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You heard right: The ANC will nationalise the SA Reserve Bank.
But wait: President Cyril Ramaphosa says the party will not tinker with the independence of the central bank. No, actually, the ANC will do something to the mandate of it, but we are just not sure what it is.
This is what South Africans were greeted with as they returned from December holidays this week.
Barely catching their breath, citizens have run headlong into the early stages of an election race that will continue into May when the actual elections are held.
By Thursday, when two men got on a step ladder and started tearing apart the DA billboard in Johannesburg, it was clear that the crazy season was already upon us.
The provocative billboard showed a hand dripping with blood and the words: “The ANC is killing us, In Memory of those who have fallen victim to crime, Marikana, Life Esidimeni and pit toilet tragedies.”
Emblazoned on it were the names of Life Esidimeni victims and others from recent tragedies.
The billboard was torn down in sympathy with the families of the Esidimeni crisis who were upset that the DA had used the memory of their dead relatives for electioneering.
But the DA countered that the vandalisation of the “commemorative billboard was tarnishing the memory of those who have died under an ANC government”.
All of this just goes to prove that the silly election season is under way and these are the first signs that this will be a highly charged and emotive election.
Adding spice to the season was the unexpected resignation from the ANC of Mzwanele Manyi to join the African Transformation Movement (ATM), which he already proclaims is far bigger than the ANC.
The ATM is one of a number of mushrooming political parties which want to claim a slice of the vote.
The IEC has said there are now 285 political parties registered. Many of the fly-by-night parties will not even qualify to get on to the ballot paper.
But it is healthy that we have such a wide choice.
While we look forward to the contest and the spice of the elections, we do hope that violence, intolerance and the vandalisation of election paraphernalia will not be what defines these elections.
