By Alec Hogg
When we were together in our Johannesburg studio last October, Mmusi Maimane surprised me by saying he was throwing his hat into the South African Presidential ring. At the time, his new political party Build One SA was barely a month old and entering a crowded field, without apparent funding support.
During our interview yesterday, Maimane shared BOSA’s impressive progress since then. Although he left the DA in 2019, he remains one of SA’s most famous political leaders. Google’s artificial intelligence engine Bard confirms it. As you can see from the screenshot below, Maimane isn’t selling pork pies.
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Not convinced? Perhaps because Maimane is admired as a “nice man” but criticised for lacking steel. A rational mind, however, says what happened in France can also do so here. To this point, Maimane points to his friend Hakainde Hichelema’s runaway 59% victory in Zambia in 2021. It was long-time opposition politician HH’s sixth attempt, including having been illegitimately jailed for treason.
There was an even bigger surprise in Lesotho last year: Revolution for Prosperity, a party created just six months before the election, won 56 of the 120 seats. Maimane expects BOSA to complete the trifecta in SA next year, and, Macron-like has been recruiting credible leaders drawn from local communities. Discount him at your peril.
Sterkte.
Alec
Read also:
- Mashaba on Moonshot’s dealbreaker, “that book” and enlisting new voters
- Meet Roelf Meyer – how co-architect of New SA sees things today
- Survivor’s Resilience: 101-year-old Ella Blumenthal shares her Holocaust journey from Auschwitz to Africa
