AN EXPERIMENT: a poem on the eve of South Africa's local government elections

Vote of Africa: Baring the Cross

There’s a broken boy

Lives on our street

Paints his face

Will dance for a sweet

His sign says “Thomas”

Got hit by a truck

Go to Steve Biko

Pretend to give a fuck

In the land of the Boers

They call it John Vorster

And they blame his mum

Say: Nobody forced her

He’s lucky of course

There’s money round here

They throw him a Spur

An occasional beer

I say to the kids

Give him a wave

And Tom dances on

To an early grave

It’s voting day

X marks the spot

But not for Tom

He’s a have-not

There is an ideal world

Where Tom is a trooper

In an army of voters

Making life super

The EFF will give him land

The ANC may find a grand

And take it back

With the other hand

Sorry dancing boy

Your life ain’t fair

Your invisible legions

Are too much to share

SEXWALE'S WITHDRAWAL METHOD: how billionaire Tokyo failed to fly the flag for South Africa (take note, Mr Sports Minister)

Falling short: Tokyo Sexwale with Mbalula Fikile and pals
at the Balon d'Or awards... apparently on the campaign trail

THERE are times when an e-mail drops from a person in authority and you just can't grasp how this bloke actually got the job. When you read the words of somebody who should know better and wonder if he actually knows ANYTHING about his role. Or life in general.

Friday was one of those days. This is, word for word, the extraordinary statement I received from South Africa’s Minister of Sport Fikile Mbalula with regard to Tokyo Sexwale’s aborted bit for the FIFA Presidency on Friday.

“In the aftermath of the election of FIFA President yesterday, we take our hats off to one of our own, Tokyo Sexwale, who fought a good fight and stood head and shoulders with the Titans of world football.  We are deeply encouraged that as a country we have produced capable leadership who have the tenacity, the stature and the capacity to contest leadership roles such as the one for FIFA President.  

“Tokyo Sexwale represented us well, carrying the South African flag high among the nations of the world.  He may not have won the election of FIFA President, but he won the race as a capable leader whose magnanimity will continue to do us proud for generations to come.  He gave us a voice and made us count as a country and as a continent.  We may not have won the FIFA Presidency this time around, but Africa’s moment to lead world football will come.

“Our heartfelt congratulations to Gianni Infantino, the new President of FIFA.  He assumes the mettle at a time world football is desperate for leadership that is able to steer the ship through troubled waters.  We have no doubt that Gianni Infantino is the man for the job, and has the skill, the staying power and the capacity to take FIFA to new heights and restore its dignity.  His humility and track record gives us comfort that world football has entered a new era full of hope and promise for a better tomorrow.”

Read the above, you might think the billionaire Sexwale campaigned like a US Presidential candidate, visited all our African neighbours to thank them for their nominations, and came within a whisker of becoming the most important man in world football.

But of course, he didn’t. Though right up to Thursday night, Tokyo was telling us how brave he was, how he’d battle on despite a lack of support at home and in Africa, that he would DO THE RIGHT THING and test the favour of the 207 voting nations.

But no. Much as he has in the past, when push came to shove for a presidential role, Sexwale ran for the hills, leaving his supporters red-faced and confounded.

Sexwale left it UNTIL HIS FINAL SPEECH to the extraordinary FIFA congress to drop his bombshell. He gave a measured, well-prepared chat, relaxed, almost slouched. He listed his campaign promises - mostly revolving around sponsorship and footballing justice for Africa - before suddenly revealing “My campaign ends here, good luck to the other four candidates.”

It was a bombshell. A last-minute capitulation. Perhaps Sexwale had been hoping for another round of pre-election arrests in Geneva, like the last FIFA presidential election. Or maybe he suddenly realised, even as the would-be emperor faced his footballing jury, that HE HAD NOT CLOTHES.

Whatever the reason, a few hours after promising he would run, Sexwale chickened out.

So no, Mr Razzmatazz, Sexwale DID NOT “fight a good fight”, he DID NOT “stand head and shoulders with the Titans of world football”, he took the coward’s way out and refused to risk that first round of voting.

I guess by then he had realised he might actually poll NO VOTES at all. Mbalula talks of “a capable leader” who will “make us proud for generations to come”. His statement actually reads like the Sports Minister didn’t realise the only African candidate had withdrawn at the last minute, making a mockery of our continent.

