The Truth About Iran, Trump & South Africa’s Political Crisis

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:02]Joining us today from the Power Pod, Matthew Kohrman. Matthew, welcome.

[00:00:07]Oh, thanks, Mark. It's great to be here, and I'm looking forward to a fruitful discussion.

[00:00:11]>> don't have fruitful discussions. Yeah, we just have we just go. We just talk talk what's on our minds. Now, you've uh you've been at it in this podcasting thing and getting quite a nice following.

[00:00:26]And uh that doesn't happen by itself, you know, you eventually run out of friends and family. That's anybody that's ever If you're thinking of starting a podcast, like your first 100 your first maybe even you know, [clears throat] a little bit more than that, you know most of the people that subscribe to your channel.

[00:00:42]And then there's a time when it when it starts going, but you have really carved a niche out out there, not looking specifically only at local stuff, but looking at the global architecture.

[00:00:54]Sure. And boy, have you had a lot of stuff to uh to to look at in the in the recent times. We've had this whole problem in the Middle East that stretches back to October the 7th in 2023, and it's just built on from that. And now we have almost a full-scale war between the US, Israel, and Iran.

[00:01:15]Right. And it looks like an unholy mess.

[00:01:20]I think we can agree on that. [laughter] Yeah.

[00:01:23]From where you sit, where are the winners and the losers of this? What How What do you make of it?

[00:01:32]Sure, Mark. So, I think there's been a lot of misrepresentation going on in the media. Um what we really need to remember is that this war has been going on for a little over Well, it's been about 2 months now, and that includes a few weeks of ceasefire. And I think a lot of people jump to conclusions because of what they see in the media, and even just their own assessments saying, "Oh, um you know, the moment that the US and Israel attacked Tehran, very clearly these guys are the winners.

[00:02:02]Then we saw how Iran imposed the chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz. I will very clearly these guys are now the winners because they've got us all in a stranglehold, the entire world economy.

[00:02:13]Then all of a sudden we see again how the United States has imposed their own blockade on the Strait. So, a lot of people seem to be jumping to conclusions, but what I really want to remind audience members is that these kinds of wars, historically, have never been one and done. We take a look at whether it's the two World Wars, um, whether it's the Vietnam War, more recent wars such as Afghanistan and Iraq. These are events that take years to unfold. And so, I think a lot of people are jumping the gun, but Mike, realistically speaking, I think that Iran is on the losing side of this. I know a lot of people have their theories, but if we're going to look specifically well, at the numbers, we look at the economics, and we just look at the military achievements of either side, I think it's a not a question of if, it's a question of when Iran is going to fold. And from my perspective, just of the different experts I've spoken to, including military personnel or former military personnel, it seems that the only way that Iran could, let's say, come out as a victor, if we could call it that, is if, let's say, the United States decides to withdraw. Maybe Trump's worried about the midterms coming up, and he doesn't want to pull the US into another long-scale war, cuz there are many people who are against that. So, yeah, I think anything short of that, I think it's a question not of if the regime will fall, but rather when.

[00:03:40]The question is always, uh, you know, I sometimes think that the worst thing that could have happened to the US was the Second World War, because now they think it was that's a war.

[00:03:51]That's a completely different was a completely different beast.

[00:03:57]Because America may uh overwhelm Iran militarily, the question is who wins the peace.

[00:04:06]Not the war, is it?

[00:04:08]I think that's a very valid point you make, Mike, because of course there is that sort of media war that goes on, and we know that the Iranians, whether you agree with the regime or not, you got to admit they've they've played that pretty masterfully.

