It was the best and worse of South African political discourse. It was the raw hope of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison exactly 25 years ago this week, reduced to a squabbling farce. It was the magisterial Chair of the National Chamber of Provinces versus the classroom monitor pettiness of the Speaker of the National […]
PW Botha
Posted inNews/Politics
Close the gate quietly behind you when you leave, Mr President
Watergate set the trend. Since then we have locally had Muldergate, Travelgate, Guptagate and now Nkandlagate. There are others, quickly forgotten as new political outrages displace the old more swiftly than one can keep track. The gate suffix is now so ubiquitous through journalistic overuse as to be meaningless. Especially given what separates the first […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Traditional Courts Bill: Colonialism warmed up
The retabled Traditional Courts Bill, if adopted in its current form, will relegate at least 17 million South Africans to a separate and unequal judicial regime merely because they happen to live in the rural areas – a situation in many cases imposed on them by the apartheid regime. While cabinet’s planned “review” of Constitutional […]