I can only imagine Mbalula was trying to justify the trip to the Balon d'Or awards he made with Sexwale a month ago, where he backed Sexwale all the way. Or justify some other hidden motivation to pat Tokyo on the back.

Ultimately, Sexwale DID NOT fly the South African flag. He ripped it down and ran off with it fluttering between his legs. And no, he DID NOT “have the tenacity, the stature and capacity to contest leadership roles”. He WITHDREW BEFORE THE CONTEST.

Like the brave outsider in the 100m sprint against the taller, faster guys at school, you have to get to the start gun and face the ignominy of trailing in 10m adrift. You can't walk away. That's just not right.

Unlike Jerome Champagne - the Frenchman who polled just seven votes in the first round - and Prince Ali of Jordan, Sexwale thus had NO VOTES to offer eventual winner Gianni Infantino in the decisive second round of voting.

There is an assumption Sexwale will be given a major role in Infantino’s regime because the Italian-Swiss candidate visited Robben Island with the former political prisoner last week. But given the horse-trading that went on with Champagne and Prince Ali between the two rounds of voting in Geneva on Friday, it’s far more likely other people, those who actually understand FIFA and fought to the finish, will have moved ahead of Sexwale.

But in the end, we have to hope Sexwale will gain some kind of foothold in the footballing kingdom under Infantino. Africa desperately needs somebody more credible than CAF’s Issa Hayatou, 69, who guided our African brothers to back the humbled Sheikh Salman.

Quite why a billionaire would want a support role in football administration I can’t tell you. He seems very busy buying up mines further north, amid some controversy. And why Infantino would want him after his craven retreat is hard to fathom.

But we live in hope. Perhaps Sexwale, in a position of power, can do something about that lingering 2010 match-fixing scandal, or allow Danny Jordaan and Irvin Khoza to travel beyond our borders in the wake of the FBI investigation in to Jack Warner’s magically disappearing $10m (R160m) “African Diaspora Fund”.

He could also sort out the R350m FIFA World Cup legacy cash, which our grass-roots so desperately needs. We might hope for somebody high up in the world body to provide a more democratic, better-run African Federation, where African Champions League opponents turn up on time.

Better yet, why not run for CAF president Mr Sexwale? After Polokwane 2007 and Geneva 2016, you may actually get to reach the voting phase. Then Mbalula will, presumably, wheel out the red carpet.

THE BLAME GAME: Tokyo Sexwale's FIFA presidential bid is dead in the water, but WHO is at fault?

Setting a president: Blatter and Sexwale

TRY as I might, I can find no South African pride in the tale of Tokyo Sexwale's failed FIFA presidential bid. What should have been a patriotic cause worth singing about has become an excruciating embarrassment for our nation and our game.

In a world where money talks, the billionaire’s reputation and considerable funds were unable to persuade Issa Hayatou and Confederation of African Football to vote for the only African candidate.

But then, did anyone ever expect CAF to support a South African? They weren't even all that positive about the 2010 World Cup if the voter records are to be believed.

Imprisoned with Nelson Mandela - they played football together on Robben Island - Sexwale rose quickly in post-1994 South Africa. He popped in and out of government a couple of times at cabinet level and was embroiled in a few shenanigans around the time of then-president Thabo Mbeki’s demise.

I won’t go in to that. Nor is it worth debating his rise to billionaire status with profitable business dealings in Guinea, his acrimonious divorce, his trust funds or his connections with Sepp Blatter, the man FIFA are trying so hard to write out of their history.

We’ll let all that slide. Right from the start of Sexwale’s bid, there was a feeling his surname was his strongest point in a field which included an exotic blend of Champagne, Infantino, Salman and Bility.

The problem is simple. Tokyo Sexwale has NEVER been a football man. Sure, there were the island kickabouts, but I can find little trace of his boot-prints in South African football history. A sponsorship here, a statement against racism there.

Blatter, typically clumsy on football racism, used Sexwale shamelessly in an attempt to alter his image as an old, corrupt Swiss conservative.

It worked too. Sexwale’s name and reputation did FIFA no harm on the anti-racism front. They even sent Sexwale to Israel to calm the Palestinian persecution on the football field.

But all this is mere window-dressing. Fiddling around on the edge of the man.

The truth is, Sexwale has proven to be a ruthless businessman and politician. His decision to bid for FIFA leadership was taken in that spirit.

