Mandy de Waal

Kill Buzz slices Ramsay Media

When it comes publishing Ramsay Media are genius. The publishers of Car, Getaway and Popular Mechanics understand their audience and how to deliver a product that sells.

Sadly when it comes to spin doctoring and working with journalists they could be doing a whole lot better.

The latest Buzz to be hacked to pieces by The Buzz Saw is a little missive sent by Ramsay Media to promote the growth of one of their sites Compleat Golfer. I must say the lead paragraph of the release raised a wry smile, but for all the wrong reasons:

"There are many words to describe it: incredible, extraordinary and unparalleled are just a few that come to mind. Whatever the term, the increase in traffic to compleatgolfer.co.za  over the past two months is, quite simply, phenomenal."

Now "incredible, extraordinary and unparalleled" may describe a meteor shower hitting earth, something akin to the second coming or news just in that lasting peace has been achieved in the Middle East. But, the only thing that's "incredible, extraordinary and unparalleled" about this media release is how badly it has been written.

THE BUZZ SAW: A tribute to a couple of journalists who banded together to get their own back on public relations people and their over-love of meaningless adjectives like "leading"; "cutting edge"; "bleeding edge"; "forward thinking" and other crappy words which basically mean their clients are such boring dead beats they have to use tired, meaningless descriptors to try and buoy their brands.

Presentations & talks

My Year of Writing

- Talk given at 24.com's blogging and writing workshop, 18 April 2009
Download My year of writing_April 2009

Writing workshop for bloggers

As the huge surge in blogging creates a battle for readers here's your opportunity to sharpen your writing at a workshop facilitated by three local writing/blogging legends. I will also be there as a minor curtain raiser.

To be held at 24.com on Saturday 18th April 2009 from 08h30 to 12h30 the workshop features my favourite columnist Chris Roper, local internet entrepreneur and blogger extraordinaire Charl Norman and Justin Hartman, founder of Afrigator which is currently taking Africa by storm.

During the workshop you will find out:
- How to create a fresh and distinctive voice;

- How to spice up your blog and sex life;

- How to make money blogging;

- How to promote your blog;

- How to attract and keep readership;

- About blogging trends in South Africa and Africa.

If you'd like to attend this workshop email community@sa.24.com.

A fee of R50 will be charged at the door upon registration.

WORKSHOP AGENDA - SATURDAY 18 APRIL 2009:

08h30 : Registration

09h00 : Mandy de Waal : A year of writing : News, truth, journalism and doing what you love.

09h40 : Chris Roper : Teaching an old blog new tricks: 7 ways to spice up your sex life.

10h20 : Charl Norman : Blogging all the way to the bank : Get your blog read. Make money blogging.

11h00 : Justin Hartman : How to promote and market your blog. Trends in SA and beyond.

11h40 : Discussion and questions.

12h10 : Refreshments and networking.

The psychology of fraud

That fine line that divides good and evil.

When I was young, the product of Calvinist schooling, I thought good and bad people where two separate things. That the good guys fought the bad guys at some proverbial high noon in a shoot out between the just and the wicked.

Only later when I understood the complex, paradoxical nature of humans, I came to appreciate what the Russian novelist and historian Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn meant in his Nobel address, ‘One word of truth’:

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them.  But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being and who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart.”

I was reminded of this recently when interviewing David Alexander, a white collar criminal now helping to combat fraud in South Africa. In October 2003 Alexander was convicted of fraud and other economic offences in the amount of R372 million and was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. He was paroled five years later after serving his term under horrific conditions in an over-crowded jail.

Alexander says fraud starts with minor misdemeanours. When people take stationary home, use their motor vehicle for private travel, or claim more than they should from business expenses.

All humans have a set of moral codes and it appears people will easily break a law if it doesn’t interfere with their internal moral code. People commit the little frauds because they can easily justify these in terms of their own internal standards.

“I fudge my taxes because quite frankly the government is corrupt and is doing an appalling job of running this country. Why shouldn’t I be able to manipulate my returns a little?”

