The Constitutional Court judgment on Nkandla and the powers of the public protector has been hanging above the heads of President Jacob Zuma and the African National Congress government like an unexploded bomb. That it was delivered on Thursday, a mere six weeks after counsel for both side delivered their summations, was a sign that […]
William Saunderson-Meyer
This Jaundiced Eye column appears in Weekend Argus, The Citizen, and Independent on Saturday. WSM is also a book reviewer for the Sunday Times and Business Day. Follow @TheJaundicedEye.
Posted inNews/Politics
It’s not about capture but control
Catchphrases quickly move from being nifty idioms that ignite thought to clichés that stifle it. Such is the likely fate of “state capture”, a phrase that features in virtually every media account of President Jacob Zuma’s controversial relationship with the Gupta family. But what has been happening in the past weeks is not about state […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Is there a ‘reasonable person’ in charge of SA?
This week President Jacob Zuma went to Parliament to account to the people, as constitutionally a president periodically perforce must. The key issue was the role that his political benefactors, the Gupta clan, allegedly play in ministerial appointments. What a nation agog over a series of revelations from within African National Congress ranks had hoped […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Zimbabwe: The triumph of hope over experience
Southern African politics is a rambunctious affair. It’s far removed from the predictable and safe parameters of the established Anglophone democracies against which we surreptitiously measure ourselves. It’s a bit like being slung into a tumble dryer with a sack of razor blades. One accepts that one is going to incur nicks and cuts, with […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Time to act against the EFF
Minister of Higher Education and Training Blade Nzimande, who was noticeably absent from the sites of student protest over the past months, has surfaced. Blinking his eyes in Rip Van Winkle befuddlement, true. But mercifully surfaced. The police, he reassures, will in future take “decisive action” over violent protests. Lest we be misled into thinking […]
Posted inNews/Politics
SA’s politicians crash and burn on Armed Forces Day
Armed Forces Day this past Monday was marked by what the media described as a “spectacular” show, including a large fly past that included four Gripens, four Hawks, three C-130s and several Oryx helicopters, as well as the Silver Falcons “in tight formation”. In other words, the South African Air Force (SAAF), which has been […]
Posted inNews/Politics
EFF has only contempt for democracy and the law
As South Africans are discovering, a state-of-the-art constitution does not of itself a thriving democracy make. Similarly, ersatz military ranks, red berets and Che Guevara slogans do not a revolution make. The Economic Freedom Fighters love radical rhetoric but the seizure of “white” land and the nationalisation without compensation of the mines are, at this […]
Posted inNews/Politics
A torrid week for President Zuma
Flypasts, 21-gun salutes, and ostentatious fashion statements by preening MPs. The annual opening of Parliament with its presidential State of the Nation Address (Sona) is one of those political rituals that has always mattered more to the participants than it does to the ordinary citizen. Joe Soap generally paid the pomp and platitudes little attention. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
President Zuma is a dead man walking
President Jacob Zuma is a dead man walking, metaphorically speaking. The political free rein allowed him by cowed party colleagues for the past seven years has suddenly been pulled in. He remains nominally in charge but increasingly less in control. In December, Zuma’s manoeuvring to allegedly benefit cronies led to the firing of respected Finance […]
Posted inBusiness
Corporate SA is having a greed attack
Corporate South Africa mostly takes its social responsibilities seriously. That’s maybe because its sector is besieged by nostalgic communists from within government and on the streets by wilfully ignorant radicals. There’s Woolworths with proclamations of commitment to social transformation and pious promises of ethically driven behaviour. There’s furniture retailer Joshua Doore, which for more than […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
The dark side of the global village
We are constantly being reminded that because of instant digital connectivity, we live in a global village. Along with another over-worked modern metaphor — that it takes a village to raise a child — this is a phrase generally used with approval or, at worst, resignation. The less salutary aspects of village life are rarely […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The intellectually supple Mr Zuma does some semantic yoga
It is sometimes difficult to follow President Jacob Zuma’s explanations of events. His utterances can be so convoluted that the thread of logic is all but invisible. Or else they are patently contradictory. At other times he makes plainly incorrect assertions that are never retracted. So they lie there, littering his political reputation like discarded […]