As one who wants to see the City run properly and has hope for the present political coalition in Nelson Mandela Bay it is with deep sadness that I write this in acknowledgement of the inescapable fact that the DA is like a small child in most homes – is only nice when he can get a sweetie or some reward, doesn’t listen, doesn’t bend, doesn’t take well meaning guidance, reverts to type whenever the going gets tough and tantrums when he doesn’t get his own way!
I write this with reference to the poster below inviting residents to join in a protest titled; “Hands Off Mayor Odendaal!”
The blurb goes on to say; “Join the DA in front of City Hall as we send a message to the ANC-EFF Doomsday Coalition to keep their hands off NMB Mayor Retief Odendaal and the coalition government.”
Notice the capitalisation and sequence of words in the above statement: DA gets top billing, the Mayor is correctly capitalised, the ANC-EFF Doomsdat Coalition is capitalised to give the negative more emphasis whilst the coalition government portion has to languish last and in smalls.
Look at the poster and notice the colours used and speakers highlighted – red flags to a placid coalition partner bull in my humble opinion.
And this is where my advice should be heeded:
- The protest is presented as a DA initiative – this in itself is problematic as the coalition partners where instrumental in ensuring that Retief assumed the Mayoral Chains.
- The coalition partners are given short shrift – making one believe that the DA is only concerned about the DA first, the City second, present coalition partners third or tenth and the Doomsday Coalition at the bottom of the pile.
Now, if I was a DA coalition partner sitting on the fence and undecided whether to go to the Doomsday Coalition or stay in a coalition where my worth is not valued I would be hard pressed to stay the course with the DA Coalition.
At least with the ANC-EFF cabal you know you are going to bent over and buggered so you know what to expect and, on top of that you would probably keep your snout firmly in the trough – even if that means that you only get to retain your position and SALARY as a so-called servant of the city.
Maybe it is time to change that description from ‘servant’ to ‘slave’ as we all know that slaves did not get paid and were sold to the highest bidder!
Yes, it is inevitable that someone will bash me for saying what everyone is thinking and, in my defence, let me tell you this; “From the time that Retief was a Candidate Ward Councillor MyPE supported him with exposure – so, in some small way, you could say that we also assisted him to ascend to the heights that he has now achieved! In fact all the Councillors that took us up on our offer to publicise Ward News are all going strong to this day so we do feel responsible and proud in some small way for the success of those politicians. But, that does not stop us from being critical and putting the City FIRST.”
Alan Straton
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