[00:04:22]And we've seen it on platforms such as Al Jazeera, which is of course a Qatari platform. Qatar is being very good allies of theirs, and Al Jazeera is now one of the leading mainstream news outlets in the world. So, we've seen a very strong um media game from them. And then of course, like you rightfully mentioned, um the winner of the peace, um you know, it becomes very difficult to know where things are going to go, because for the longest time, and I'd like to just zone in on Israel as an example, a lot of people will say, "Oh, well, Israel's become a pariah." But then at the same time, no matter how many people have, you know, the genocide question that they want answered, or the sort of boycotts, you also see how Israel's built a lot of strong trade relationships. Um so, just as an example, about a week before this current war started, we saw um Modi, the leader of India, arrive in Israel, met with Netanyahu, and they signed a handful of different agreements. And what's particularly interesting is that quite a number of them were aimed at not only regular trade, but also defensive contracts. And a lot of people don't realize this, but Israel's actually the third biggest arms supplier to India, and they actually outpace the United States, which is fourth. And we've also seen how certain Israeli companies, such as Elbit Systems, just as an example, they've managed to negotiate with the likes of the UAE, which is of course a Gulf um Arab country and certain European partners as well. So, I think the real point of the matter is it's it's very murky waters because on one hand you have a lot of diplomats saying we're against Israel or we're against America. And then of course the other side we're against Iran, but it seems that trade and sort of the material circumstances are different to the diplomacy we see on TV, which could be considered by many as eyewash. Mhm.

[00:06:20]Now, you know, the the the the issue that I have with with with these this this misadventure into Iran is that you know, suppose you get if you're going to start a war, you kind of need to know what your objective is.

[00:06:37]And do you have as somebody that's that's sort of observed this thing, do you have any idea other than killing the at that point the sitting Ayatollah, what America had in mind here?

[00:06:52]Well, I think you bring up such an important point, Mike, because we've seen so many mixed signals from the US since this thing started and of course Trump's Truth Social posting.

[00:07:04]Whether you like him or you hate him, they they're misdirecting us. There are a lot of conflicting messages, so I definitely understand that concern, but I think what we really need to take into account is that the Israelis seem to be a little bit more concrete on their outcomes, their desired outcomes to the Americans just from what we see in the media.

[00:07:26]I was talking to an Israeli source the other day actually who explained to me that, you know, with Netanyahu for example and his government, it seems very clear that what they're trying to do is first of all, of course, weaken the existing government of Iran and the IRGC simultaneously. They also do have this concern about nuclear weapons, but the ultimate goal would be regime change.

[00:07:50]So, it seems to be a very concrete outcome. Um again, I don't remember Netanyahu explicitly saying this himself. He rather seems to, you know, beat around the bush and say, "Yeah, regime change would be nice." But it does seem that a lot of sources think that that is very much a concrete outcome. And for the US, it's a lot more difficult to say. I mean, you know, it it's like you've mentioned yourself. Um you've got the oil situation at the moment. It's very hard to know if um the pressure from international markets will make uh Trump decide to backtrack or not. At the moment, he seems to just be going with it and trying to sort of placate everyone, appease everyone, and say, "Don't worry, guys. The war's almost over. But we still want to hit them hard." So, >> [laughter] >> it's a little difficult to get a reading on the US at this moment in time. Yeah, it seems like uh like the the Trump strategy was maybe given too much oxygen while what happened in Venezuela, where they're sort of overlaying the one situation with the other, and they're not comparable, which is which I I think is a is a bit disappointing. Also, they had they had an idea of of what would happen after they uh um apprehended Maduro.

[00:09:11]And uh they put together a plan that has kind of worked.

[00:09:16]I call it the Boer War plan because it was the only other place time that I've seen it happen.

[00:09:22]And that was after the Boer War, the British put the Boers back in charge, right? And that's really what Trump and them did in uh in Venezuela.

[00:09:32]But it's hard to see what their tactic is in Iran, because there is no rival political party or political formation.

[00:09:42]So, from here what next? It doesn't seem to be an answer.

[00:09:48]And I can tell you for sure that the Shah's son is no answer. That's for sure.

[00:09:54]I mean people misunderstand just how hated the Shah was in Iran.

[00:10:00]Might have been popular in some countries, but you know, he was a despotic murderer. Really. Right. It It is a very conflicting sort of a view that I think Iranians have on him. And of course, like you mentioned, you know, that sort of legacy can pour over. Um people aren't going to just simply forget it. So, I think it's a very important point you make, you know, that the Shah's son probably isn't the answer. I think the reason why so many people speak about him is just because he seems to be the most obvious opposition out there at this moment in time. Um there's For example, there's this fringe group called MEK. Um just to give a small uh summary of who they are.

