Comrade Vondo, stop trying to defend the indefensible

The famous words of American author Mark Twain that, “It is better to keep one’s mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt”, should be required reading for ANC Joburg spokesperson Chris Vondo.

The man who once headed the ANC’s political school put both feet in his mouth this week with his threat to sue ousted Democratic Alliance (DA) Joburg mayor Dr Mpho Phalatse, for describing the ANC as “corrupt”.

To merely bring a defamation case such as this, the ANC would first have to find the money – not a mean feat that would be, considering it has been ducking and diving properly paying its own workforce for months.

Even if it did, its lawyers would have to satisfy two conditions: first that the defamation had been published and second, that the party had suffered injury. We pity the enormous logical gymnastics any lawyer acting for the ANC would have to perform in order to show that its reputation had been damaged by Phalatse’s remark.

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How, we would want to know, could you inflict further damage on a reputation which is already in tatters … and that thanks mainly to the efforts of the party’s own members? The vast majority of incidents of looting, theft and state capture have involved ANC officials, the party’s cadre deployees, or those closely associated with it.

No less a person than President Cyril Ramaphosa has acknowledged that the ANC should be “Accused Number One” when it comes to corruption.

One can almost hear the DA rubbing its hands in glee as it prepares to defend Phalatse. Legally speaking, this would be like shooting fish in a barrel for them.

Comrade Vondo, your energies would be far better spent trying to set your less-than-savoury organisation on the road to redemption than on trying to defend the indefensible.