Sound familiar?

Alexander reckons that some 10% of people in life are morally impeccable and would never transgress any laws. Another 10% of people are out and out crooks. The other 80%? Well Alexander reckons they are morally confused majority, and given the opportunity, the motivation and the justification, will commit crime.

Given that such a large percentage of the population (or your workforce) is easily disposed to crime the big questions to understand and answer are why do people commit fraud and what can you do to stop it?

Sociologist and criminologist Donald Cressey was a fraud guru who spent much of his life trying to understand why people violate positions, and why seemingly ‘good’ people are overcome by temptation to commit crime.

After interviewing hundreds of fraudsters in jail he found the most common reason for committing fraud was because the person was in dire financial straights, and could not share this predicament with anyone.

Given the global financial crisis, South Africa’s problem with credit and over spending, hikes in food prices and the fact that corruption is daily news in this country, it’s a safe assumption to that in company fraud is a big workplace problem.

So how do you get the morally ambiguous 80% to become honest and walk the straight and narrow?

Alexander maintains unethical behaviour is bred from the top and filters down like gravity. When company leadership behave in a way that is unjust or morally ambiguous the rest of the pack simply follow suit.

Then people need to be educated about moral confusion to become very clear about what fraud is and how easy it is to commit fraud. They also need to be absolutely clear about what the consequences of any criminal action will be.

Fraud is a deception made for personal gain, and fraud can be about potential prejudice, and not actual loss. The line is fine, but extremely clear.

Each time you fudge your taxes, steal a pencil, fix the bread price, ask for a personal kick back when making a sale, add a few extra line on your expense claim, you’re committing fraud.

Now tell me that’s worth spending a significant part of your life in an overcrowded jail cell?

Bribery and corruption

Why did graft become just another line item at a world class company?

“I know what this is about. I was expecting you.”

According to the New York Times, those were the first words that Reinhard Siekaczek uttered when he opened the door of his home to six German police officers and a prosecutor in the precursor to what would become the biggest bribery case the world has ever seen.

Siekaczek was an accountant working for global electronic and electrical engineering giant Siemens AG, which in December 2008 paid $1.6 Billion in fines after being found guilt for using bribes to secure business contracts around the world.

From the 1990s through to 2007, Siemens paid off well placed government officials in dozens of countries from Nigeria to Norway in order to get contracts for telecommunications, medical devices, transportation, and other large scale projects. Bribes became the accepted business norm at Siemens which institutionalised corruption through a secret network of slush funds, shady middlemen and ‘consultants’. The Munich headquartered company was greasing up the gravy train for the likes of Sadam Hussein and his cohorts, as well as corrupt officials in numerous other countries.

Commenting on the scale of the corruption Linda Thomsen of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said: “Siemens paid a staggering $1.4 billion in bribes to government officials in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. The scope of the bribery scheme is astonishing, and the tone set at the top at Siemens was a corporate culture in which bribery was tolerated and even rewarded at the highest levels of the company.”

Investigations revealed that 4,283 bribes were paid out in return for business to Siemens around the world, including power plants in Israel; mobile telephone networks in Bangladesh; telecommunications projects in Nigeria; medical devices in Vietnam, China, and Russia; and refineries in Mexico.

The question that begs to be asked is how it was possible for such large scale and complex corruption to take place within Siemens for so long without it being exposed? Why did so many people knowingly participate in actions they knew were illegal? Was Siemens filled with evil people knowingly committing crime? What had gone so horribly wrong?

Experts on corruption say that criminal behaviour in business is fraught and complex, but two key elements interplay to result in graft taking place. The first is the psychology of the individuals committing the crime. The second factor is the environment. There is a strong relationship between these two factors with research showing that environmental factors strongly influence whether or not people will commit graft even if they have a propensity to do so. Robust corporate governance and a strong, ethical culture can deter corrupt behaviour.

