Agang realises most crucial weaknesses in elections strategy – “too honest, realistic”

Agang had a huge moment of epiphany today, after they realised and publically admitted to South African voters today that their key manifesto, political mandate and elections strategy “contained some huge flaws” and “never really stood a snowball’s chance in hell.”

“Even that metaphor doesn’t do our failure justice,” said Agang spokeperson Jake Mthuli. “Perhaps ‘A Bafana-Bafana’s chance in the World Cup’ is more accurate?”

Following the realisation, Agang had a full press conference outlining their key weaknesses and faults.

“We know exactly what we did wrong,” said Mthuli. “We told the truth. We were too realistic. That’s why we only have two seats in Parliament: we didn’t hand out endless T-shirts and fliers (even on election day, right outside the voting stations), we didn’t give anyone kickbacks or jobs that required our continued political majority rule to stay in existence, we didn’t hand out bags of maize meal to loyal voters.”

However, the endless list of critical flaws in their politicking did not stop there.

“I mean, we were outclassed on all fronts,” admitted a heart-broken and weary Mamphela Ramphele. “We realise now the error of our ways: not once did we whip out our well-thumbed race card; we didn’t emotionally blackmail our electorate; we didn’t send out a rallying call for loyalist patriotism or reactionist ‘this country is going to hell’ voting. Hell, we didn’t even use that much emotional argument or rhetoric. We campaigned honestly. We campaigned honourably. And we lost abysmally.”

In response to the announcement, however, thousands of South Africans have scoffed at the fledgling party, saying its inadequacies were far more deep-seated than those they had so far admitted. Some even questioned their leadership credentials.

“South Africa has gotten used to a certain quality, a very particular standard, of leadership,” said one political analyst. “But Ramphele and her merry band of half-wits are wholly unsuited to government. They aren’t confident or daring in spending public resources of government funds. They don’t act all self-righteous and superior to the others, as if they are the better and incorruptible party."

And to add insult to injury, he said, none of the leadership has a criminal history.

"Zuma knows that to catch a crook you have to hire a crook – which explains our cutting-edge and hugely successful police force - and that to stop corruption you have to first fully understand what corruption is and how far it can penetrate a good person’s soul. He’s like a black South African Professor Snape," he explained. "You can’t fight dark magic if you don’t know what it is, looks like, or how many houses it can build you before the people snap and impeach you. Instead they have meaningless things. Care for the country. Necessary qualifications. Education. A sound political manifesto. How are these things supposed to keep a country running smoothly?”

Another voter added that “she [Ramphele] is vastly inferior to [President Jacob] Zuma.”

“She doesn’t even have more than three wives,” he said, adding that two was “the bare minimum.” “And she declared her assets as like 50 million or something. Zuma’s house alone is creeping up on half a billion rands. Do we really want a poorer president? What will other countries think? That our widespread socioeconomic disparities and prevalent poverty extend all the way to the Big Office? We’ll be the laughing stock of Southern Africa – and that’s saying something.”

In light of the constructive criticism, Agang has sworn to shake up its election strategy, aiming to secure a much more considerable percentage of South African voters.

“Next time, we know,” said Mthuli. “Less honesty, less realism. More emotion. More statistics. More lies. More empty promises. Mandela’s face? Use it! Endless reference to the struggle which was almost two decades ago? Abuse it! We will take more journalists and cartoonists to court for defamation. We will marry more wives, take more money, build bigger houses, drive expensive-er cars with messages about social responsibility on their sides. We now know our flaws. But now we also know how to win; we know what kind of leaders South Africans not just want but need. Christians had better get ready, because if the ANC are right, Jesus is coming in just four very, very short years. Bring it.”