[00:10:40]They are probably even more radical than what the IRGC is. They've been exiled from the country. They bitterly hated by pretty much everyone. They're not going to come in. Um in fact, one of their most radical ideologies is that um you are not supposed to have physical intimacy. And so, people are just not going to get married, not going to have children. You know, these are the kinds of um fringe groups that are there. Um but regarding the Shah's son, I wouldn't say I wouldn't rule him out completely simply because perhaps the Americans view him as a sort of puppet leader they could stick there. I'm not entirely sure. I do know from certain um Iranians who've spoken out. Um So, for example, you've got the Conservative Party of Iran which was found in exile.

[00:11:25]They're talking about rearming people and getting them back to the streets this time with weapons. It will be different. How true that is, I don't know. We've heard one or two reports of the CIA perhaps arming people. We've also seen how in the west of the country you've got the Kurdish. But then again, what people also need to understand is the Kurdish and these other groups like the Persians and the Azeris, they're not always the best of friends. So, I'm not so sure how that will go down.

[00:11:52][laughter] >> I think the bigger question, Matthew, as somebody that looks at international issues, do you have any idea what Donald Trump has in mind with the world?

[00:12:04]Do you have any idea as to as to what it is that he's seeing that we're not seeing?

[00:12:11]Do you think there is something there, or do you think it's just a guy drunk on power, can't believe he's got this whole big massive military that he can deploy at a whim?

[00:12:22]Just breaking you know? I think that's one of the hardest questions to answer because it's actually funny. I was on a different podcast the other day where I said, you know, there's so many people whose minds I try to read, you know, just as we sit here and we discuss, but I think Trump is one of those people that I really just cannot predict and I I don't think anybody can really predict. Um the only thing that I think he's thinking when it comes to Iran is that having the sort of blockade and having these delays in negotiations the whole time is sort of a long game whereby at this moment in time we're seeing how they're managing to sort of strangle the Iranian economy. They're managing to prevent oil shipments.

[00:13:05]What's really interesting is that a couple of days ago, this was on Fox News, so I don't know what other sources are saying, but there was the claim that according to American data around 450 million dollars in lost revenue is being suffered in Iran due to what's going on. So, their economy's losing that money every single day. Um I saw that that figure's since been um updated to about half a billion.

[00:13:34]So, when it comes to Iran, I think that there's a possibility that he's trying to use economic pressure here as part of a bigger um you know, as one of the pieces in part of a bigger puzzle.

[00:13:46]But, worldwide, I'm going to be honest and say I have no idea. That's right.

[00:13:49]And then, of course, he's alienated many of his traditional allies. And uh that's hard to see the logic behind that.

[00:13:57]Now, um I think we could sit and talk the whole day about about um the US, and I'm sure many people watching this have got their own ideas, but uh you uh built into that is South Africa's relationship with the US. Of course.

[00:14:12]>> Which has been pretty fractious. It's really been difficult, and they are they remain our biggest bilateral trading partner.

[00:14:21]China takes a lot of our raw materials, but America does a lot the most reciprocal trade.

[00:14:27]Uh what do you think is happening at the moment with uh with South African and US relations?

[00:14:35]So, I think that the US has shown a lot more patience than many people would have expected. Um and one of the big reasons why I say that is because when we saw the US Ambassador Reuben Brigety come, and I think his first or one of his first public um interviews was on the BizNews conference earlier this year.

[00:14:55]And he explained how the US isn't asking for South Africa to be a US ally per se, rather just to display neutrality. And from my perspective, that seems to be very reasonable. Because ultimately, they're not saying you've got to be some sort of a US proxy, just that you've got to be able to come with an open mind where you deal with these other sort of um adversaries, if we can call them that, of the US, but you deal with us fairly as well. And I don't think that that's a particularly unreasonable demand to make, but as we've seen the ANC seems to not be interested in listening to their GNU partners. They're not too interested in listening to people outside of government. They're kind of going down this one-way road, and in my honest opinion, this is going to sound a little bit blunt, but I think they are committing economic suicide on behalf of South Africa.