The Siemens effect was a bit like The Milgram Experiment, in which Yale University Professor, Stanley Milgram discovered that people will perform acts that betray their personal conscience if they are instructed to do so by an authority figure. Speaking of the experiment in an article Milgram said: “Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”

The reasons why corruption became institutionalized at Siemens are simple in retrospect. In Germany bribery was permissible as a tax deductible expense until 1999, when the country joined an international convention banning foreign bribery. This set the stage for legitimizing bribes. When these payouts were outlawed the leadership of Siemens feared financial loss. Partly because they believed they wouldn’t be able to be successful without bribes, and because they were motivated by greed and driven by a dogma of growth at all costs.

The accountants and staff involved in administrating the bribes were told people would lose their jobs if business wasn’t done this way. Siemens created the perfect environment for corruption by enabling opportunity, providing motive and applying social pressure to institutionalize crime.

In the final analysis, like the Milgram Experiment, authority and fear is all that is needed to get good people to commit crime.

Borderline bosses

One out of a hundred people that you work with will be a psychopath.

In short:
- Psychopaths aren’t just killers
- Workplace psychopaths leave a trail of destruction
- How to spot workplace psychopaths
- CEOs should be screened to weed out psychopaths

At the start of my career, one of my first bosses was an out and out psychopath. A narcissistic lay-about, this person’s career was driven by hiving off the talent of others, taking credit for work that was not hers and bullying her staff to the point of abuse. She was a pathological liar who was highly manipulative and destructive. Because of that she had a turnstile at the door of her department. People just didn’t last long because she made working conditions absolutely intolerable.

I didn’t know too much about psychology then, all I knew was that she was disturbed and dangerous. It was only later when I began to study the phenomenon of work place bullying that I discovered that she fitted the profile of a psychopath perfectly.  

Thanks to movies and televisions when most people think of psychopaths they get a disturbing image of a serial killer with a violence-filled childhood that remorselessly hacks people to death for fun. Shows like “Dexter” serve to fuel this image, but the truth is a lot scarier. We live and work and walk past psychopaths every day of our lives. They are our neighbours, run the lift club or can often be our colleagues or bosses.

Euphemistically termed “borderline personalities” it is a startling fact that the majority of psychopaths aren’t emotionless killers but seemingly average people who hold down 9 to 5 jobs like you and me.

“The common misconception with psychopaths is that they're all violent extreme kind of criminals. The majority of them are living and working around us in jobs psychologically destroying the people that they work with,” says Dr John Clarke an Australian based psychological profiler and author of the book “Working With Monsters”. The book offers advice on how to identify and deal with work place psychopaths.

More common than you’d think workplace psychopaths charm and manipulate their way through business, often leaving a lasting mark on their victims. They are often extremely narcissistic, lacking in empathy, highly destructive, ruthless and can make life hell for those that work with or for them. According to Clarke up to 3 percent of adult males are psychopaths, while less than 1 percent of women are.

How do you spot a psychopath? Well there’s the Hare Psychopathy Checklist that was developed by Dr Robert D. Hare, professor emeritus of the University of British Columbia. The checklist was created by Hare as a diagnostic tool to rate people’s psychopathic or antisocial tendencies.

In short psychopaths display anti-social behaviour that is evidenced by pathological lying, a completely lack of empathy, no sense of guilt, a lack of a conscience and very superficial emotions. Psychopaths enjoy what they do so will have a history of victimisation and will leave a trail of destruction in their wake.

Hare’s Checklist:
- Glibness/superficial charm
- Grandiose sense of self-worth
- Pathological lying
- Cunning/manipulative
- Lack of remorse or guilt
- Shallow affect
- Callous/lack of empathy
- Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
- Promiscuous sexual behaviour
- Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
- Parasitic lifestyle
- Poor behavioural control
- Lack of realistic, long-term goals
- Impulsivity
- Irresponsibility
- Juvenile delinquency
- Early behaviour problems
- Revocation of conditional release
- Many short-term marital relationships
- Criminal versatility

Obviously the checklist isn’t a tick box for laymen diagnosis and interpretation, but is a good departure point for understanding borderline behaviour.

