridges.
But the ruling party often colours outside the lines when it comes to following rules.
With Nkandlagate dominating headlines again, let’s re-visit some other rebellions by the ANC in 2013.
- Guptagate where it was clear that friends of the President to indeed have privileges over us mere mortals.
- Bling-bling ministers like Gugile Nkwinti, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, Paul Mashatile zipping through traffic in rented luxury cars totaling a bill of more than R5 million.
- E-tolls, signed into effect although there was an on-going public outcry against it. Since its implementation there were few truthful answers to back-up ‘teething’ problems with the system. With the go ahead of the system, the president needs to be held accountable for signing a faulty system into law.
It might be a bit undiplomatic to make the ANC the scapegoat when it comes to breaking the rules, as most (okay all) politicians are lying to you anyway. But I draw the line with posters stuck on objects where they don’t belong.
As the ruling party, you’d expect them to uphold the law, and prove that they are indeed the right rulers for the land (perhaps read that as if it were written in Comic Sans).
But no, they stuck a few posters on trees, and gave another reporter another opportunity to go on a rant.
But being a nice person – it is endearing to know two things.
- The ANC supported poster Randlords (well if a private company was hired) and for once enriched somebody other than ANC cronies.
- They have a keen sense for categorisation. They know that paper, and paper products come from trees, and like to keep things in order. By sticking their poster on a tree they conveyed a Martha Stewart-like sense of order, which means their vault of transgressions and scandals the media haven’t uncovered yet is at least neatly categorised for the day when lawlessness comes to an end – making it easier for us to finally see what really went on behind the yellow, green and black curtains.
