News/Politics

The memory of a politician is often as short as their election promises are long. An example is the speed with which the elected — and electorate — forgot an election undertaking by the ruling party in 2004 promising to strengthen the Scorpions as part of its proposed anti-corruption drive. Fast forward five years and […]

Muzzling the Nando’s chicken would be funny if it weren’t so serious: the ANC Youth League’s threat to mobilise — get that? — mobilise the people of South Africa to rise up against a manufacturer of spicy chicken takeaways is another worrying pointer to a near future that every true democrat must dread. Oh come […]

Submitted by Marius Redelinghuys Nobody can deny the DA’s landslide — overwhelming — by-election victories in Cape Town’s 2nd and 79th wards. The by-election results indicated a 96.34% showing of support for the DA in ward 2 and 79.38% in ward 79. Moreover, one cannot deny that these by-election victories are marked improvements on the […]

In a recent ANC Today post, President Kgalema Motlanthe rehashes an article he wrote in the run-up to the 1999 elections in which he criticised the then DP’s calls to prevent a two-thirds majority as “a fear of democracy”. In that decade-old piece he said: Lacking a coherent or realisable vision for a better South […]

Let me just state upfront that this piece is about and directed at the DA. So if you find yourself thinking “for someone disappointed in the DA, he sure mentions them a lot”, worry not, it IS intentional. The Democratic Alliance is currently the largest opposition party in South African politics. It has a greater […]

In the late evening of the 31st March 2009 I suffered a major heart attack and was admitted early the following morning to the intensive care unit of the Linksfield Clinic in Johannesburg. At 48 years of age and despite my lifestyle it took me by surprise I can tell you. While I thought it […]

Jacob Zuma casts doubt on the Constitution and the Mail & Guardian cuts the Africa section: what a week! Insulting the dignity of the Constitutional Court is the sort of thing I expect to hear coming out of Julius Malema’s mouth; I didn’t expect the head of the ANC to say such a thing. It’s […]

On Sunday 29 March, a devastating article by Peter Hitchens on Jacob Zuma and South Africa’s future was published in Britain’s Daily Mail. Couched in a sickening, sensationalist discourse swirling with racist and colonialist undertones, the story employed gross misrepresentation, selective truth-telling, distortion and stereotyping to depict South Africa as about to collapse into the […]

For those of us who simply don’t buy acting NPA director Mokotedi Mpshe’s story about why he dropped the fraud, corruption, money-laundering and racketeering charges against Jacob Zuma, I thought it might be worth considering five more plausible explanations Mpshe might have provided for his decision. 1. Personal betrayal and revenge. An astounding piece of […]

I admit that I am a pseudo-terrorist, that I have in the past engaged in pseudo-terrorist and pseudo-guerilla activities in the pursuit of certain political goals. Indeed the hypocrisy and contradiction of doing so would give me cause to lose sleep at night, were it not for my monastic lifestyle and my community service which […]

Dear Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa Re: If you don’t vote — you can’t complain I write in complaint of a campaign conducted by or under the authority of the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (hereinafter referred to as the IEC). This campaign bears the message, “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain, […]