Omry Makgoale

MO: Molo Jasper, and Molweni down there where the waters are rising, and threatening to disappear, near Sedgefield, in the Western Cape. I am reminded of how these days you are a strong advocate of a political party to get rid of all political parties? This could be interesting, come local elections on November 4, 2026; including at your islands of humanity.

JC: You are correct. The only party I have the slightest interest in voting for is the OHM, and then only because their primary aim is to rid us of parties, including their own. I also favour their direct representing, not to mention scrapping the Provinces. Nine parliaments gone means nine blue light gangs off the roads.

MO: At issue in all this is an article sent me by Paul Trewhela – who needs much more airing in our country and the world – headlined ‘Why we need to amend the constitution of South Africa’. Significantly, the article is by Omry Makgoale, calling for direct elections for MP’s, mayors, premiers and presidents.

Trewhela writes:

‘Omry Makgoale, as probably the primary advocate for electoral reform in South Africa today, given his participation in the June 16 uprising, his role as senior commander in defence of the MK troops at Viana camp in 1984, his imprisonment and brutal treatment in Quatro, followed by the refusal of ANC authority to accept his democratic election as the individual representative of the ‘76 generation troops in Tanzania in 1989’.

Put that in your pipe, if you have forsaken your flute!

JC: Unfair! You know I keep reaching for my twak. But, yes, the Electoral Act is the buffalo, er, elephant in the room, found so most notably by Lauren Evanthia, founder of OHM, and Mandiso Mashego who fingered the same whacko Act. Mmusi Mainmane and Songeso Zibi are less pointed, whereas for the two ladies, it is absolutely where we start reform.

That is only four people out of eighteen parties in parlament. The other fourteen are happy with the Act. Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Bottom line: the Electoral doesn’t prevent criminals standing for election. If that isn’t a flaw, what is? I know, I know, it was to allow for apartheid criminal records (which meant nearly everyone in a majority political party), but that was 32 years ago. Struggle survivors are all but extinct. It has to go.

The other thing is, I resent parties telling me who gets to be an MP. I want to decide that! Me and my friends, and everyone who lives on our block!

MO: In his own way, Trewhela is a Small Is Beautiful convert.

JC: Yes, I read in his wiki explaining why he was no longer a Marxist: “Marx’s conception of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ gave a licence to totalitarian dictators of all kinds, and Marxism’s economic determinism and alleged ‘scientific’ philosophy are way off beam. I’m much more aware than before how fragile are the little shoots of civil society, and how they need nurturing, and how easily they are crushed by very ideological people who claim to have a universal panacea, usually violent. They’re the dangerous people in southern Africa, as Robert Mugabe and his regime have shown”.

MO: Here is our link to the full article by Omry Makgoale., sent us By Paul Trewhela, and featured in early June this year on the highly commendable PoliticsWeb.