Hare has often called for Chief Executive Officers to be screened to weed out psychopaths saying that financial scandals could be prevented if CEOs where profiled to ensure they were psychologically fit to lead multi-million corporations, and steer the fate of thousands of employees. Hare says that the average psychopath easily moves through head hunting interviews and HR processes which don’t reveal enough about candidates psychological profiling. 

If you need a little more help identifying a borderline boss, Clarke says you can spot workplace psychopaths by looking out for the following:

1. They are guiltless: Workplace psychopaths will back stab and victimise without showing any remorse.

2. They are cunning and manipulative: They can justify breaking rules and bending corporate systems to their benefit, and they prey on weakness and people’s lack of self esteem.

3. They are emotionally erratic. According to Clarke psychopaths are unable to nuance their emotions and only experience primary feelings such as happiness, sadness and anger. They shift very quickly and erratically between these feelings.

4. They are charmers: They have the gift of the gab, are good orators and prefer dealing with people one-on-one than in groups.

5. They are pathological liars and can often talk their way out of trouble.

6. They are parasitic in that they live of others' good deeds and good work. They often take credit for innovations and ideas that are not their own.

Speaking to psychologists when writing this article I asked whether real psychopaths could be reformed. The answer I got was that therapy simply makes psychopaths more cunning because it gives them the tools to become better manipulators, liars and teaches them how to fake socialisation or empathy to get what they want.

The expert’s advice on what to do if you come face to face with a psychopath in the workplace?

Quit, leave or get out the way before you get hurt.

A year of writing

February is quite a significant month for me because it marks the end of my first year of writing and daring to take that bold leap into the unknown. Which was crazy really because it was pre-global-meltdown and of course the popular belief is that you can't make a living as a writer. Or that you cannot make a good living as a writer.

Well let me tell you that's absolute rot.

To be honest I was as nervous as all hell about my decision and wracked with fears of failure. To escape this fear I spent a lot of my working life doing what I didn't love. Sad but true. Fear and the lure of lucre are a heady cocktail that can easily lead anyone off their chosen or ordained path.

The problem about doing what you don't love is that you suffer from fatigue, disillusionment, keep hitting your head against obstacles and wondering why you don't wake up with a bounce in your step on Mondays.

The biggest lesson I learned this year is what happens when (as Joseph Campbell says) you "follow your bliss".

"Follow your bliss. If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be. If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else." - Jospeh Campbell

Although I studied Journalism at Rhodes University and spent one short year in broadcast journalism (which I loved) a side step into commerce for better pay proved a lasting career mistake.After a series of personal trials I learned that doing what I didn't love was damaging my health.

I threw my hat back in the ring in March 2008 and started writing at no cost for Mail & Guardian's Thought Leader, and must thank Matthew Buckland and Vincent Maher for giving me this break. Thought Leader offered me a platform to showcase my work, to reach a wider audience and afforded me credibility through the Mail & Guardian brand.

My next break came from Ranka Jovanovic of ITWeb who gave me my first column and paid opportunity to write. It was her introduction to Graeme Scala of Brainstorm that took my words into print.

The big break came when I stumbled across a story that should have been headline news, but largely fell through the cracks. It was Naspers and the trail of Mugabe’s blood money which was written on gut during the day (and long into the night(, then  sent off to Alec Hogg's Moneyweb. Alec has been a tough and exacting mentor, but has taught me some of the best lessons of my journalistic career. The advice that most impacted on me was his statement: "The truth is a sustainable commodity. Sensation is not." Felicity Duncan and the Moneyweb team have also taught me some really important lessons.

The Naspers/Mugabe story was such a head rush that I sought to make all other stories like that. The fact is that they are not and the best journalism is about dogged research, thoroughness and seeking truth rather than sensation. As it is with life, each new story is an experience that deserves to be approached without expectation or preconception. You can't chase the rush, you can just chase the story.

