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COPE Leadership? Lynda Odendaal - Who?

I had to smile - obviously COPE is influenced by beauty pageants that have a first runner-up and a second runner-up. (first deputy and second deputy president)

Elected in Bloemfontein were multilingual, Terror Lekota as president with former Gauteng premier Mbhazima (Sam) Shilowa as its first deputy president and a political unknown from the same province, business woman Lynda Odendaal, as second deputy president.

I hadn't heard the results when I came in from a meeting and switched on the TV. I saw this blond chick hugging Terror and blowing kisses to the audience so I wondered what pop star they had with them up on stage, obviously to endorse the party. Then I saw the ticker tape and couldn't believe my eyes.

I watched her closely while they were singing the National Anthem and she doesn't know all the words - 15 years into liberation! (Maybe she was just overwhelmed or exhausted from "black power" salutes and blowing kisses).

The only mentions of her company on the net are a few media releases.

I know some COPE members. Some are women. Some are white. Some are both. All are infinitely more qualified than Lynda Odendaal for national leadership in a new political party that is promising to challenge the ruling party.

No Political Profile

"She has no political profile, but it will be built," Lekota said in an article in IOL.

Is the top echelon of a Party, three months (or so) before a general election a good place to build a political profile.

Well Sarah Palin did OK out of her VP spot, so who knows how Lynda Odendaal is going to shape up?

How will the ANC COPE with Transformation?

Unlike many of my friends, comrades and countrymen (and women) I haven't ushed of to join the Congress of the People (COPE).

I'm watching with great interest how the political scenario in South Africa is evolving and developing and how the African National Congress (ANC) is reacting to a potential real opposition.

I hope the leaders of COPE and the ANC are going to a bit more responsible in their rhetoric. The vote of the "masses" that they are competing for is like a Freestate veld in July when a high wind howls and someone throws a stompie out of a car window.

I'm afraid that if they throw too many stompies out of car windows we're doing to have casualties.

The masses are politically aware but maybe not sophisticated enough to understand the robust rhetoric of their leaders and the wild metaphors - it would be a tragedy if some decide to take matters into their own hands to ensure the security of their party.

I don't know whether COPE will last or not, but I believe that it can only be good in the long run for South African democracy, although a right centrist opposition - I don't know.

The ANC has to transform from a liberation organisation into a political party. It has to shake off its arrogance and get better organised, and with COPE nipping at it's heels - it might just emerge stronger.

Will the Congress of the People be just another splinter party or the beginning or a new look opposition - time will tell.