SomeAmongUs highlights the Sunday Times’ crazy interview with Pallo Jordan. It’s worth quoting at some length to avoid being accused of distortion (or better yet, read the whole thing here):

So we have a name foisted on us by a bunch of councillors…

Not a bunch of councillors. Elected representatives of the people of Ekurhuleni. You might not like them, you might not approve of them. But those are the elected councillors of that municipality and this is the way they have gone about it.

If the Cape Town municipality, which is controlled by the Democratic Alliance, decided to rename Cape Town airport Tony Leon International…

Don’t be absurd. Tony Leon is a midget next to Oliver Tambo.

Okay, it’s absurd, I agree. But you get my point. Let’s say they decided to rename it the Helen Suzman International Airport?

Even Helen Suzman! I mean, do you want to compare Helen Suzman [to] Oliver Tambo? Don’t be ridiculous.

What I’m saying is that if they came up with a name and went through the necessary process — the name is immaterial …

It’s very material. If they wanted to name it after Robey Leibbrandt, you can forget about it, I would never agree to it. The name, first of all, must be of someone deserving, right? Don’t come with absurdities like Tony Leon.

I’m saying Helen Suzman.

And I’m saying she’s not comparable to Oliver Tambo, right? You’re saying the name is immaterial, I’m saying I would never agree to name an airport after Robey Leibbrandt. That you can put your money on.

When I see senior government officials saying things like this, I can’t avoid getting the creepy sense that, on a fundamental level, the ANC just doesn’t get democracy. Jordan makes a huge deal about how the council is “democratically elected”, and thus they can do whatever the hell they want. When the interviewer makes the entirely logical point that this philosophy of local government, if applied consistently, would also mean giving carte blanche to the DA-lead council in Cape Town, Jordan manages to miss the point entirely. Instead, due to what I can only assume is an unpleasant sense of cognitive dissonance, he flips out and starts comparing Helen Suzman to a psychotic Nazi assassin. It’s like “democracy” is a blank cheque that lets the ANC do whatever it wants, but no-one else is allowed to touch.