Cape Town - Low blows, outright insults and spicy comments were the order of the day during the provincial legislature’s debate on the State of the Province Address (Sopa) on Friday.
Freedom Front MPL Peter Marais caused a storm of protest on the opposition benches when he compared the ANC unfavourably with its apartheid predecessor, the National Party.
Marais, who is known in the legislature as the “Father of the House”, ran into trouble when he said: “At least the National Party, they were wrong, but they looked after their white voters. Yes! The whites became rich, but the ANC don’t look after their own black voters.”
The comments led to a volley of points of order from the ANC benches and from the two new EFF MPLs, forcing deputy speaker Beverley Schäfer, who was in the chair, to call for calm amid shouting and name-calling.
Things got worse when, during a noisy exchange of words, Marais referred to new EFF MPL Thembile Klaas as “stupid”, a remark he was forced to withdraw by the deputy speaker after he admitted to making it.
However, when Klaas rose to say he had not taken the matter to heart, in a slip of the tongue he referred to Marais as “she” instead of “he”, saying Marais was old and must stay calm.
At this point Marais quipped: “If a man can’t know I’m a he, then what is he?”
In his maiden speech, Klaas said the Province did not create real sustainable jobs that would improve their lives and those of their families, but instead only offered internships which offered stipends that were exhausted by transport costs alone.
“Our people are not slaves with the sole purpose of improving businesses owned by whites in an economy run by the Stellenbosch Mafia,” he said.
In her maiden speech, EFF MPL Aisha Cassiem said they would identify vacant land to ensure the provincial government took housing seriously.
She demanded that the Province release the list of all vacant land suitable for housing purposes.
On Thursday, in his Sopa, Winde had spoken of his pride in his government’s achievements, but on Friday, GOOD Party MPL Shaun August wanted to know what exactly the premier had to be proud of?
“Proud that in some areas of this province people must plough through sewage, faeces and waste, and that is considered normal?
“Proud of your government making R730 000 available to fight crime in rural Western Cape, in comparison to giving the City hundreds of millions for Leap? I ask the premier again, proud of what exactly?”
ANC chief whip Pat Lekker made a point of renaming the premier “Weak Winde” while dismissing his administration’s programmes since 2019 as “popcorn”.
Not to be outdone, the DA’s Ricardo Mackenzie praised popcorn as delicious, unlike the “bitter” rhetoric of the ANC.
Mackenzie also dismissed the opposition as “Gucci Communists and Fabiani Marxists”.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za