The Point thinks it's great that, one month into his presidency, Zuma is still a man of the people. Taking in the sights and sounds of Soweto, opening a shopping mall, lending his ear to the people…

"President Zuma's toll-free hotline. How can I help you?"

"Mr President, Helen here. I seem to have misplaced large tracts of land in the Cape Town metropolis. Just wondering if, perchance, you happen to have stumbled across anything…"

"President Zuma's toll-free hotline. How can I help you?"

"Hey Mr prez, it's Helen again. I seem to have a bunch of angry MK veterans camping out on my lawn. Can I call in the army? Are they the army? Call me."

"President Zuma's toll-free hotline. How can I help you?"

"JZ, it's me again. Why aren't you returning my calls? Are you still peeved about that thing with your wives?"

Hmm… perhaps a screening menu is necessary.

PRESS #1 TO COMPLAIN ABOUT HELEN ZILLE

"The purpose of our march is quite clear," said MK veteran Fatty Booi. "Zille has undermined the highest office in the country, because whatever she said about President Jacob Zuma, it was okay before the elections, but now that the president has been elected into the highest office by the people of South Africa, and they see him as a role model."

Funny thing that. I was always under the impression that a president is elected because he is a role model. But wait, Fatty Booi (real name) has more to say.

"Tomorrow we are coming to give her the attention she wants, but in a very different way. She will never want us at her office again."

I can say with a fair deal of certainty that she has probably never wanted you at her office. Ever. No, not even in civilian clothes.

"Premier Zille is being deliberately misleading again," complained former premier Lynne Brown. "Zille said yesterday that provincial land was transferred to the Housing Development Agency 'secretly', in bad faith and with an ulterior motive. Where do 'bad faith' and 'ulterior motive' enter the equation… Would she rather use the land for purposes other than housing the poor? Does she plan to sell it to private developers?"

Ulterior motive? The ANC? Never! Personally, I have to agree with Ms Brown. There's absolutely nothing suspect about transferring land worth hundreds of millions of rands, for free, into the control of your own party from the one province you are likely to lose control over, on the day of the elections. Nothing at all.

PRESS #2 IF YOU'RE NOT COPE-ING

When the ANC dished out chairs for parliamentary portfolio committees they snubbed the DA (duh!) and ignored Cope. Gwede Mantashe used an animal analogy to explain the decision. Strange that.

"We must develop a relationship with that animal. We don't know it yet. It is not about dishing out chairs, it is about work."

We don't know it yet. Except for all those members who used to be part of the ANC. Cope president Terror Lekota reckons it is because the ANC just isn't very fond of democracy.

"It is a culture of intolerance of opposition and critical voices by the ruling party. In particular that culture focused on Cope."

Cope? Ah yes, that new party. Phillip Dexter explains why Cope has been, well, silent since the elections.

"The fact that no one has been working since has got nothing to do with any of these issues. No one is expected to work after the elections."

Ah, well, that does explain a lot.

A declaration of intent from the MK veterans:

"Her attack on President Zuma is an attack on all Africans… The president's private life is his private life, just as Zille is entitled to a private life of her own."

Except, of course, for that bit about her sex life. When newly-appointed Housing MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela went to collect the veterans' memo, they said: "They have sent over one of their puppets. We are not going to hand over the memo to her boyfriend."

However, general consensus on Zille's sex life now seems to be that she is, at the very least, bisexual. Addressing the MK veterans, Cosas president Wesley Kgang told marchers that there was "a suspicion" that Zille was a lesbian. For good measure he added that she was possibly not even South African, but from Holland.

Ah, sneaky move. If homophobia doesn't do the trick, xenophobia is bound to rear its ugly head. The veterans had more to say on that little matter of democracy…

"They might have won the battle, but they have not won the war. So we are going to continue in making sure that she does not govern properly until the elections they come after five years."

As always, it is good to see a political group with South Africa's interests at heart. Another MK veteran… uh… child soldier, Julius Malema, is currently competing with himself to see who can use the word 'racist' more frequently (the other contestants — Floyd Shivambu and Wesley Kgang — have dropped out of the competition in the face of Malema's sheer perseverance).

"We will never make up with Helen Zille — she is an enemy of the revolution… she's a racist and will remain a racist.

"She has a racist agenda of making the Western Cape a province for whites only. If she had a way as premier to declare (which) people she wants in the province… for sure by now she would have declared the Western Cape for whites only.

"As the youth league we are going to encourage many young people, especially those staying in the Eastern Cape, to start applying for houses and sites in the Western Cape, so that we have more blacks and Africans going to the Western Cape… to disappoint (Zille).

There's a difference between blacks and Africans?

PRESS #4 IF YOU ARE HELEN ZILLE

On those planning to make the Western Cape ungovernable:

"Well, I think that the ANC leaders should call those hotheads and loudmouths to account. I ignore them — I'm not making an issue with them. Quite frankly I am getting on with my work and they must dance on the sidelines. It is their right to dance on the sidelines; it is my duty to work."

Ah yes, but the important question is: will they be dancing with machine guns?

Will you be calling President Zuma's hotline? Go on, it's free…

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