If the DA is ok with DKB’s stench, let them be. No?

I don’t get it. Maybe it is just me. Maybe it is the festive season affecting my logic.

Imagine you accidentally witness your neighbour’s teenage child taking a dump on the floor of her parents’ lounge. While you are still disgusted at this act, then you see her father reprimanding the child but choosing to rather hide the poo under the couch.

You get so angry at this. You actually go public and tell the world about this and insist that your neighbour – who by the way you dislike rather passionately – should have punished his daughter more sternly and not hidden the poo under the couch.

Why? What harm does it do to you for your neighbour to do wrong?

This is how I felt when I read the ANC’s statement angrily responding the DA’s decision to reverse its decision to expel disgraced MP Dianne Kohler-Barnard. The ANC went on further to say that DKB, as Kohler-Barnard is known, should be taken to the ethics committee.

Frankly, if my unlikeable neighbour’s child pooed in her parents lounge, and they hid the dump under their own couch, I’d be delighted. I would wait for the visitors to come and puke over the stench. I would not want them to do the “right” thing.

Assuming DKB’s crime of reposting a Facebook tweet fondly missing PW Botha was similar to a teenager defecating in her parents lounge, shouldn’t the ANC leave it to the visitors (read voters) to be disgusted by both the act of defecating and the subsequent hiding of the poo under the couch?

But I do not understand politics. And gladly, I am not a political analyst. But from a reputational point of view, I find the reaction of the ANC completely misplaced and unnecessary.

The ANC in my view should be celebrating this and rather relishing next year’s local government elections with the hope that the voters – if like the ANC they are as disgusted by the defecating and the hiding of the poo – to be the ones to express their disgust at the DA.

For the record, this metaphor of defecating in the lounge is just that, a metaphor. You are free to regard DKB’s actions and the DA’s response to be worse than that or even not as serious as they have been painted.

Using the same metaphor, shouldn’t the DA be the only people to worry about how the voters (visitors) will react to DKB’s actions as well as the punishment meted to her by the party?

I accept that in politics it is admirable to always show the faults and weaknesses of your adversaries. I think in this case, DKB volunteered the dirty job, pun intended, for those that hate the DA. It is there for everyone to see, on Facebook.

The DA’s subsequent “corrective” action will be judged by those who will visit their house next year. If they love the smell of the poo or they don’t think it is such a big deal, they will sit in the lounge and enjoy their time.

If however they hate it, they will walk out. That’s my view. But personally, I wouldn’t be shouting across the wall at my neighbour and vilifying them for not taking strong action against their own child.

Of course the DA are guilty of the same interference all the time. Such is politics. My only contention is that internal affairs – if they do not affect service delivery, the economy or the integrity of the country – should not be anyone else’s business, especially if such internal affairs are likely to do damage to those we don’t really like.