Will the ANC be haunted by its past?

Ghosts of the past have come to haunt me.

Or so I thought when receiving a call from someone with whom I haven’t had contact for nigh on 25 years. Call it history repeating itself.

He was a municipal councillor and had a spell at wearing the mayoral chain when I was cutting my teeth as editor of pioneering community newspapers circulating in the Wild West Rand region.

If this wasn’t challenging enough, the Nats were still in full control. But I had a lot of fun editorialising about the weaknesses of a council punting the ruling party’s relentless cause.

I bravely suggested in numerous editorials that municipalities should be run by independent councillors not brain soaked with one political philosophy.

And, believe it or not, this is the main reason Leon Smith looked me up. To remind me how he, despite being a hardened Nat at the time, supported the idea of an independent council – a fact I had forgotten about.

During his term, Leon had tried his best to put aside his sole loyalty to the Nats, concentrating on issues pertaining to the ratepayers – often at loggerheads with party interests.

The irony wasn’t lost on us that decades later, independent candidates are now permitted to stand for council.

Fair enough, under the Nats, mayors didn’t hold executive positions as they do now, but they nevertheless toed the party line.

It goes without saying that Leon found it tough going selling “independence” to his conditioned buddies.

He also reminded me of the support he gave to what was then a unique happening in the region.

An international eisteddfod established by a feisty Welshman, during which different races not only performed together on stage, but shared digs for a whole week.

In a Nat stronghold, the occasion would go down in that town’s history as nothing but a miracle. Leon’s phone call triggered memories – good and bad – of a time when the government was considered a skunk.

In the unlikely event of the two of us surviving another decade, how would the ANC be labelled?

Given its history under Jacob Zuma, the smell of corruption will be no better than that given off by a skunk.