With no understanding of footballing politics in Africa, Tokyo’s spokesman went all xenophobic on the African football fixer Mamadou Gaye and though Namibia and Zimbabwe backed his bid - they were two of the rapidly disappearing five nominees - both neighbouring national Football Associations saw fit to ask why Sexwale was ignoring the locals in his grand parade to footballing omnipotence.

The classic turnabout was seen most clearly in Switzerland three weeks ago, when Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula and the expensive football presenter Robert Marawa accompanied Sexwale to the Ballon D’Or presentation.

Though it was Lucas Radebe (a far better South African FIFA presidential candidate in my view) who did the talking on stage, it was Mbalula who made it clear he was backing Sexwale, just as Dominic Chimhavi and the non-travelling con-conspirator Danny Jordaan had done on SAFA’s behalf a week before.

But behind the scenes, the charade was slowly falling apart. Chimhavi, the SAFA communications director, came out publicly with a Sexwale rebuke along the lines of “he is not taking our advice”  and accusing Tokyo of “a lacklustre campaign”.

I’ve discussed this seminal moment in Sexwale’s campaign with Chimhavi. Why was it not done in private? Why the big disrespect? Why did Dominic himself change his Twitter name from “Sexwale for President” back to his old name?

What is clear is this: somewhere along the line, Sexwale lost sight of his goal. Instead of being the first proud African to take on the giants of football, he was cruising around talking to the elite, ignoring his roots.

But when the German FA, early Sexwale supporters, decided to support Infantino, the writing was on the wall.

Sexwale left for Rwanda on Friday to join the CAF high-ups living it up at CHAN in Kigali. Like Bafana Bafana, he wasn’t qualified for that particular situation.

Hayatou and CAF dismissed Sexwale out of hand. They went for Sheikh Salman. Those 55 priceless African votes would go to an Asian.

On the social networks, South Africans railed against Hayatou and CAF, on the very day one of our four PSL representatives Ajax Cape Town had back out of the Confederations Cup.

I have written about the bias against South Africa by the Francophile northern nations. Have a squint at this http://neal-collins.blogspot.co.za/2013/04/the-shocking-truth-about-caf-danny.html It keys in neatly with the Arabic stronghold, where slavery is permitted but South Africans aren’t.

But on this particular subject, what did we expect? Sexwale hardly left with a glowing endorsement from the ANC or SAFA. Nobody came out with last minute backing, only a few vague whispers about “making deals” to keep him in the race.

We castigate Hayatou for being nearly 70 and in charge of African football since 1988, but Irvin Khoza, the man who REALLY runs South African football, is 68 and has been in charge of our declining PSL since 1992.

These men are set in their ways. Their decisions, often dictated by finance rather than football, cannot be disputed. Ask Musa Bility about his still-born campaign.

Without genuine, whole-hearted backing from South Africa, Sexwale’s millions weren’t going to help. CAF hardly need an excuse to keep those from the tip of Africa out of power.

But rather than blaming Hayatou and CAF for this embarrassment - if Sexwale doesn’t withdraw as CAF said he had, he may end up with no votes at all - we should look long and hard at how this all started.

SAFA and the ANC saw Sexwale as the man who could lift the cloud of suspicion hanging over our nation: The 2010 match-fixing (Ace Kika, banned for 6 years, didn’t act alone) and the $10m Africa Diaspora fund (which goes right to the top of South Africa’s power structure) used to leverage votes for hosting World Cup 2010.

But when the going got tough, we turned our back on our own man. In public and behind the scenes. Sexwale supporters disappeared like rats from a sinking ship.

Before we attack CAF, we should look at our own structures. Our own decisions. If Sexwale’s abortive bid for FIFA president encourages change at SAFA, it will have done some good. Otherwise, considerable time and money have been utterly wasted on a campaign that was NEVER going to succeed.

The TRUTH: Ajax Cape Town coach ROGER DE SA on Cecil Lolo's funeral: the grief, the pain, the LIES

ROGER THAT: De Sa's tweet on the day of Cecil Lolo's tragic death

ROGER DE SA left home for Cecil Lolo’s funeral at 6am in the morning. He returned home at midnight on Sunday exhausted and depressed. Now he is angry. Fuming.

Cecil Sonwabile Lolo was the “True Warrior” in De Sa’s Urban Warriors, a man who emerged from nowhere, with nothing, to become a professional footballer. His death at the age of 27 in a car accident two weeks ago left Ajax Cape Town, part of one of the world’s largest footballing franchises, shattered.