[00:15:44]Yeah, it it does seem to be a little bit of give and take in both directions. Sure.

[00:15:51]You've seen uh Ambassador Bizzell definitely after his first um sort of time at the microphone change the way he communicates, which is quite interesting because, you know, the Americans they don't need to do that. And uh you've also seen South Africa maybe uh become a little bit more user-friendly by sending somebody who is not a hate an American hater in um Roelof Meyer.

[00:16:19]So, it does look like maybe there's just a little bit of a truce between the the countries in the interest of keeping the economic ties open. Cuz South Africa remains quite strategically important.

[00:16:31]Of course.

[00:16:33]Yeah, I mean, look, I I do agree with that assessment. Um of course, we do have to remember that there are a lot of people who view uh Roelof Meyer as a turncoat, and but again, that's more of an internal issue. Of course, you're going to have the factions that love him and the factions that hate him. I feel like it's the same with even if you have Nelson Mandela, there's going to be the people that say the same thing, you know, oh, he was our savior. Oh, he was a terrorist. But it's like two extreme ends.

[00:17:02]But ultimately, I do think in that sense, you have a sort of um yeah, sort of a truce.

[00:17:10]But at the same time, it just feels to me, Mike, that even as the ANC seems to be a little bit subdued, and they're not talking out as much, they still have these other strange um developments underneath the surface.

[00:17:23]I mean, for for for simply example, we saw how the other day the Hague group um so, before I get into it, for people who don't know, the Hague group is a collection of countries, it's actually co-chaired by South Africa, and specifically when the ANC was in charge of Doco and the whole government before the GNU, and they basically aim to have to impose sanctions against Israel. Um so, it's specifically Israel's actions, but within Gaza and the West Bank. So, they're not really focused too much on Iran and all of that. But, what we saw the other day is that one of the senior members of this, she's actually part of the executive board, had a meeting where she admitted to everybody on the call that the South Africans, and really everybody in the Hague group, has been consulting with Al-Haq, which is an organization which has been sanctioned by the US. And what's actually really funny is that the person who was hosting the meeting actually got on online with everybody hearing and said, "Listen, maybe you just need to know that this is a publicly broadcasted meeting. This isn't private, so what you're saying now, just you know, be careful about what you're saying." So, even just that um interruption shows you, you know, in and of itself that they're doing all these kinds of things. And the reason why I say this is so important is because the US sanctioned Al-Haq earlier in the year, and one of the leaders of Al-Haq is actually a former member of the PFLP, which is a Palestinian group, which of course the Americans have designated a terrorist group due to the killings of certain civilians during the second Intifada specifically.

[00:19:05]So, ultimately, yes, there are, I think, a lot of moves on the surface where South Africa, or rather um the ANC, are trying to appear more subdued. They're trying to sort of, you know, calm the waters. But at the same time, there are all these other movements behind the scenes that I don't think the Americans will be happy about. Yeah. Well, you know, look, I think that, uh, there seems to be, uh, also the distraction of the US being involved in these other, uh, places is, uh, is has taken a bit of pressure off.

[00:19:38]Let's talk about foreign funding.

[00:19:40]Okay. Because this is something that you have covered.

[00:19:43]And it is a very, very important issue in South Africa. And it's our dirty little secret in South Africa, right?

[00:19:50]Sure. Funding. Everybody is kind of like, we don't we don't have open books as much as they tried to change the law and everybody must declare their funders.

[00:20:01]And a handful of parties ever do.

[00:20:03]Um, That's true. there's obviously huge speculation that funding was possibly behind the the initial, um, s- support of, uh, the tr- the ICJ case against Israel, right? There was a lot of speculation that that was because South Africa had the ANC specifically had taken money from Iran to do it.

[00:20:28]Hey, what's the the status on foreign funding as you see it?