Then dreams do come true. One of my dreams was to write for an offshore title and to earn dollars or pounds. This happened in January when I started writing for Brandchannel. 

During the year I have interviewed and met some incredible people. The experience that meant the most to me was when Deon Basson wrote me a note to congratulate me on the Naspers/Mugabe story, and then we spoke and subsequently met for lunch. I had long admired Basson who was South Africa's Public Interest Warrior, and was ruthless in his pursuit of the truth. Basson had a deep sense of justice and was revered by his colleagues and those who knew him. His death was a bitter blow for journalism in this country.

The one story I covered that affected me most deeply this past year, was that of the plight of the refugees following the xenophobic attacks that scarred our country last year. It also offered hope because that one post on Thought Leader got thousands of views in a matter of hours channeling relief from the likes of Pep Stores and Pick 'n Pay to aid organisations mentioned in the story.

This story filled me with a strong sense of purpose and a clear understanding of how important journalism is.

What it can do to change the world.

Black Xmas for Naspers staff

Wide scale retrenchments on the cards but media workers will only know their fate in January 2009. This as Naspers loses R500m in a failed German mobile television bid.

With a reported 3,8% drop in headline earnings Naspers (JSE:NPN) is "cutting costs to the bone" and laying off staff while making heavy losses in a failed German mobile TV bid.

With print advertising around the world going into free fall Naspers is set to cut up to 20% of jobs in its newspaper division according to A newswire service which reports that a memo sent to employees confirmed that employment would be reduced and that executives had briefed workers last week on possible job cuts.

A source phoned me on condition of anonymity and said that 11 colleagues had already lost their jobs when the English version of Die Kaapse Son closed down a week ago.

"We hear that 80 media workers will lose their jobs at Burger, Beeld, Volksblad and Rapport," said the source. "The morale here is incredibly bad because management have told us they will only inform workers whose jobs will be lost in January. We're highly stressed and it's going to be a bleak Christmas for all of us."

The source said that Burger, Beeld, Volksblad and Rapport would be consolidated and that sub-editors at those papers would more than likely lose their positions as a "super subs" office was being created to handle copy for these print titles.

"We hear that Burger, Beeld, Volksblad and Rapport will merge to become one paper. The uncertainly is terrible and people are living in fear that they will come back from holiday to no job and no means of supporting their families," said the source.

According to an undated memo from Abraham van Zyl, head of newspapers at Media24 Beeld, Die Burger, Volksblad and Rapport have been hard hit by the economic slump, falling circulations and a decrease in advertising. The newswire service reports that ad spending in South Africa fell 8% from January to August 2008.

Francois Groepe, CEO of Media24, declined to confirm the percentage of staff being cut. Job reductions started last year and "further reductions are under way", he said in an e-mailed response to questions. "We will not announce the number or percentage of staff reductions," Groepe said. "Headcount information will however be disclosed in our annual financial statements as has been our practice in the past."

These announcements come as former financial journalist and Naspers staffer Christo Volschenk reports from Germany that Naspers has been loosing money hand over fist in that region. "Naspers blows R500m and no one says a word" writes Volschenk on his blog detailing that no one picked up the losses while reporting on Naspers' financials for the six months up to December 2008. "The loss was not as insignificant. In fact, a packet of money was lost. In the interim report released Thursday a loss of R279m was shown for the year up to March 2008 and another R216m for the six months up to end September 2008," says Volschenk.

"It's not quite clear from the report whether one should add the two numbers to get to the overall amount pumped into the project, or whether only the last R216m should be connected to the project. (The licence was awarded in January 2008, so the project only really "got going" this year.) In the interim report Naspers simply said the post "refers mostly to our withdrawal from a German mobile TV project". If one must infer from that (as I think one should), that R495m was pumped into the sand, all I can say is: Shame on the SA business media for not reporting more extensively on this project (until now). Even if only half was lost, shareholders would still have liked to know about the project. For perspective: The MWEB Africa Group was recently valued at R610m," adds Volschenk.

