JUSTICE MALALA| Don’t say you did not know when tainted politicians get elected

If there is anything elections in the 2000s have taught us, it is this: few of us can claim to have elected a leader we did not know. In the run-up to 2009, Jacob Zuma illustrated in no uncertain terms that he owed his loyalty to private interests. He took money from Schabir Shaik, slept with his friend’s daughter, showered after having sex with an HIV-positive person because he said that would cleanse him, and was beholden to a whole train of business and political interests.

So, those who voted for him in 2009 must not tell us they did not know what was coming. They knew. When the Americans voted for Donald Trump in 2024, they cannot claim they did not know that the man was a lying, sexist, bigot.

In the run-up to his first term in 2016, information had emerged about his utterances about grabbing women by their private parts and all sorts of other terrible shenanigans. The Washington Post tracked his lying and concluded that he made an unprecedented 30,573false or misleading claims during his first presidential term. On average, the man lied an astonishing 21 times per day.

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So, no Trump voter can claim they did not know what they were voting for. He showed them. Last week, the Daily Maverick revealed that Deputy President Paul Mashatile and his motorcade are causing havoc in his neighbourhood as he often and consistently drives against traffic on one-way sections of the road to his house. He gnarls up the flow of cars and forces motorists (driving legally on the right side of the road) aside during peak-hour congestion.

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