When I heard UFC was coming to South Africa, I became very excited and ran to the pub instead of driving. Well, I ran halfway there, then called an Uber. I told the driver that the Unlimited Fighting Championship was on its way and he too became very excited and we were shouting and laughing and punching each other in the face when the news came on and we discovered that instead of getting to see a murderous mixed martial arts event, we’re being rewarded with the unpleasant sight of Bosa, Good and Rise Mzansi forming an unseemly cuddle puddle called Unite for Change.

Mmusi Maimane, Patricia de Lille and Songezo Zibi are joining forces to secure their political future in the 2026 local government elections. It’s the Communist Party syndrome – merge or die.

But while it’s a new coalition, all three will still exist as independent parties. They’re essentially friends with benefits. They don’t want to get married but are quite happy to hook up for a bit of the old coitus politicus on weekends. There’s a good reason threesomes always fall apart. Someone eventually wants to try something weird, or complains about not getting enough attention. My money’s on Patricia being pushed to the side of the bed while Mmusi and Songezo get it on.

Then again, she does come with the cachet of being an actual minister in this hotbed of scroungers and swindlers we laughingly call a cabinet. Perhaps it’s more curse than cachet. We, the people, are baying for fresh blood and come next year’s municipal elections, we are going to be in no mood for putting the same hacks and has-beens back into power. So Patricia could well prove to be more of a millstone than a philosopher’s stone.

In announcing this tedious development on Sunday, the trio promised “one name, one platform and one purpose”. That’s too many ones. We’re not interested in one of anything unless it’s followed by the word million. Also, just one purpose? Sounds a bit too single-minded for my liking. Hitler had one purpose. As does Benjamin Netanyahu.

The troika of tricksters said they had “heard the call of the nation”. Oh, dear. The call very much depends on where and when they were listening. If it was 3am on a long weekend in Sea Point, the call might well have been “jou ma se p**s”. In Durban, it would’ve been hadedas. And in Joburg, the sound of traffic police soliciting bribes. Everywhere else, the call is for a last round.

Mmusi said politics is too important to be left to politicians. I believe democracy is too important to be left to the people. War is too important to be left to the generals. Also, economics is too important to be left to the economists. And beer is too important to be left to the brewers. See? The whole family can have fun playing this meaningless word game.

He said it’s unity of purpose that brings about change. Personally, I think it’s millions of people marching on the Union Buildings with pitchforks and flaming torches that brings about change. Whoops. Let’s not get carried away here. In my defence, I was swept up in a protest in Paris on Saturday that ended at the Bastille, site of the notorious prison that was stormed by angry mobs tired of waiting for surly waiters to serve them.

Patricia said UFC is more than just a political party. No, it’s not, auntie. You sound like those people who look lovingly at their dog and shake their heads in wonder. “He’s so much more than a dog,” they tell you. Are you saying he’s half-human? Some kind of fur-covered deity of an undiscovered religion? Should I prostrate before him?

“The real hard work,” said Patricia, bravely using a sequence of words generally avoided like the plague by her fellow ministers, “is to persuade South Africans to join the quest for something better … come and join our quest for a better South Africa.” Oh, we’re on a quest now, are we? Like medieval knights searching for some kind of holy grail that only exists in the minds of mad people and politicians. If we’re being called on to go on a mythical quest, I want to ride a unicorn and have a sword made from the finest hazenile.

She rabbited on: “Now is the time, especially for the young people, to design your own future.” Great idea. Come along, kids. Start designing today. You can build your bright new future on the smoking, shattered foundations of the future that previous generations built for you.

Songezo, who might’ve had his drink spiked and discovered too late that he’d joined the new three-ring circus, said something about there being the need for a reset of South Africa’s political leadership. The former journalist is clearly a master of the understatement.

The unholy trinity said they’d only fully merge after 2029, by which time we’ll all be learning Russian in our underground bunkers.