Speaking on SAfm Market Update this past Wednesday Naspers CEO Koos Bekker said of the failed mobile TV bid: "The problem there was the German stake is divided in 16 [metropolitan areas]. They differ, they are stringent, they force us to do business with people at uneconomic rate, and it's basically a walk away from the licence." 

Parkinson's Law

I spent much of Friday with Dave Duarte, a person I've always wanted to meet. Duarte is one of the more remarkable people I've met in the longest time. And... he's changed his life.

I love people who do that. Have the courage to see what is working and not working in their lives and then actively reinvent themselves and their lives to edge closer towards their dream. Which as we know is always changing.

Duarte told me about Parkinson's Law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. First published in The Economist in 1955 this theory is something we're all horribly familiar with. It was first used by Cyril Northcote Parkinson in an essay about bureacracy that talked about officials making work for each other.

Duarte now works a four hour day, but still manages to run his business Huddlemind, manage his consulting and speaking practice, as well as lecture at UCT and The Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town. He says working four hours a day takes a lot of discipline and organisation and that he does lose balance occasionally, but that it has revolutionised his life.

Speaking to Taddy Blecher and I, Duarte told us how synchronicity and flow work more actively in his life now and how less has become more for him. I think this is a lesson he should be teaching the world of work. The standard currency in work should not be time, but efficacy. This would teach us to work smarter and more resourcefully, allowing time for creativity, imagination and invention while still having balance, health and enjoying life.

It's something that I'm going to be trying starting this week - making more space for my life, joy, learnings and dreams and less for work by doing what works. By delegating and fiercely guarding my time and space as sacred and precious.

Copy cats. Confusion. Rhetoric.

The more South African politics changes, the more it stays the same.

The South African political landscape has changed dramatically over the past few weeks, and more recently has had a complete face change. The Democratic Alliance (DA) launched its new logo amidst allegations that they had borrowed heavily from Obama’s winning political campaign. At the same time COPE rolled out their logo and more war talk. Spin doctors and politicos from both the DA and COPE have had ample media space and verbiage, what I wanted to know is whether the new look and new party means meaningful change.

Academic and senior lecturer with the school of public and development management at the University of the Witwatersrand, Dr Ivor Sarakinsky says it doesn’t matter that the DA’s new logo looks surprisingly similar to that of Obama’s, what’s at issue is whether it will address the party’s legacy drag. “The DA has reached the thresh hold of their voting support. If they want to grow the party they will have to reinvent themselves. The only way is to get previously disadvantaged communities on board and change the legacy of the DA being a white, liberal, upper class party. To be relevant then must move from their traditional base to broad based support.”

The problem with perception is that it’s not a short term game, and in politics the issue of change is complex and strongly tied to heritage, delivery on policy and changing people’s lives and experiences. “When you talk political change what you are talking about is change at a deep level of society, which is a slow process. This is impacted by policy alongside socio-economics, service delivery and a multitude of factors that reinforce political attitudes and perceptions. What’s certain is that you can’t have a white person leading a political party if you want to make inroads into non-white constituencies.”

Sifiso Zondi from global brand and market insight company, Added Value, says that despite the DA saying the rebrand was on the cards from 2006, the move appears to be a direct response to COPE’s entry into the political arena. “The DA has always been perceived as an all white party, which has little to do with democratic relevance. I believe they saw the current context as an opportunity to appeal to a broader market and to reposition saying, “Look – we are a party for everyone.”  The logo is very close to Obama’s. If this was a brand that was done at leisure it would be far more distinctive and differentiated. It looks like it was rushed and a reaction to COPE.”

