Here’s how Daily Maverick’s Richard Poplak sees the great party funding controversy of February 2014:
“When it comes to friends, the richer the better. And few friends are richer than Nathan Kirsh, the octogenarian South African/Swazi businessman who is actually a one of those mega-rich citizens of Nowherestan—the billionaire’s paradise in which all assets are registered in tax havens like the British Virgin Islands and Liberia, and life takes place behind the walls of vast compounds and in the pressure controlled cabins of private jets.
Like most wealthy, concerned white liberals who are actually closet fascists (Kirsh is the largest shareholder in the Israeli company Magal Security Systems, which supplies electronic fences for the West Bank wall), Natie Kirsh took a shine to Mamphela Ramphele, the unpronounceable head of Agang. She’s blown through his dough at a rapid rate, and she’ll blow through more—if there is one thing at which Ramphele is an adept, it is spending money. Legend has it that Kirsh nudged the DA and Agang into each other’s arms, proving that Big Money, Politics and Stupidity remain linked in an unbroken troika.
Kirsh has called both Ramphele and Helen Zille “feisty little ladiesâ€, which would be a perfectly acceptable description were this an episode of Mad Men. But RamZille are not “feisty little ladiesâ€â€”like most politicians, they’re opportunists. Kirsh, it turns out, has been fleeced. The security of Israel probably depends upon his cutting off the taps as soon as possible.”
