Mannie’s minister and municipal master(s)

For a long time I’ve wanted to both rebuke and defend (new) government ministers with respect to their attitudes to (their) voters. You may regard those election-time voters as “the electorate,” the party “base,” the ministers’ “constituents” or “constituencies,” or simply the nation’s people long after the party and the elected representatives begged for – and sometimes received – their precious career-building/career-sustaining votes.

So why does this issue attract my attention? Because the comrade-in-the-street and print media letter columns frequently bemoan the seemingly negative “treatment” by elected officials towards their constituents whether their “own” or not.

The pre-election environment and context will differ, somewhat significantly of course, when the dust of office status and authority settles after elections. And that reality is what poor Mannie had and has to come to terms with now. However perplexed, then bitter and disillusioned he has become. But who is poor Mannie?