Two firebrands, separate in their political allegiances, but equal in their reliance on personality politics. As the battle intensifies for the province of the Eastern Cape in South Africa's general election on Wednesday, the outcome is becoming increasingly dependent on this pair of mavericks.

Two firebrands, separate in their political allegiances, but equal in their reliance on personality politics. As the battle intensifies for the province of the Eastern Cape in South Africa's general election on Wednesday, the outcome is becoming increasingly dependent on this pair of mavericks.

With the help of an overhead projector and a few corny jokes, the emigration consultant has taken just one hour to deliver a narrative that starts with resentment and ends with the 100, mostly white, people in audience dreaming of a better life somewhere else.

Not surprisingly, the Kosovan Albanians have been first in line. Persecuted, exterminated and forced to flee their homes, at least the parallels with regard to them are not completely absurd. With Blair casting Milosevic as Hitler, they at least have symmetry on their side. Not to mention Steven Spielberg. The Yugoslav officer who saved 4,000 ethnic Albanians from a death squad has become 'Schindler'; an ethnic Albanian journalist has compared his flight from Kosovo to a scene from Schindler's List.

Welsh secretary Alun Michael today branded the additional member voting system `a little bit like a bingo game'. His predecessor Ron Davies described voting as 'something of an ordeal' - this from a man who, post-Clapham Common, knows something of ordeals.

Not that the new system has nothing to recommend it. Parties are no longer encouraged to concentrate their resources on a few marginals, but can spread their energies into every electoral nook and cranny they can find.