Four days in December. They are the prism through which the actions of President Jacob Zuma will be viewed from now on. December is dozy time in South Africa. Whether you are in need an electrician or a lawyer, your options are few, right through to mid-January. Deprived of public interest, even politicians go into […]
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
The unravelling of President Jacob Zuma
President Jacob Zuma’s firing of Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene, after barely 18 months in the job, is one of those rare events that can leave even consummately slick political opponents spluttering for words. Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane’s flummoxed immediate response on Twitter was to state the blindingly obvious: “What we need now is a […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The fulcrum of SA’s democracy develops a wobble
It is the Supreme Court of Appeal overturning Oscar Pistorius’ manslaughter conviction, in favour of one for murder, that dominates the headlines. But this week’s Constitutional Court ruling around what appears to be a trifling municipal squabble has potentially far wider-reaching consequences. The real stress test of a democracy is whether the governing party allows […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Or is it an SAA death spiral?
One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that South African Airways is in a financial death spiral and that unless the heavy hand of incompetence — that of board chair Dudu Myeni — it is removed from the rudder, it may crash and burn. There’s a clue in the fact that […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Limping from policy disaster to policy disaster
It’s unusual to see a government that is on the face of it so entrenched in power — a solid 62% of the national vote after two decades in office, eight out of nine provincial assemblies — in such disarray. Yet President Jacob Zuma’s African National Congress administration limps from disaster to disaster, full of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
We shall remember them…or maybe not
9/11. It’s a date seared into the world’s consciousness. Then there is 11/11. Known, variously around the world, as Armistice Day, or Remembrance Day, or Poppy Day, or Veterans Day. Call it what you will. Although it predates the Twin Towers by almost a century, World War 1’s official end – the 11th hour of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Something stirs behind the dull eyes and zombie shuffle
Just occasionally one glimpses, behind the dull eyes and zombie-like shuffle of President Jacob Zuma’s disengaged administration, the values that sustained the African National Congress in the struggle years. It’s a briefly cheering reminder that all is not yet lost. This week Kgalema Motlanthe, in an uncommonly frank Business Day interview, skewered the movement to […]
Posted inNews/Politics
From small mutinies big coups doth grow
After 20 years of thwarted hopes and expectations, South Africans are adroit at juggling the private truth and public lie. The ability to reconcile these two without guilt or a giveaway smirk has become a necessary social skill to guard one’s career or business prospects. This is very much a characteristic of nations drifting towards […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
University VCs experience the epiphany of the pointy stick
It has taken a relatively small band of petulant students to highlight the fragility of President Jacob Zuma’s African National Congress government. A protest that should have been contained and defused instead has been allowed to smoulder and grow. The wannabe revolutionaries of the Economic Freedom Front and radical activist organisations have been quick to […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Zuma’s creaky legislative edifice under siege from gravity
While a president, by definition, oversees and takes responsibility for the exercise of state power, how they do so differs widely. Former president Thabo Mbeki was something of a control freak. He not only personally shaped all policy, but he also authorised every major exercise of state power and any government initiative of importance. It […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Birds of a political feather
Politicians with competing ideologies like to think of themselves as fundamentally different: socialist versus capitalist, libertarian as opposed to authoritarian, etc. Given, however, the universality of the human condition, they are actually often more alike in their personal foibles and personalities than they would care to acknowledge. Or have us to notice. For example, there […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The siren songs of Petty Officer Malema
The Economic Freedom Fighters have unveiled another plank in their nuanced political policy platform. Added to such subtleties as the right to prevent Parliament from operating, and to seize without compensation land and industry for divvying up among their supporters, the EFF are now demanding the removal of the Afrikaans words in the national anthem. […]