Coalition talks: Hyenas rip apart your principles

There is something deeply disturbing about the negotiations currently underway between the main political parties – and a number of minor ones – in all of the “hung” councils which resulted from this week’s local government poll.

The image of hyenas or vultures ripping a carcass to pieces in the bushveld comes to mind. This is about eating; about getting into a position where you, too, can feed.

And much as the parties would try to deny that, it is the reality.

Before the ballots were cast, the party campaigns were full of sound, light and fury and much of the energy was directed to pulling down their perceived opponents.

The DA had a full go at the ANC and the EFF; the ANC did likewise and the EFF took aim at just about everybody else.

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Logic would say that these people who appear to be fighters for principle would refuse to have anything to do with the “evil” people they were belittling not so long before.

Yet, now, they are sitting down around a table talking to each other.

Undoubtedly, the first item to be sacrificed will be the principles which you believe in and which they promised to honour “till death do us part”… There are those who will argue that this bidding and counter-bidding is in the nature of the beast we call democracy and, more than that, it is an indication of reconciliation and peace-making between people with very different viewpoints.

There may be some merit in that but the overwhelming impression is that the politicians are in it for the politics – and all that it brings in terms of benefits derived from close proximity to the levers of power.

So, should we give up in disgust? No, we should keep voting. Perhaps, one day, politicians will do what we want.