[00:20:32]Well, so there are actually two parts, um, to this, at least according to the the reports that I've done and that I've seen from other people. So, the question of Iran funding the ANC, if I recall correctly, it was actually Helen Zille who first mentioned it at a business forum. And then it sort of gained traction and to a lot of people it made sense.

[00:20:55]But then there's also another part of the story which I started exploring myself just due to, um, some of the developments that I've seen.

[00:21:05]And one of the things I was looking at is how Qatar has been a funder of a lot of the Iranian proxies and how it just so happened that uh President Cyril Ramaphosa's visit to Qatar soon after October the 7th coincided with their decision, the ANC's decision, to first of all approach the ICC because of course we know that the ICJ has taken all the headlines but the ICC we actually saw how they issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

[00:21:40]So, the timing was a little bit suspicious to say the least and so there seems to even be a question of maybe the Qataris because unlike Iran where the economy seems to be tanking and it doesn't really make sense for them to fund the ANC especially at, you know, even back in 2023 because of all their own financial and economic problems, the Qataris have been quite the opposite.

[00:22:02]They've been very prosperous.

[00:22:04]But, before delving into any of that and we and we can if you want to, there's something really alarming which I think needs to be brought to light which is, as you alluded to, the lack of transparency when it comes to political party funding.

[00:22:20]So, when I first started looking at this Mike, I decided to consult with the IEC's annual reports where they give financial statements of different political parties and then I also took a look at, you know, just online searches of seeing what are the financial positions of these parties and we see how the ANC as well as other parties, I don't want to say they're alone in this, they don't disclose their funding to the public. It's not like you get an integrated report with public companies and I just found that a little bit strange. But, what really confused me a lot is how when I looked at the IEC's reports because they did give some financial statements, a lot of costs and figures seemed hidden and even those that were shown were quite peculiar and I'll say mysterious in a way and I'll explain why with a very simple example. So, for the financial year before the ANC decided to lodge the ICJ case, we saw how they had what was called other income in their income uh column.

[00:23:25]And this other income, it was a little bit over 20 million rand if I my memory serves correctly, but then for the next year, it was over 400 million rand. And so, my big question is where's this money coming from?

[00:23:40]Now, I'm here happy to be open-minded.

[00:23:43]I'm not going to jump to conclusions and I'll say perhaps Chancellor House has been doing very good business and they're raking in money from investments.

[00:23:52]Perhaps there's other routes where they're getting money or perhaps they're being fun funded by Qatar or Iran because the other thing we need to remember is that we're very unlikely to ever find a situation where we get a bank transaction saying 400 million to South African government from Iran. We we're not going to find that. But of course, we know that there are different companies that operate in both Iran and South Africa and Qatar and South Africa.

[00:24:18]So, my big argument there is even forgetting about the ANC, every political party needs to be more transparent with their funding. What are they hiding? Mhm. What is there to hide?

[00:24:31]And so, for me, as much as I'm concerned about foreign funding, I just think that it's better for South African citizens as a whole to have more transparency and to actually understand what's going on behind the scenes. We expect transparency when individuals pay income tax. I know I have to cough it all up. I know that of course when it comes to public companies, you see their integrated reports. Why are political parties excluded?

[00:24:56]Yeah, look, I I think uh you know that one's a fairly easy one to understand. That South Africa is just not the kind of country where a company is going to get government contracts after they give a big lot of money to the opposition party.

[00:25:11]>> [laughter] >> You know, so that's always been the thing and that's why the government loves regulation cuz then you you know, if you're the government of the day, you can sort of force companies to uh not to fund your opposition and hopefully to fund you. Of course. Now, that that's looking at the ANC. Have you done any any looking to any of the other parties?

[00:25:33]You know, I'll be honest with you, Mike.

