Happy birthday and voetsek, ANC

The ANC’s birthday party this weekend should also be a farewell bash. After 112 years, the movement is unravelling, earning more ridicule each day.

Time to pack up. Secretary-general Fikile Mbalula’s attempts to explain why the party misled parliament, pretending the taxpayer-funded swimming pool at former president Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla homestead was a “firepool” have drawn scorn.

ALSO READ: ‘Have your head checked’ if you think Mbalula’s fire pool comments is admission of lies

On Monday night, Mbalula repeatedly deleted, edited, and reposted different versions of his explanation on X. He was rightly mocked on X for doing so: “Chief, the damage is already done, you said what you said & we heard you very clearly.

ANC lied to keep Zuma in power, just as you lied that load shedding would end last December.” Mbalula, who is in charge of the ANC’s 2024 election campaign, no doubt realised his credibility – and that of the party – were taking a knock.

His convoluted attempts at clarification failed. Nothing he said could erase the underlying truth that the ANC had in 2015 deliberately distorted the truth to protect its then-leader, Zuma.

Most of us recognised this dishonesty when it happened. The idea of the “firepool” was unconvincing from the outset.

ALSO READ: Mbalula’s admission ANC lied about Zuma’s Nkandla fire pool ‘an insult to constitution’

Mbalula was unwise over the weekend to remind us of the ANC’s dishonesty. Remember, last year the same ANC used its parliamentary majority to block the establishment of an ad hoc committee to investigate allegations about dodgy dealings at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala game farm.

Even if Phala Phala sofas were padded with hundreds of thousands of US dollars, MPs looking for answers could get stuffed.

The clear message is that the ANC looks after its crooks, no matter what – at least when they are in power.

When they are on the losing side in party factions, there is less protection, as the likes of Zuma and former secretary-general Ace Magashule have found out.

ALSO READ: #TBT: Nathi Nhleko insists ‘firepool’, cattle kraal and chicken coop are security features

Given another chance, the ANC will no doubt again protect its chosen leaders from scrutiny.

Why give them any more opportunities when casting your vote? While ANC MPs were able to protect Zuma in 2015 and Ramaphosa in 2023, there will be no such protection in this year’s general election.

Voters will be able to decide whether the ANC deserves another five-year opportunity to deceive the public in the way it has done so far.

The state of the corrupt, incompetent, deceitful ANC in 2024 brings to mind Oliver Cromwell’s speech while forcibly ejecting members of England’s Rump Parliament in 1653: “It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practise of every vice.

ALSO READ: WATCH: ‘ANC defended Zuma for Nkandla, but he can’t stand Ramaphosa’ – Mbalula

“Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government …

“Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?

“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing.

“Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”

In more up-to-date local parlance, voetsek, ANC.