When it comes to picking the Twit of the Year, South Africans are spoilt for choice. So many idiots so little space. Ah yes, I know what you are thinking: ANCYL. That should cover about half of them. But Julius and his henchmen are not the only South Africans guilty of lowering the national IQ.

We've looked back over the past year and picked out our top contenders ? those who did or said something so spectacularly stupid that even the most cynical journalists at iafrica.com were flabbergasted.

Read through our list of contenders (don't forget page two) and then vote in the poll!

Leonard Chuene

Leonard Chuene ? a man who, up until this year, was virtually unknown ? made such a mess of the Caster Semenya debacle that, for a short while, he trumped Julius Malema as the most vilified man in SA.

Put simply: he messed up; he lied; and then he lied some more.

Having categorically denied that gender tests were conducted on 800m-champion Caster Semenya, having denied that he authorised and paid for said (non-existent) tests, and having flagrantly brandished the race-card, Chuene finally came clean. Well, sort of.

"I now realise that it was an error of judgement and I would like to apologise unconditionally. As president of ASA, I will not, however, apologise for allowing Caster Semenya to run or for protecting her privacy."

Johan Visser

Demonstrating that it would, perhaps, have been prudent for Helen Zille to appoint a few more females to her all-male cabinet, DA member Johan Visser ignored an entire century of work in the campaign for women to have equal rights. At a Women's Day celebration. Yip, the astute politician thought that this would be a good time to remind women that they belong in the kitchen.

"Women, on the other hand, are supposed to give birth and therefore cannot do the physical things males can do. They are supposed to create a home for the children and look after them."

Angie Molebatsi

Following the accidental shooting by police of an innocent woman, Olga Kekana, who just happened to be in the wrong car at the wrong time, ANC MP Angie Molebatsi thought that it would be a good idea to crash her funeral and promote the South African Police Service.

"One way or another, we are all going to die, regardless of whether a cop shoots you or you were ill. Let's not lose hope towards the police. Let's keep on trusting them. Forgiveness is what God wants. This was her (Kekana's) destiny, let's not blame the police."

Well, at least Parliament is in safe hands.

Floyd Shivambu

Who could forget ANCYL spokesperson Floyd Shivambu's hilarious (if a little baffling) interview with Redi Direko on Talk Radio 702? After Helen Zille criticised Jacob Zuma's sexual behaviour, Floyd made the following not-so-well-thought-out statement:

"Zille has appointed an all-male cabinet of useless people, the majority of whom are her boyfriends and concubines, so that she can continue to sleep around with them, yet she claims to have the moral authority to question our president."

Confused? So was Direko, so she invited Floyd to elaborate. This is what she got:

"We mean exactly that. We say what we mean. We say that she's sleeping around and we mean that she is sleeping around? Our interpretation of sleeping around is sleeping around? We say what we mean and we mean what we say."

That, folks, is the spokesperson for the ANCYL.

Wesley Kgang

Jumping on the Zille-bashing bandwagon, Wesley Kgang, the previously unknown president of the Congress of South African Students, said that Zille was "not a woman but suspected of being a lesbian". Not only this, apparently she was possibly not even South African, but from Holland.

Ah? xenophobia and homophobia all wrapped up nicely in one parcel. Someone should explain to Mr Kgang that in order to be lesbian, one must first be female.

Click through to page two to read about the rest of our contenders!