Mkhwebane is just a loser

We must wonder whether suspended public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane is not channelling the ghost of the American baseball legend Yogi Berra, who first coined the phrase “It ain’t over till it’s over…”

When Berra first uttered the seemingly obvious quote in 1973, his team did eventually make a comeback, against the odds, to win their division title.

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Undoubtedly, Mkhwebane will be hoping for a similar outcome, despite the odds being stacked hugely against her, following yesterday’s crushing parliamentary vote to confirm the Section 194 inquiry finding that she should be fired.

Crushing because, despite the best efforts of her supporters in the National Assembly and despite their assertion that she speaks for the majority of South Africans, 318 MPs voted to boot her from office, while just 43 wanted her to stay.

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Mkhwebane has vowed to fight to the end – and clearly she believes what happened yesterday is not the end. She is supported in this by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and small parties who say they will take parliament’s decision on review. (Ironically, the EFF seems to have forgotten it once vilified Mkhwebane…)

This will, of course, suck up more time and energy in addition to what she has already squandered – not to mention the little matter of the estimated R160 million the inquiry itself has cost taxpayers – in an effort to defend her tattered reputation.

Courts have repeatedly found that she is either clueless about the law (not a good recommendation for a public protector) or pursued her own twisted political agenda (an even worse trait for someone in that position).

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Yet, like her hero, Jacob Zuma, she continues to pursue her “Stalingrad defence”. The difference is that when the Russians did that, in 1943, they actually stopped the Nazis and effectively turned the tide of World War II. Mkhwebane is just a loser.