[00:25:36]The job for trying to look into the ANC was so big, I pretty much exhausted myself before I could even look at the others. Um I think that in terms of transparency, no party is perfect because even when I did look at some of the statements in it was just very strange. It was a very confusing document um this financial report from the IEC because some of the parties would have a balance sheets and others would have uh profits and loss and then others would have both and others would have a like it was just very confusing and I'm thinking to myself, "Why don't we just have the same thing for every party?" So, I'm sure that if the day had to come that we did explore every party, I think there's going to be a lot of work to do. Yeah. Yeah, and yeah, that is the big black hole there, the funding of parties. But um So, uh if one takes it back and looks if you uh had a look at uh at at the ongoing war in in the far east and in in Russia and Ukraine, because that has implications because uh it seems like I'm going to always seize where I've been involved.

[00:26:46]Right. So, we've got a couple of important um points to to note here. A lot of circumstantial evidence.

[00:26:55]So, the first thing that we saw, where I think it really came to light, is where there was that group of men, young men from KZN, >> Mhm.

[00:27:03]>> [clears throat] >> who mysteriously landed up in Russia. And it became quite a serious thing because quite a lot of them were seriously injured in fighting.

[00:27:12]And we heard that MK had sent them there for training, but of course it was quite a shock to hear that they'd actually been involved in acts of warfare against Ukraine. So, I think that was an incredible shock for many people.

[00:27:26]We then heard how certain of their family members, um many of them spoke on condition of anonymity, but it was reported by local press, such as the Sunday Times, they explained that they consulted with Jacob Zuma and certain senior members of MK to find out what the well-being of these young men was. And some of them, you know, they gave their simple answers. And apparently, they were paying them a monthly salary, but then we saw a little bit of mixed signals because some of the family members said, "No, they were only paid for the first month and not the other months." So, again, we just see this complete um disarray.

[00:28:05]But what was also particularly worrying to me about this, Mike, was actually two things.

[00:28:11]Firstly, after we saw all of this unravel and some of the young men return home, I remember it was after the first flights of these young men returning home, Duduzile Zuma, who is of course the daughter of Jacob Zuma, stepped down from the MK party.

[00:28:26]And this rang alarm bells because in my mind I'm thinking so many of us have heard how this is a family dynasty, and surely she's going to be next in line to rule MK when Jacob's time is is over for whatever reason. So, already you're wondering, why did she step down due to the scandal?

[00:28:45]There was then an interview with Jabulani Khumalo, who is the actual founder of MK who was basically kicked out by Zuma.

[00:28:52]Now, I don't know whether this is true or not. This is his assertion. But he believes that the reason why these young men were sent there is due to Jacob Zuma wanting to build his own sort of private army operating within KZN. Whether or not that's true, I don't know. Perhaps you know or somebody else. But I mean, of course, much like the funding issue, this is something that does need to be investigated. We we need the full facts.

[00:29:19]Yeah, look, it's a it's a tough one and KZN's a tough place. Nothing's going to surprise any of you when that when that goes on. So, we we sort of had a a bit of a trip around the world and then we come come back to South Africa.

[00:29:35]We are now sort of heading into local government election season. We've seen a lot going on.

[00:29:43]Um what is your take on the current political outlook here in South Africa? G Let's start off with the GNU.

[00:29:52]You know, do you think it's looking like it's something that's obviously going to be shaken to the core by the Phala Phala judgment coming out from the Constitutional Court, putting Phala Phala back on the table?

[00:30:05]What's your take on the situation?

[00:30:07]>> Yeah, it's interesting that you put Phala Phala in there because before you mentioned Phala Phala, I had a completely different answer. But now that you mention it, I've actually been giving it a lot of thought and one of the things that I think it could really impact is potentially the DA. Mhm. And the reason why I say that is because the DA, through no fault of their own really, they find themselves in a very difficult predicament. Or maybe it's a little bit their fault. Because a couple of months ago, I think it was soon after the formation of the GNU or just before, I can't remember exactly, but Helen Zille explained that basically when it comes to Palapala, she and the DA I won't say that they'll cover up for Cyril Ramaphosa, but let's say they were not actively seeking to depose him because in their minds the stability of the GNU and therefore the country is more important. And so it sounded as if they are, you know, to a certain extent that they are complicit.

[00:31:04]So there's that issue.

