Tokyo+cried+and+became+a+media+darling,+Jacob+Dlamini,+Weekender

Business Day Weekender, Johannesburg, 16 December 2006
=How Tokyo cried publicly and became a media darling=


 * JACOB DLAMINI**

TOKYO Sexwale has been something of a public and media darling since he cried in public after the assassination of South African Communist Party chief Chris Hani in 1993. Who can forget the sight of the man, in that garish greenish tracksuit that someone, probably the Chinese, had seemingly donated in bulk to the African National Congress (ANC) for use by its leaders, crying for all the world to see!

Here was a man whose pain symbolised all that was wrong with SA; here was a leader so comfortable in his manhood that he was not afraid to cry in public. Do you remember any of that?

Well, do not worry if you don’t, because I suspect that we are likely to be reminded of this ad nauseam, if Sexwale jumps into the crab basket that is the ANC’s succession battle.

You see, I do not think Sexwale is a particularly good political leader and most definitely do not believe he would make a good president of either the ANC or the country when the disaster that is President Thabo Mbeki, thankfully, finally steps down.

For sure, there was a time when I, like almost every other journalist in SA, was charmed by Sexwale. He was great company; his boasts were impressive (he claims to be a fan of Russian literary classics, like Fyodor Dostoevsky’s work); and, more importantly, he long ago came across as accessible and open to the media — which is more than you could say for his cohorts in the ANC. But there was always something about his charm that made it look synthetic.

Then there was the story about the Premier’s Podium.

It was shortly after the 1994 elections and Sexwale was settling into his post as premier of Gauteng. The story, told by those in the know, goes that Sexwale was watching television when on came an item featuring then US president Bill Clinton.

The American president was addressing an audience and was doing so from behind a see-through lectern that had the seal of the US president’s office.

Seeing this, Sexwale promptly instructed one of his aides to watch the bulletin and to see to it that the premier of Gauteng was made a podium similar to Clinton’s see-through lectern. The order was approved and the podium was made.

Talk about industrial-size ambition. The thing (the podium, I mean) is still there in the recesses of the Gauteng government somewhere, as far as I know.

Then there were what I came to call the Saturday sessions. Again, it was shortly after the 1994 elections and I was a political reporter at the Sunday Times. I had a fairly decent relationship with Sexwale’s spokesman, Ronnie Mamoepa, at the time. Mamoepa and I would chat regularly and on Saturday mornings he would invite me over to the premier’s house in Houghton. I always got the impression Sexwale and Mamoepa would spend their Saturday mornings deciding how to get Sexwale’s name into the next day’s paper.

At the time, the strong stench of corruption that had overcome Mpumalanga was threatening to suffocate the entire ANC and, in response, the ANC was talking about putting together a code of conduct for its members.

One Saturday I got a call from Mamoepa, saying his boss wanted to talk about the ANC code of conduct. I duly drove to the premier’s house to meet Sexwale and Mamoepa.

Sexwale, how shall we put this, loves an audience. From what I remember of our Saturday sessions, he loved holding court. Hey, it was the early days of the new SA, we had a new system of government in place and, it seemed to me, Sexwale did not have much to do as premier. Anyway, on that Saturday he finally came around to talking about the code of conduct. He was always in jovial mood at these sessions.

I do not recall his exact words but the gist of his point was that the code of conduct proposed by the ANC at the time did not go far enough. He wanted something more rigorous. “So, are you throwing the gauntlet down to the ANC leadership,” I asked?

The smile on his face vanished. What are you trying to do?, he asked. He wanted to know if I was trying to pit him against the rest of the ANC. Of course, I wasn’t. I just wanted to know what he was trying to get at. Wagging a finger in my face, Sexwale said that if I wrote that, it would cost me my job. I do not remember what story I ended up writing.

That, not surprisingly, was the end of my interview that day and the sessions with Sexwale and Mamoepa. I have shared this story with a number of people over the years and they invariably ask if I was scared. No, I wasn’t. What was he going to do? Call Times Media Limited (the owners of the Sunday Times at the time) and tell them to fire me? I thought he was bluffing and did not take his threat seriously. But it was enough to put me off the man for life.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/weekender.aspx?ID=BD4A343646**

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