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It’s goodbye to The Boss, hello to the has-beens

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Paddy Harper
Paddy Harper

Thursday. I am basking in Durban’s glorious warmth after two days freezing my arse off in Jozi. I’m not much of a fan of the “centre of the universe” – or any other town where you can’t smell the ocean, for that matter.

However, it was time to say our goodbyes to The Boss – that’s Ferial Haffajee to you – so off I went.

It has been a remarkable six years since The Boss took me in as a refugee from another newspaper, whose name shall not be mentioned.

She gave me three months off to wander around the country and watch the football with my man JahNoDead before I even started. I needed the three months off, though.

The truth is, unlike most editors I have known, The Boss actually got me to do some work. Respect.

Back to Thursday. As I defrost, I start coming to grips with the fact that I will not fit in a lunchtime bodysurf. Or lunch.

Deadlines are piling up. I am hammering away at the keyboards about KwaZulu-Natal’s 19 municipalities – which could go either way since the National Freedom Party’s treasurer “forgot” to pay registration fees to the Independent Electoral Commission – and I am looking for an analyst to say what I already know.

Nobody can be that doff. The fix was in, baby.

With election time in the kingdom, anything can happen. Murder, babykissing, beatings, burnings, the diverting of state cash – it’s all fair tender when poll time comes around.

It is as if the thought of putting their X on a ballot paper – or losing out on that after-poll glow – turns people into zombies.

Election time in KwaZulu-Natal also brings out the musical zombies – those artists who seem to get put away in a cave somewhere between election campaigns – or are brought back from the dead every five years by some Sunday Nkabinde cat at Luthuli House.

Think about it: what does maskanda group Izingane Zoma do when there’s no election? The only time it sees a crowd is when it is opening up for the commander in chief. Likewise, the only time Doctor Malinga lifts that leg these days is when Kongolose is paying.

And what about afro pop’s queen of the dead, Chomee? Come election time, Chomee is everywhere, humping the air from stadium to stadium, lip-syncing to songs written about a decade ago. Then she disappears, zombie-like, seemingly unaffected by the passage of time, until the next time we go to the polls.

Not a word, or a song, even with Hlaudi’s 90% what what. Not even a picture on Freakbook. Gone. Missing.

Follow me on Twitter @PaddyHarper1

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