This morning, when De Sa took the side for their first training session since last Friday, Lolo’s seat in the dressing room was left empty and covered in flowers. De Sa says: “That’s how the players felt about Cecil. He was popular, he was respected by all.”

Which is why De Sa is eager to end the witch-hunt orchestrated by Robert Marawa and ANC MEC for Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture Pemmy Majodina after the funeral. De Sa rubbishes claims the players were banned from attending, he points out that Majodina was nearly as late for the funeral as he was and asks WHY DIDN’T ROBERT MARAWA ATTEND?

I’ll leave Roger to tell his story:

“Neal, all this “we didn’t care about Lolo” is pure bullshit. Let me start at the beginning. The day he died. Devastating. We did’t know what to do.

“We sit with the family. Three little kids from two moms who live with his mother. The player has no insurance, nothing whatsoever. No funeral plan. NOTHING. So our chairman Ari Efstathiou says we’ll provide an educational trust for kids, least we can do.

“Then let’s look after the family. His mother and other people he looked after. About eight of them. We have to look after them too. Help them recover from Cecil’s death, they all lived off his money.

“But for the kids (a daughter of six months, two boys of 5 and 8), let’s get a proper education. No company would do that, you know that Neal. We are doing everything we can here.

“Then we retire the number 21. His shirt. We’ll never use it again. Nobody’s ever done that, not even for Senzo.

“We name a stand after him. Did Pirates do that? Then there’s the memorial service in Khayalitsha, his base, his place, where he lived with his family.

“That’s followed (last Friday) by a memorial service for all supporters at our base, Ikamva. And yes, all of our players were involved in both memorials, they said their farewells, they cried, they cared.

“We are always in contact with the family, said we’ll help with funeral arrangements. They wanted to go somewhere remote in Eastern Cape. That wasn’t ideal for us but we had to respect it. We paid coffin, funeral, food, in the region of R50,000.

“We do all that. The one thing I don’t like thinking, and Ari is too scared to say, is everyone is saying the club stopped the players from going. That’s bullshit. I went. Last training session was Saturday morning, next one was today. We’d never stop anyone from going.

“They’re trying to say club stopped people from going. That not true. Some Chippa United players went, they were local. But there was nobody from the PSL, SAFA, no other club. For me to get there, I left at 6am got home after 11pm. How do you expect everybody to get there?

“It was a real trip. First we flew from Cape Town to East London, drove to Butterworth 120km. I thought that was it but then there was the drive to the village (Chebe in Centane).

“Neal, you’re English. You've got no idea, a dust road for about 50km, not even a four-by-four can go on that thing, we crossed river, water, rocks. And all of it in an Avis rental car, it must be buggered.

“We managed to get there 12.30, the funeral had started, we already told the mother we’d be late, she respected that.

“We were there. Listened to a couple of speeches. Then the minister started the real thing. Coffin was carried, Cecil was buried. After that we had to leave, needed three hours to get back to airport. We spoke to the father and the mother. We did everything we could.

“I hear stories Ajax stopped players from attending, all this hogwash. This minister arrived 45 minutes before me, having a political go. Using it as a political tool. DA against ANC. Majodina her name was. She looked disappointed when we got there.

“It’s about Lolo, not politics. Nobody stopped anyone from going, the club felt that’s what they were going to do from the beginning. The family chose the burial site, what more do you want?

“I have to ask. Why didn’t Robert Marawa go? I was there. Some close friends of his were there. But some people just can’t get there. That’s life today, you know what I mean.

“Everyone’s climbing on a bandwagon, trying to be all cultural, it’s very disappointing. Ari is trying to protect the players, obviously they didn’t go. No player came and asked to come because they knew where it was.

“Two memorial services, armbands, minute’s silence, we even stopped the match to clap in the 21st minute. All these things were done. Lolo’s seat is empty in the dressing room with flowers on it. We’re going to put a picture up. We respected his culture.

“I saw a picture of Senzo’s grave the other day, he doesn’t even have a grave stone yet. All the people who are having a go, these soccer journalists who never played football, where were they? Did they pay their respects?

Cecil was “The Real Warrior” to me. We had a very good relationship. I was devastated. It only sank in when I got to the parent’s home in the morning. It hit me.

“You go through it, feel every tear, yet here people are lying about players not being allowed to attend the funeral. What kind of story is that?”

Should any media houses/sites wish to use excerpts from this EXCLUSIVE story, feel free, just credit. And stop trying to capitalise on Cecil Lolo's death.

