The General Secretary of the Party: The media have discovered that we own Discovery. All 100% of it. It's quickly becoming the biggest scandal of 2010.

The Spin Doctor: I have prepared a fairytale to deal with it -

GS: This time our story better be good. We must pretend to do something. Seriously pretend. Power plants and arms deals are remote, abstract. But everybody knows Discovery.

SD: What must I do?

GS: The usual: devise a strategy which lets us do what we want, while we seem - I repeat, seem - to surrender to public opinion.

SD: Let's apply the ‘divide and rule' strategy, with a new twist. But this time, all of us need to pitch in -

GS: All of us?

SD: All: the good, the bad and the ugly.

GS: How many ‘good' guys do you need?

SD: Half the party.

GS: Are you kidding? 50% ‘good guys' in our party? But, for argument's sake, suppose I do find some, what's their script?

SD: ‘The party must sell the shares ASAP.'

GS: Just like that? Isn't a bit dry?

SD: They'll  have tears in their eyes...The director will guide them to look sincere, tormented even. Looking at the camera, they will admit ... half heartedly, almost under protest ... that ‘mistakes were made and that right must be done' -

GS: Indeed. So the ‘good' guys say we have to return the shares. I'm sure I can find a few

SD: Sorry Secretary, 50%, at least 50% -

GS: I'll have to scratch the bottom of the barrel. Anyway, what about the other half?

SD: We'll divide them. The ‘bad' guys must be dead against it. It has to look like a real conflict within the party.

GS: Who will the ‘bad' guys be?

SD: All the party's women and Zuma.

GS: What's their line?

SD: ‘The shares are actually owned by the women of the party.'

GS: So?

SD: Isn't it obvious? ‘The shares facilitate the party's continued struggle for women's transformation ... liberation ... breaking the glass ceiling ... allowing rural women to become productive.' You know, the usual blah blah.

GS: I know! I invented it. But Zuma? What would his role be?

SD: Now that the HIV threat is behind him, we are building his image as the big African father figure of all the nation's women, the protector of family values -

GS: Good luck to you! However, your strategy is not so hot. The public is becoming aware of this ‘divide and rule'. We've tried it too many times. Give me something new, more creative.

SD: That's the twist. The ‘ugly' ones will admit on Carte Blanche that the party owns MTN too!

GS: Do we? No one tells me anything. I have a feeling that the treasurer keeps hiding some shares from me -

SD: I checked with all the top dogs. We sold all our shares in MTN a while ago. Honest. But the bad guys will insist that we do and call for an inquiry.

GS: Won't it make things worse?

SD: ‘The worse things are, the better they are', as Comrades Lenin and Mugabe taught us.

GS: How come?

SD: A day after the bad guys' admission, Zuma will nominate a senior international committee to enquire into the MTN scandal.It will be chaired jointly by Kofi Anan and Clinton -

GS: Brilliant! But - and it's a huge but - until the committee's findings are final, in fourteen months' time ...as a sign of respect towards Clinton, we don't discuss the party's share holdings. ‘Let justice take its course.'

SD: It's a pleasure to do business with you! But let's develop the plot a bit ... The commission will find - this time it will be the absolute truth - that we have no shares in MTN -

GS: And then, in the final act, the good, the bad and the ugly of the party will re-unite. Their final declaration: ‘Another filthy media smear campaign has failed. The party will continue to work tirelessly for the poor.'

SD: By the time the commission finishes, a new scandal will erupt - they always do - and no one will remember about the Discovery shares.

GS: Discovery shares? What Discovery shares?

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