A Rubicon for Big Business

Can big business really parachute its own candidate into the coming 2024 election and get him elected president? That’s the ambition, it seems, behind a bid to find a political home for Roger Jardine as revealed in the Sunday Times last Sunday. There’s up to a billion rand to back a new horse but is the circle of possible funder being too picky? “Business needs to cross its own Rubicon,” Freedom Front Plus chief whip Corne Mulder tells Peter Bruce in this gripping edition of Podcasts From the Edge. It needs, he says, to understand the opportunity before it and while putting R1bn into an election. Does all the money get behind Jardine or can all “good” opposition (presumably excluding the EFF) share in it and get behind Jardine when parliament meets to elect a president after the election? Mulder also deals with the need to include the Patriotic Alliance in the Charter before it becomes a “kingmaker” after and wonders whether, just possibly, the Democratic Alliance might be lured into a Grand Coalition with the ANC if the ruling party vote slips below 50%.