UPDATE: November 11: This story has been used by Kickoff, The Citizen, News24 and The Times.

FOR BALANCE:
1 What Cecil's dad says: http://www.dispatchlive.co.za/news/lolos-dad-feels-let-down-by-ajax/


2 What Senzo's dad says: http://www.timeslive.co.za/sport/soccer/2015/11/11/Senzo-Meyiwas-dad-furious-at-Khoza-for-going-public-with-insurance-payout

South Africa's Election 2014: Where casting your vote really means something

We've come a long way: South Africa, 1957

WARNING: This was written before dumped ballots were found in four separate locations in Gauteng.

NO nation on earth loves an election more than South Africa. Understandable really, give the way things were in this country before 1994.

The gathering at Irene Primary School on Election Day 2014 was considerable. My local polling booth coped admirably with a substantial queue of about 400 at 8.30am yesterday morning. The atmosphere was good.

Centurion is no Bekkersdal. Like Sandton is to Johannesburg, Centurion is the up-market satellite town for Tshwane/Pretoria - you're unlikely to find many fiery revolutionaries on the golf estates and office parks.

But still, long queues. Simply to write X on a piece of paper. This was a first. I left South Africa in 1985, so like the "born-frees" in their 20th year, I was a first-time voter in the Rainbow Nation. But I made my X frequently during my self-imposed 25-year exile in the United Kingdom, where I was a parish councillor, the only non-Conservative in my village.

But it's nothing like here. I suspect there's nowhere quite like South Africa to cast your vote. A feeling of achievement, involvement. Obvious, given the vast majority were denied that right under Apartheid.

I posted the picture above in an attempt to shake the born-frees of every color out of their comfort zone. It was retweet over 200 times last time I checked. That's the kind of day it was yesterday. A time to remember what has gone before, a time to choose what goes on in future.

Voting started late in many areas, booths were forced to stay open after 9pm in others as the queues grew. Many nations would LOVE to have people turn up in such numbers, with such enthusiasm.

Shake on it: trouble-spot Bekkersdal yesterday

Perhaps it's time to highlight why South Africa's vibrant young democracy stands out from the rest. I've tried to list the main differences HERE:

1: People will travel vast distances to vote. Many workers spent much of Tuesday travelling home to their local villages to make sure X marked the spot. It's almost biblical, this rush back to the old rural home. Not sure of it happening anywhere else in the world in such numbers.

2: The police in evidence yesterday weren't aggressive, surly, "jobs-worths" as we call them in the UK. At my polling station, they moved along the line, encouraging, advising - pointing out that nearby stations were queue-free and available. The same can be said for the IEC officials. Patient, understanding.

3: A real respect for the institution pervaded the day. Nobody took a look at the queues and shrugged, walking away. Every color and class had their duty to do. Speaking to everyone from waiters and car guards to business executives, the message was the same and the indelible mark was on the thumb.

Worrying: dumped ballot papers (all in favour of DA) found in Pretoria

Not everyone will have experienced the same, I guess. But that's how it felt yesterday… a nation happy to get out there and do their thing. Me? I went for the Economic Freedom Fighters nationally, I've met Julius Malema, bit Orlando Pirates fan, liked him. Provincially, I went for Musi Maimane, seems a good sort.

As I write, the results are much as we expected them to be. Agang, pummeled in the polls after Mamphela Ramphela's public fall-out with Helen Zille's DA, claim to have discovered subterfuge (the picture below shows her confrontation). Others - including opposition leader Zille - complained about disorganization and she was not alone.

Whaaaat?! Mamphela Ramphela yesterday

But generally the IEC seems to have done the job - until four separate cases of dumped ballot boxes cropped up in Diepsloot, Alexandra and Lynwood, east of Tshwane last night.

It won't stop the train. The ANC will romp in, though the weight of President Jacob Zuma's lack of leadership will be felt. The DA will finish a distant second, strengthened but still not perceived as a party for the future in a South Africa unlikely to return to a white president any time soon.

And Julius Malema's EFF got their slice of the pie, enough to poke the self-satisfied but historically immovable African National Congress in to some kind of anti-corruption process that will probably see Zuma sidelined in the not-too-distant future.

Ultimately, South Africa's Election Day 2014 offers exactly what it should: A shining example of how democracy SHOULD work, with 29 parties on offer for all shades of political opinion. Blimey, Julius and his EFF even got FOUR votes in Oranje, the Afrikaner enclave!

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