Merry coalition Christmas, and a happy GNU year

Thursday.

The time is upon us — thankfully — when the political class finally gives it a break, apart from the odd contractual obligation church service that nobody has any real interest in, participants included.

The last by-election of the year is over and done with.

The ANC had a pretty decent day at the office to close off the year.

It beat the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party to take ward  two, Dambuza in Pietermaritzburg — a very big result in an area where it was hammered on 29 May.

The ANC also snatched ward seven at Hantam local municipality in the Northern Cape from the Democratic Alliance (DA), a nice early Christmas present from the good people of Calvinia.

The non-stop barrage of WhatsApp messages, emails and X posts churned out by the political parties has finally stopped, along with the last-minute flurry of congresses, people’s assemblies and rallies that those who would like to rule the country subjected us to.

The South African Communist Party (SACP), the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the MK party all gave it a last fling before heading off for their holidays.

They came out of their weekend events re-positioning themselves ahead of the local government elections, with the communists finally deciding to stand independently of the ANC, rather than backing it.

The SACP is tired of the ANC giving the DA more cabinet seats than them and figure they can rectify this by taking the governing party on at the polls, much like Jacob Zuma did.

Zuma’s strategy won him plenty of votes, but when it comes to cabinet seats — or even MEC positions — the old man’s party got dololo.

Solly Mapaila is no Jacob Zuma, so the SACP might end up positioning itself even further from the levers of power come 2026 than it is at the moment.

The EFF has lined itself up as a potential ally for the ANC in local government and beyond — provided it ditches the DA in return, either after the 2026 vote or at the end of Cyril Ramaphosa’s term as party president.

EFF president Julius Malema believes the ANC will dump the DA after its next conference as a result of a victory by the faction in the governing party that finds it ideologically — some would say financially — impossible to co-govern with DA federal chair Helen Zille and party leader John Steenhuisen.

Malema is gambling on the emergence of Paul Mashatile — or Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi — at the head of the ANC come December 2027, but he, like Ace Magashule, may too discover that five years is a very long time in politics.

Zuma is vibing Black Jesus and has positioned his party as the focal point of resistance to the government of national unity.

Zuma wants all the other parties to vote for him come the 2026 and 2029 elections.

uBaba reckons they should make their X next to his head from here onwards until he is back in the Union Buildings, and then go about their business as before.

Which all sound lovely — except that this might mean them pursuing a career outside of politics once the votes have been counted.

That’s how things played out for MK founder Jabulani Khumalo and the rest of the MPs who got pulled from their seats to accommodate Zuma’s celebrity friends from the EFF.

Likewise for the All African Alliance Movement, who stood down Mogoeng Mogoeng as its presidential candidate and backed Zuma’s party, only for Bishop Sophonia Tsekedi and the rest of its would-be parliamentarians to get shafted.

The EFF, MK party and the SACP appear to have more energy left at the end of the year than those who actually run the country.

They have been more than happy to take their vacation quietly, with no fuss, after a hard five months at work in the government of national unity.

The ANC contingent was so worn out that it even cancelled the final national executive committee meeting of the year, while some, like Lesfui, appear to have cut and run earlier than the rest.

Five months of doing business with Zille will do that.

The DA is likewise quiet.

Helen is still TikTokking away about the Bela Act, but the rest of the party are tjoepstil, exhausted from half a year of calling the manager every time Ramaphosa signed something.

They — like Lesufi and Johannesburg mayor Dada Morero — have gone missing and are happily Decembering elsewhere, the weekly beef with the ANC replaced by turkey, gammon and Yorkshire pudding with gravy.

Merry coalition Christmas, and a happy GNU year.