Michael –
Thursday
On Monday I
saw a report in an online news site—African News Updates—that made me stop and
think, but not initially. Basically,
the article reported that a panel van had been stopped at a police road block
and two men arrested. They had
been transporting 80,000 ballot papers for the elections for mayor and
counselors in Johannesburg already marked in favor of the ANC, the governing party
in the city. Since the election was only
on Wednesday, yesterday, and it was expected to be quite close, these fake votes could well
have been significant. According to the
report, the ANC denied any connection with the two men, and actually suggested that
it was a plot by the opposition to try to discredit them.
Soon the
article was spinning around Facebook to comments expressing disgust at this
latest example of corruption and the government's underhand attempt to steal the election. I started to fulminate; I could feel a
blog coming on. I actually started
writing it.
 |
| Jacques Steenkamp with Gerard Labuschagne |
Since the
report was quite brief, I tried to get more details from other media. Surely this was big news? But there was nothing except a similar report
from a site with the rather concerning address of gossipmillsa.com. That was a bit odd. But then I recalled a book event I’d been to
at the weekend where I met Jacques Steenkamp, whose true crime discussion of a
farm murder that wasn’t has sold 20,000 copies. But what struck me was that Jacques has been
suspended from his job at the state broadcaster because he refused to follow a directive not to report on violent protests. And Forensic Psychologist Gerard Labuschagne told us how violent crime statistics were manipulated by lowering the level: a rape was investigated as a 'housebreaking,' murder became an 'inquest' (for suicide). So what else was the government
suppressing? Reports on ballot box
stuffing perhaps?
Then I took
a closer look. The first thing that
struck me as odd was that the police roadblock seemed to be taking place in the
rain. Car lights were on, the road looks
glossy. There hasn’t been anything but
sun in Johannesburg for a week. Nevertheless, I
know that the media often use stock pictures to illustrate an article. (In fact, it turns out that this picture was lifted from another South African news site.) For example, I once saw exactly the same picture of
empty supermarket shelves in Bulawayo used by a big international network twice to illustrate Zimbabwe’s financial crisis on two occasions a couple of years
apart.
So shrugging that off, I turned
to the ballot paper itself.
The first thing I wondered was why the police were willing to allow the
reporter to photograph their evidence.
Maybe money changed hands? But
the ballot paper itself has a number of problems. For one thing, the current leader
of the Democratic Alliance is not the person whose picture appears on the
paper. For another, some of the parties
listed aren’t even contesting this election.
Another stock picture? Surely not.
On Tuesday
the police announced that the article was a hoax. No such incident had occurred. I believe them, but not everyone does. Several people are now posting comments that
the incident did occur and that the
police are covering it up under instructions from the government. It's the wages of the government's interference in the public's right to know. I suspect this story will continue to grow
and be talked about. African News Updates will get lots of hits; their advertisers will be pleased.
A cursory
search of certain sites concerning Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton show all sorts of 'facts' and I’m sure many of them are
completely false. However, the latest
pronouncement from Trump is his concern that the election will be ‘stolen.’ How this is going to happen is unclear—maybe
that van with the already filled in votes again—but he's taking his rhetoric to a new level. We are told 'there will be a blood bath' if the election is 'stolen.' Trump intends to become
President one way or the other. If I wasn't concerned before, I would be now.
