Few FM readers will recognise the name Lovemore “Black Panther” Ndou. Born in 1971 in what is now Musina in Limpopo, Ndou survived various vicissitudes of apartheid including a severe beating by the police in the 1980s, signed up to boxing as a way out of poverty, managed to make his way to Australia to further his career, and went on to win the International Boxing Federation’s junior welterweight title in 2007, followed by the International Boxing Organisation’s welterweight title from 2009 to 2010. He has lived in Australia since the mid-1990s, and has served as a reservist in the Australian army.
Along the way he picked up several degrees and runs his own law firm in Australia. This week he announced that he is running for president of South Africa. Why? Why does he think he will be able to garner enough votes for himself and — even wilder — that he can change South Africa on his own?
Ndou holds views that would find a ready home in the DA, ActionSA or the ACDP. He told TimesLive: “I will not hesitate to use military force to take out criminals who pose a direct threat to our farmers. Our farmers will no longer live in fear within the confines of their farms. Under my leadership there will be no land expropriation without compensation. The policy of expropriation without compensation can achieve one thing only: defeating the security of property rights, which is a necessary precondition for prosperity and a thriving economy. It is a policy used by tyrants and dictators to control the economy and hold autocratic control.”
Ndou isn’t the only one (on the Left and Right) running for president on his own. Social media is abuzz with speculation that former president Jacob Zuma’s son Duduzane Zuma is contemplating running for president or even forming a new political party. Why not join the ATM or the EFF, both of which are a perfect fit for the broader Zuma family’s empty “radical economic transformation” rhetoric? I have written here about others such as expelled ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule and former ANC spokesperson Carl Niehaus and their new parties. They are wasting the votes of the seven people who will vote for them.
We are being wooed by egotists who cannot work with others and think that power can be properly exercised only by themselves
The list is long, and will get longer after the Constitutional Court’s ruling this week that independent candidates will now need only 1,000 signatures to register for next year’s provincial and national elections. Many politicians who will be passed over by their parties in official processes to make up candidates’ lists will be heading to their home villages to collect 1,000 signatures to make them eligible to run as independents. Next year’s ballot paper is set to be as long and as poisonous as a KwaZulu-Natal mamba.
This plethora of candidates worries me because it tells you something about the South African political mentality: we are being wooed by egotists who cannot work with others and think that power can be properly exercised only by themselves. The Springbok team’s motto is “stronger together”. By contrast, among South African politicians it is increasingly “me, me, me”. If a candidate cannot bring themselves to work with others in a political party they dominate, how do they intend to bring a nation together?
Even among some of our established political parties, the “strongman” syndrome persists. The EFF is to all intents and purposes Julius Malema’s toy. If you don’t toe his line (as opposed to the party line), you are out. The DA is pretty much Helen Zille’s domain, as Herman Mashaba and Mmusi Maimane will testify. The IFP doesn’t know what to do with itself after the death of its “owner”, Mangosuthu Buthelezi. COPE is Mosiuoa Lekota’s property. And so on.
There is now no doubt that next year’s elections will go down in history as South Africa’s turning point. For one, the introduction of independent candidates means that our 30-year-old electoral system is forever changed, and our multiparty democracy will take on new characteristics. For another, the certainties (and many uncertainties) of ANC rule will come to a screeching halt as power may very well change hands.
The 2024 election is a deeply serious event, a key moment for our nation. It deserves serious engagement and reflection by parties, independent candidates — and voters.
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