A South African political party's leadership vote is a ritualised process. It's seemingly arbitrary, and simultaneously democratic. At any rate, it's one way to do things--and as far as democracy goes, it's the best worst of a best worst system. And this is how it played out for the EFF, on the second day of its First National People's Assembly.
The delegates who arrived in Bloemfontein on Saturday, expecting to be blissfully accepted into the belly of democracy, did not look so blissful at 23h00 on Saturday night. The Callie Human auditorium was thick with exhaustion and the gunsmoke smell of political disquisition. This was the point in the programme where the EFF's Big Six--President, Deputy President, Secretary General, Deputy Secretary General, National Chairperson, Treasurer--were to be engraved on the winner's cup. If this was the government in waiting, than these were the leaders waiting to wait.
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