It’s not often that a country’s leader goes to court to nullify laws that his own government drafted and he earlier happily signed. But hey, this is South Africa where the left hand often is at odds with its right-hand partner. Here, trade unions regularly demonstrate against the very government that they are part of. […]
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Posted inNews/Politics
2014: The SAS Zuma adrift in choppy waters
The year’s close is traditionally a time for introspection. It is not only an opportunity to dwell nostalgically on what was good, but also to identify patterns that if extrapolated give plausible shape to our future. South Africa’s first year without Nelson Mandela around has been a rudderless one. And since Madiba was absent from […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Protecting Zuma by force: A dishonourable Parliament
Last night ANC MPs showed South Africa how far they were willing to go when others attempted to hold them to account. In the hours of bedlam, heckling, and howling[1] the ANC managed to push South Africa’s democracy to the brink. The ANC not only voted to protect President Jacob Zuma, who according the Public […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Why Zuma’s resignation is true if we say so
How do you get more than 350 000 visits to your website in just a few days? Claim that the South African president has resigned. Siyathokoza Khumalo created an online media frenzy with a blog post on November 3 facetiously titled President Jacob Zuma has resigned. Social media went nuts and the hashtag #ZumasResigned is still […]
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All that Emperor Zuma wants is respect, mon. Respect!
South Africa is devolving into an imperial presidency. At its head stands Emperor Jacob Zuma, an incipient despot taking critical decisions on apparent whim. It emerged this week that six weeks after announcing a R1-trillion deal with Russia for nuclear power stations, struck mano a mano between the South African and Russian presidents, the most […]
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Lost for words to describe Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma
It is something that is always at the back of the minds of leaders: the question of how they will be remembered by subsequent generations. In the deferential East, the Chinese will happily bob and scrape to such obvious fibs as The Great Helmsman to describe mass murderer Mao Zedong, while North Korea hails Kim […]
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Zuma’s State of the Nation address: Sona or just sonorous?
“Now is the hour. This is the moment. South Africa can no longer afford endless rhetoric and mutual recriminations. My government needs to act. It has an electoral mandate to act. And act we shall. We stand or fall by the deliverables that we pledge today.” These are extracts from what political observers, both locally […]
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Zuma’s gilded battlements besieged by the public protector
Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s long delayed report into the expenditure of at least R246-million of taxpayer money on President Jacob Zuma’s rural home at Nkandla is undoubtedly the non-fiction must-read of the year. And equally, were they to be collected into a single volume, the tripartite alliance’s attack dogs’ ongoing attempts at discrediting the report […]
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Zuma’s muti leaves the opposition wilting
Not in two decades – not in 66 years, come to think of it – has South Africa’s Official Opposition had better prospects of landing the ruling party a bruising body blow. As things stand, however, it might well botch the opportunity. The African National Congress is, after all, in unparalleled disarray. It has squandered […]
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It’s do nothing days in Zuma’s la-la land
South Africa’s ‘do nothing’ season, officially known as the festive break, is in effect a month-long shutdown that traditionally runs from December 16 to mid-January. The bad economic news is that this time around, it’s going to run for several months longer, at least up to the general election. With the December 5 death of […]
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Plotting the parameters of genocide – the SACP and Zuma booing
The ancient Chinese thinker Confucius is reputed to have said: “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper names.” At the risk of inviting the vitriol that attracts calling things by their proper names, I will testify, hopefully not in a kangaroo court, that the SACP’s statement of December 11 2013 which […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Dear President Zuma…
I hope this letter finds you in the best of health and spirits, after a restful evening, sleeping in your heavily guarded homes and state of the art security systems. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for my neighbours and I who were left reeling after a burglar scaled my property’s fence last night. On […]