[00:31:06]Now when it comes to a vote happening, um, depending on, you know, when this will happen cuz of course we know that the legal situation can the the the law the wheels of justice turn slowly.

[00:31:17]Um, the DA have a very difficult choice to make.

[00:31:20]Because if they respect the rule of law as they've said in recent press releases from the party, they might be in trouble because then people will say, "Oh, you're putting the GNU at risk."

[00:31:32]If they decide to, you know, support Ramaphosa, well then what does that say to their promise of always upholding the rule of law? Mhm.

[00:31:40]And [clears throat] so I think that the party that's most affected by this is actually the DA because so many people will say the ANC will be because of course there's this leadership succession race that's happening, you know, who's going to take over from Ramaphosa, but whether Palapala was happening or not, people need to remember he's out the door in 2027 either way.

[00:32:02]But the DA have themselves facing a very difficult question which otherwise, had it not been for this court case, wouldn't have arisen. Mhm.

[00:32:11]Because if the court case hadn't arisen, the GNU stumbling along, it seems to be quite stable-ish even though it's it's unspectacular in terms of its results.

[00:32:22]Sure, sure. And I know the GNU partners love to, you know, brag. I heard John Steenhuisen saying, "Oh, we're about to double economic growth." And I hate to break it to him and anyone else watching, but 1% or a little over 1% economic growth is not good enough.

[00:32:37]>> It's not good enough, but he's uh, I suppose technically right when you go from half a percent to 1%. You have double growth, right? Sure. And he's a politician, he's going to use lies and statistics.

[00:32:47]>> but it's like if I got 10% on my math test and now I got 20%. I also doubled it's still not good.

[00:32:53]>> not good.

[00:32:54]Even in my South African standards, she'd have been trouble now.

[00:32:58]So, it's it's a real real conundrum and because we've had some fierce electioneering already largely on the back of Helen Zille.

[00:33:12]Yes.

[00:33:12]>> Sort of doing a lot of work in in in the Johannesburg thing where she's been gifted this this sort of endless stream of content All right. for social media by the ineptitude of the ANC coalition ANC EFF Patriotic Alliance Coalition.

[00:33:31]Which is is really bad at running the city.

[00:33:35]Um, what do you make of her campaign?

[00:33:38]Well, I'll put it this way. Of course, you can see I'll I'll start off by giving her a bit of credit. I think she's campaigning harder than pretty much anyone else out there. So, I do have to give her that. You can see this is a candidate who really wants the job.

[00:33:54]We just don't see other parties coming out in the same way and sometimes I ask myself, you know, why are they all asleep? What's going on? So, yes, I've got to give her a lot of credit on that.

[00:34:04]Um, speaking about popularity, I mean, if I'm being totally honest, uh Look, she's very popular with white blonde women over the age of 60 and I have to give that to her. But that's not going to win you Joburg.

[00:34:17]And unfortunately, one of the big drawbacks I think whether this is relevant to this election or not has been some of her conflicting statements and I actually think regarding illegal immigration to a very large extent.

[00:34:31]Because what we've seen is how you know, whether we like it or not, there is a very big push. There's a big frustration amongst different people regarding this.

[00:34:39]And it seems that parties such as Action SA and the Patriotic Alliance, whatever we make of them and their track record, they've done a very good job of jumping on the bandwagon when it comes to illegal immigration. And you can see that they're managing to elicit a lot of emotions from people. Now, do I believe those parties are necessarily going to beat the DA? I don't think so.

[00:35:01]That's ultimately one of the big issues I think is that there's been a bit of conflicting messaging because, for example, I saw an interview, I think it was with Sunday World if I'm not mistaken, where Helen Zille said, "We will absolutely deport illegal foreigners. They shouldn't be here." But then there was another interview that she did where she said, "Well, Herman Mashaba's going after the xenophobic vote." So, now you're painting everybody as xenophobes. And then there was another one, I think it was Business News, where she said, "We didn't like that Mashaba, when he was mayor, was implementing a lot of right-wing ideas." And so, what does that mean?

