Absolutely No Current on Thabo Mbeki Restoration Tour

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Friday.

It’s 4am. 

The power is on, so it’s time to play the keys.

In three days time, we vote.

It’s anybody’s guess how much electricity will be available between now and Monday, so it makes sense to work while there is the means to do so.

Like many of my fellow South Africans, I missed Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe’s Thursday night announcement about the preferred bidder for the fifth Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme.

Not because I wasn’t interested — I would have loved to have heard Tiger’s plans to navigate us out of the mess he has helped create — but because the lights were off, again.

Powerless.

Disempowered.

I also missed out on former president Thabo Mbeki’s “engagement with professionals” at the Durban International Convention Centre, the latest installment in his rehabilitation by the party that recalled him as head of state.

Zizi has been on something of a national tour in recent weeks as part of his contribution to the ANC’s election campaign, to try to woo back some of the voters it has lost.

TM1: The Restoration.

I’d been looking forward to the Durban leg.

Not that I’m a big fan of the former head of state and governing party president, but Mbeki is living proof that the acronym ANC once stood for African National Congress and not Absolutely No Current.

The current ANC provincial leadership was among those baying loudest for Mbeki’s blood  in 2007 — back in the day, when we had electricity — so it would have been interesting to see how they act towards the man they helped pariahrise for more than a decade, now that they need him.

Likewise the “professionals” — among them former Wenzenists and Sunday newspaper burners who joined the throngs outside the Durban and Pietermaritzburg courthouses, torching ANC T-shirts in defence of the man they recalled Mbeki in favour of.

Amandla.

Thursday night’s power cut also meant I missed President Cyril Ramaphosa telling the world about South Africa’s plan to prioritise electric cars to assist in the fight against climate change.

Lovely idea, Big Man.

There’s one small problem: electric cars run on electricity, not pre-election promises.

How are we going to power these electric cars, when we can’t keep the lights on for eight hours at a go?

Perhaps the president has a plan to harness unicorns to generate power; to build biocompactors that convert bullshit into kilowatts, that he’s not telling us about?

Until he does, the electric cars will be about as useful to us as parachutes to a submarine crew.