Chapter 32: The United Coloured Party

…continued from 10 June 2026...

FIRST TIME HERE? NO PROBLEM – START AT THE BEGINNING – WARNING YOU WILL BECOME ADDICTED TO THE STORY.

A few discussions later and after an initial payment, followed by ongoing monthly payments to Sidney, Shawn had set up a substantial group of Chinese-based fake social media accounts which was primed to fan the fires of the current incidents and would later prove instrumental during Elaine’s election.

Elaine also found the sustained social media coverage of the incidents strangely persistent. Usually, the news cycle on these things would only go on for between three days and a week, but these events were receiving unprecedented exposure.

Almost every Coloured-interest social media group on all platforms were engaging and the narrative was built-up into a raging fire storm about race relations in the Cape. Even the ANC and the Democratic Coalition’s media departments took notice.

When Elaine received an anonymous text informing her that she would be receiving a call in exactly one minute from an unknown number and that she should answer it, everything began to come into focus.

Johan called Elaine exactly sixty seconds after the text. He was calling her from an untraceable burner phone which would be discarded immediately after the call.

“Venues across the Cape Flats and the greater Western Cape have been booked for you to go on a campaign tour over the next two months. The timing is perfect right now for us to capitalise on the racial incidents and it is perfect for you to take advantage of it to gain critical-mass support for the election. It all helps the original plan and makes the outcome even more plausible,” said Johan.

Elaine had to sit down after the call. She was in awe of Johan’s planning and ability to pre-empt the big picture. He had booked and ensured maximum attendance at various venues across the Cape. The venues were mostly school halls, church halls and where available, a football or rugby stadium or two.

Elaine was in for a busy two months; however, it was made a bit more bearable by the state of the art, comfortable and luxurious campaign bus, which was donated to her by a prominent local Coloured businessman. The first address, which she delivered to the farmworkers community in the wine producing district of Paarl was a massive hit. The Coloured community there lived in mind-numbing poverty and many of their generations had been stripped of their dignity and will to aspire to anything meaningful by the “dop-system” which turned many of their parents into functioning alcoholics.

The dop-system was a system whereby wine farmers compensated their workers with cheap wine as part of their wages, this practice has been acknowledged to be the leading cause of foetal alcohol syndrome in the Cape, not to mention its devastating effect on general community life.

Elaine’s firebrand rhetoric hit the target as she said she had had enough, and her people had had enough. “We have a right to thrive and prosper in the country of our birth,” she roared. “We have a right to live where we want to in the country of our birth, we have a right to basic human rights and dignity…” She played video clips of the recent incidents which enraged the crowd into a frenzy.

She waited until the crowd was calmer and said patiently into the microphone: “We could blame the past for what is going on, but we cannot blame the past for what has happened since 1994.”

The crowd went into a hushed silence.

“We, you and I, our people, WE, we are the ones to blame.” The crowd went deadly quiet.”

“And do you know why we are to blame?” she asked. A woman’s voice in the crowd said quietly, tell us Elaine.”

“Because you voted the wrong people into power,” Elaine roared. “What kind of fool votes the National Party into power to rule over them after almost fifty years of apartheid by the same National Party?” The crowd became rowdy again with murmurs and rumblings. “What kind of fool votes the ANC or DC into power when they can see that they care nothing for our people?”

Elaine’s voice was like a sledgehammer dealing a blow to a glass cage, setting free a rage of suppressed anger.

Continued tomorrow 12 June 2026, before 12pm

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