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Do you ever feel as if South African politics could not possibly get any stranger?
Take heart in this: At least the landscape is not dictated by Twitter, where Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema would be president, with Western Cape Premier Helen Zille as his deputy.
Malema has the largest following of any South African politician on the social media networking site by far, with 2 257 272 followers as of Monday morning.
Zille, a former leader of the Democratic Alliance, came next, with a following of 1 353 712.
While Twitter does not have as much traction in South Africa as its competitors – growing from 7.7 million users to 8 million between 2016 and 2017 – managing director of World Wide Worx Arthur Goldstuck is quoted as saying it remains "the social platform of choice for engaging in public discourse".
Close buddies
Both Malema and Zille have been linked to powerful business people and politically exposed persons that border on impropriety.
While her party has gained a great deal of political traction from highlighting Zuma's relationship with the Guptas, she is on record as having visited them and appeared on the business breakfast sessions that their newspaper The New Age held on the South African Broadcasting Corporation's tab.
Malema came under the microscope for his relationship with tobacco baron Adriano Mazzotti, who reportedly settled Malema's tax lein. According to reports, Malema's family lives in a luxury home owned by Mazzotti in the up-market suburb or Hyde Park in Johannesburg. Mazzotti has said Malema's wife pays to live in the estate. He denies paying Malema's tax bill.
The trouble with Twitter thumbs
Malema has been a prominent politician in South Africa for over a decade now, and none of his years under the spotlight have been without controversy.
During his days as president of the African National Congress Youth League, he famously defended former president Jacob Zuma in the midst of his legal woes, saying he would kill for him, if need be.
After falling out with the governing party and getting expelled, he went on to form the EFF in 2013. The party made it to Parliament following the 2014 general elections, subverting some of the more conventional practices to hold the man Malema once defended accountable.
Since President Cyril Ramaphosa assumed power, Malema has continued taking aim at other prominent ANC politicians, mostly Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan.
Zille propelled the DA to unprecedented numbers at the 2009 general elections through a campaign that relied heavily on vilifying then ANC presidential candidate, Zuma.
She propelled the DA to power in the Western Cape Province, where she became premier. This was after the DA won local government elections in the City of Cape Town and consolidated power there.
However, Zille’s insistence on defending aspects of colonialism left a bad taste in the mouths of many, with critics viewing her as an apologist for the evils of colonisation.
Simple arithmetic
Marketing analyst Chris Moerdyk told Fin24 that although use of Twitter had increased enormously in the past five years, he still did not believe its usage patterns represented the national mood on any issue.
"The reason is not only that Twitter users still only represent a relatively small proportion of the population, but it is really only those Twitter users who are passionate about an issue who respond," said Moerdyk.
Moerdyk said one must be careful not to equate the following Malema enjoys on Twitter with out-and-out support of his ideas and his utterances.
"Simple arithmetic tells us that Julius Malema’s 2.2m followers represents only a small proportion of voters.
"One needs also to understand that those who follow Julius Malema on Twitter are not necessarily all his devoted supporters but a lot of media; opposition politicians and supporters; and people who simply follow him on Twitter out of interest, or even amusement," Moerdyk said.
Support or entertainment?
Moerdyk said Helen Zille completely misread the sentiments of many South Africans with regard to colonialism.
"The backlash to her tweet represented only a relatively small minority, but picked up by the mass media, which quite rightly focused on the fact that there is no benefit whatsoever to this country of its colonial past," he said.
"The backlash to her tweet also proved that many of her followers were not her supporters, but, like Julius Malema’s followers, there were those who were her opponents, the media and those who followed her out of interest or even entertainment," he said.
He concluded by saying that he did not believe there was a single politician in the country who really understood how to use social media.
"The majority use it as a weapon or a platform instead of a means to hold a conversation, which is the real power of social media. Politicians are not alone because corporate South Africa also generally lacks an understanding of social media," he said.