[00:35:40]And so, I just think that there's a little bit of a contradiction over there. And I'm thinking that if there is an area of weakness for Helen Zille, it could very well be that. And then, of course, there are the people that vote along racial lines. I don't know how big their proportion is in Joburg, but there are those people that, you know, will will stick to that sort of Yeah, I think it speaks to a bigger problem um that that that um inflicts um that that the DA is inflicted with. But it's not only the DA. You're seeing similar problem in the United Kingdom.

[00:36:15]And that is on certain issues, uh the answer can know in a in a time where people are struggling financially.

[00:36:22]The argument can't just be, "We'll let the law take its course, you know, we'll we'll apply the law. And now they've If you take the DA for example, they've been caught in the middle of two bad incidents. One is their response to illegal foreigners is to say, "We are party of the rule of law." When many South Africans are angry about foreigners taking their jobs, taking their place in hospitals, taking their place at schools. To them, it's an existential crisis. And so, we'll let the law would law take its course when we know that the law agencies don't work. It's not enough.

[00:37:00]And you've got a similar issue with Phala Phala.

[00:37:03]Sure. Because you can sit back as they have and say, "Well, we're a party of the rule of law. We'll wait for the you know, the the courts to decide."

[00:37:13]When people actually want a bit more of a of a bone-crunching response to this.

[00:37:19]You know, the Yeah, you've you've got a the number one citizen of the country you know, he's had this dirty little action thing going on for the last you know, that we've known about it now for 4 years. Of course. And to say, "Well, we'll let the law take its course." is a little bit soft. Even though it's the correct answer, the law must take its course, but sometimes they they want to see the indignation, not just the angry letter to the editor.

[00:37:44]Sure. And I think this this plays against the natural tendency of the DA, which is to be this nice white liberal party that waits for the judges to act.

[00:37:55]Of course.

[00:37:56]>> been caught on the wrong side of the emotion of the moment.

[00:38:00]No, of course. And and I I do have to agree with you on that because what people need to understand and it's a bitter pill for a lot of people at the DA and a lot of other people as well.

[00:38:10]Which is the fact that just because you might think you're factually right, doesn't mean that that's going to help you electorally. We need to remember that in politics, optics are everything. Mhm. And you can be right or wrong, but unless you're getting the right point across and you're actually resonating with the people, you're not going to get the votes. And it just brings me to that because I mean, look, Mike, you and I are in Johannesburg right now, and something that I think is really problematic for a lot of people to understand is that the problems, I'll say the priorities rather, that people sort of in the leafy suburbs have is different to people in CBD or on the outskirts.

[00:38:51]You know, many people in the suburbs who I speak to will say, "Yeah, I'll vote for Helen Zille cuz I want my pothole fixed." But the problems that these other people have on their minds, whether it's right or wrong, they're very different. You know, it's like when I was driving through CBD last time, I mean, you see like a whole bunch of churches with Amharic from, you know, you know, the Ethiopian language being written on. You see how you you basically don't even hear any local languages. You hear French and Portuguese and all these other languages.

[00:39:23]You see trash being piled up. I mean, this high. It's just unbelievable. And I think that for some of those people, when they see illegal foreigners, whether they're good people, bad people, that's not the point. The point is that is an issue that precedes um having that pothole fixed or oh, the traffic lights was out and it's blinking. Can somebody please fix that?

[00:39:48]Or there's a leak across the road.

[00:39:51]It's It's a different set of problems.

[00:39:53]And so, I think the big issue is going to be tapping into those people and their problems and resonating with them. And I actually saw I think it was the SRF who had a poll where they tried to see what are the biggest problems facing South Africans. And the most popular answer was jobs and unemployment. And second was illegal immigration. In actual fact, a lot of those service delivery and the nuts and bolts issues were further down.

[00:40:17]Yeah. So, yeah, she's she's got a difficult hill to climb. Well, Matthew, there's no doubt that the universe is getting giving us a lot of content for our podcasts. For sure. For anybody that hasn't had the pleasure of watching Matthew Cone the Power Pod, definitely worth catching up on.

[00:40:35]Matthew, thank you so much for joining us today. We'll see you again soon.