AT A GLANCE

AT last count some 18 million voters will be eligible to vote in SA's June 2 general election. Our insanely generous (with our tax money) ANC regime has allocated R52 103 000 in funding to eight of the 41 participating parties. These eight fought the 1994 election, have some representation in either the central or provincial parliaments. Needless to say, biggest cut of the cake, a whopping R31 million, goes to the ANC itself. Surprise, surprise!

At R1,70 a head, that should pay for one mail shot to each voter unless, true to form, the ANC's own officials pinch the lion's share from their own party. However, given the fact that Mandela has been touring Scandinavia rattling his well-worn begging bowl, there should also be some scope for the ANC and its sticky-fingered officials from foreign taxpayers. What odds that before the election is over, the ANC will have drummed up some R250 million with which to engulf its cash-strapped, down-at-heel opponents?

Neither should we forget that the ANC, always so self-indulgent with our money has in recent

weeks spent some R7 million on a spate of propaganda initiatives on TV, radio and in the print media via the government Communi-cations & Information Service, extolling the glories of what it claimed to be government "successes" over the past five years.

How do the other parties shape up in this liberal handout of your and my money? The New National Party gets R10,5 million; IFP, R5,2 mn; Freedom Front, R2,2 mn; Democratic Party, R1,7 mn; PAC, R887 168; ACDP, R661 168; MF, R192 428. MF? That's the correctly-named Minority Party, featuring Amichand Rajbansi, the MF's only member in the KwaZulu-Natal Parliament.

Bantu Holomisa's United Democratic Front, though likely to emerge as among the four largest parties in the new Parliament, gets … zilch. Another fast-growing party, Dr Louis Luyt's Federal Alliance, also gets nix, naught, zero. Judging by large, enthusiastic audiences at Dr Luyt's meetings, the FA also prom-ises some surprises.