“Then if you look at the positioning – “One nation. One future.” – it is simple, understandable and people will get it. But again this is taken from the Obama campaign with it’s over riding message of hope and the United States becoming ‘one nation’.” Have another look at Obama’s campaign and see for yourself how central the ‘one nation’ concept is to his brand. During his victory speech Obama said: “In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people.” This theme was driven home earlier, like in August when Michelle Obama gave her “One Nation” speech at the Democratic Convention in Denver, Colorado. 

“People will notice that that the DA is a copy cat, because the DA has a constituency that uses social media. People will see the similarities online and will talk about it,” says Zondi. Already the issue has caused a flurry amongst bloggers, satirists and online political commentators with pundits Commentry SA saying under the headline “DA. Change we can’t believe in” – “Right down to the stripes it’s a little tough to imagine that the DA came up with what is effectively a straight clone of Obama’s logo all on their own. Add a few rays and pretend the voters are retarded? Seriously guys.”

While the DA fights allegations that their face-lift was lifted, the Congress of the People has much bigger fish to fry. First up is the legal battle that will see them face off against the ANC for the right to use a name they have already launched under. “It’s going to be a long fight with the ANC,” says Zondi who believes the ANC have a 50/50 chance of winning the legal battle.

“There’s strong use of ANC colours and the new logo speaks a lot to the legacy of where COPE’s leaders have come from. While it may be a good thing for COPE leaders to tap into the heritage of the ANC in the short term to create media noise, in the long term as a brand they will need to differentiate themselves completely. It appears they approached naming and branding as an afterthought. A name is the first identity of a brand or a person and the changes they have already made publicly shows laziness or hastiness in their approach. They started at the wrong end of the equation by going to the media. They should have sorted out their policies and decided how they would be different; why people should vote for them; and how they will make the lives of the poor better before slugging things out in the media,” says Zondi “I don’t think the leaders of COPE even know the values of their own brand; if they did there wouldn’t be this confusion. They are not saying why they are an alternative and what they are offering. They need to go back to the drawing board.”

Political consultant and advisor Sarakinsky says that it is going to take a lot more than symbols and personalities to draw votes. “COPE is not talking policy which is a serious issue. You cannot start a new party on personalities alone. Personalities, when they stand in front of crowd, must say something of substance. They can’t just scream, shout and use rhetoric. Negative campaigning doesn’t work as evidenced by Obama’s victory. Obama made it clear that he would not run a negative campaign against McCain and he was consistent in that. It built Obama’s moral high ground and then built his constituency. McCain went in with personal attacks and mud slinging which didn’t work. The media wants personal attacks which are headline making stuff, but at some point political candidates must put across a positive programme and it is going to be very difficult to do this based on rhetoric. If we look at what COPE has said so far their policy is very contradictory.”

On various platforms COPE has talked about defending the constitution and defending the Freedom Charter. However in the same breath they talk about the direct election of a president, the direct election of premiers and direct election of mayors. “This means a complete about face and change in the constitution. If one wants to make this happen a significant change in the constitution would need to be effected, this is not consistent with COPE’s stated policy. COPE is engaging in political entrepreneurialism and searching for something that will resonate in voting constituency regardless of whether or not it is consistent. McCain did that in the US and it clearly didn’t work.”

The problem with rhetoric is that it has no substance and Sarasinsky says when the personalities take on public platforms they will have to deal with tough questions about why they have done what they have done. “They’ve largely enjoyed safe platforms offered by media houses, but public lobbying and engagements will see tough questions coming up. Lekota was Minister of Defence and was responsible for aspects of the arms deal, and he had to see that his financial management system was in place. How many audits did he get from the auditor general? None of the media are asking these questions.”

With elections mooted for March 2009 it remains to be seen whether COPE has more substance and will begin to address real issues (as the DA has done on an ongoing basis). Matters like economic policy, social policy and service delivery. Policy that is differentiated and campaign commitments that are different to the current talk the ANC is not walking. What we’ve seen up to now is short term, very emotional and highly personalized mud slinging. None of which builds houses, creates jobs, sorts out crime or stops the rot that’s taken root in our country.