Solly stays home as John does the Beijing Boogie

Thursday.

Politics is a funny game.

While South African Communist Party (SACP) secretary general Solly Mapaila is at home, ranting about how the ANC has hold out to the neo-liberal forces, Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen is in Beijing, slinging oranges and avocados to the Communist Party of China, at Cyril Ramaphosa’s behest.

Politically speaking, the voters gave Solly’s seat on the plane to Beijing with Cyril to John on 29 May, when they took away the ANC’s parliamentary majority.

The rest of the SACP leadership appears to have accepted the new political reality and are happy that Blade Nzimande still gets a security pass for the Waterkloof Air Force Base, but Solly seems not to have received the memo.

Solly was moaning about the involvement of the DA in the government of national unity and the exclusion of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the Umkhonto we Sizwe Party when I went on leave four weeks ago.

MK has cannibalised a fair part of the EFF since then — a message to all who do business with it — John is in the cabinet team in China but Solly’s still banging on the same old drum.

It is hard to imagine Juliius Malema coming back from the loss of Floyd Shivambu and other leaders to the MK Party, on top of the EFF’s losses at the polls in May and the hammerings it has taken in the by elections since.

The way things are going, the EFF will be holding its closing rally online, rather than in a stadium, after its National People’s Assembly in December this year.

Or in a gazebo.

If Solly and Malema haven’t gotten the message that the political game has moved on, Steenhuisen certainly has.

John has taken to the whole government thing like a fish to water: new suit, minders, smalanyana blue light convoy.

And the cadre deployment part.

John wasted no time in hiring an online hate merchant as his chief of staff and has the matriculants in a holding pattern, a month and a bit into the job, as if he’d been doing it for the past 30 years.

He’s clearly been waiting to.

Were there “nobody mention Taiwan” vibes going on in the briefing room ahead of wheels up at Waterkloof?

John has been a vocal critic of South Africa’s relationship with the People’s Republic over the years, so the briefing and protocol teams must have been just a little bit on edge ahead of the first meeting with Ramaphosa’s counterpart, Xi JInping.

It’s the first state visit of Ramaphosa’s second administration – and the first test of how his government of national unity cabinet behaves abroad – so all the newbies and their staffers must have been given the statecraft 101 ahead of take off.

No Taiwan, no Hong Kong human rights, protest, democracy wadda wadda — or at least until the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation is over and we’re safely back on South African soil.

No bro jokes.

Then again, Steenhuisen has also been an opponent of serving in government with the ANC for most of his political career, which was built on the idea of removing the party from power.

John pivoted rather tidily on that one when the time to do so came at the end of May and the numbers numbered him and his colleagues into Ramaphosa’s cabinet.

So did the rest of his party, so nobody’s likely to make a noise over John’s visiting Beijing, rather than Taipei, the next time its federal executive meets.

John’s been pretty much onside with Ramaphosa ever since they agreed on the GNU – when last did he mention the words  Phala Phala – so taking him and public works minister Dean Macpherson along on the trip to China may not have been such a risky move at all.

One would assume that John would have left Roman Cabanac, at home with his Webcam in ALT Right land while he set off to do the Beijing Boogie with the political adults.

One can’t imagine that kind of baggage being allowed onto the plane for a trip abroad of the team accompanying South Africa’s head of state, or can one?

One hopes the president has a word with John while the team is in Beijing and Roman gets a swift Don’t Come Monday.

We have had our fair share of filth on the public payroll over the years – still do in some cases — but giving our tax money to some ALT Right troll is definitely not on.

A bro too far.