Monthly Archives: February 2019

Of economic windfalls and political disasters

Karl Lagerfeld, the fashion genius at the house of Chanel who died this week in Paris, was described by a peer as "the creator of dreams". Whoever conceived the 2019 ANC election slogan, however, must be living a nightmare right now. To quote the party billboard: "The Power is in Your Hands - Grow SA". [...]

By |2019-02-28T08:06:58+00:00February 24th, 2019|Cyril Ramaphosa, Eskom, Uncategorized|0 Comments

Do Cyril and Tito dare break the racial quota taboo at Eskom?

Thursday is the most downcast budget day since the arrival of the ANC in government in 1994. Back then, the international isolation of the departing apartheid regime coupled with the minus growth of the local economy under siege had left the new administration with a bare fiscal cupboard. Indeed, incoming minister Mac Maharaj, a confidant [...]

Cyril Ramaphosa can take valuable pointers from Roosevelt’s play book

A year ago today, Cyril Ramaphosa was inaugurated as SA president, taking over a country on the verge of a nervous, indeed general, breakdown after the rampaging excesses and gross delinquencies of the Jacob Zuma administration. Leaving aside the highly inconvenient fact that Ramaphosa was the number two man at the helm for  more than [...]

The rise of the political professional has paralysed SA parties

And then there were none. That was the thought that occurred last Thursday, in Bryanston, Sandton, when I attended the memorial service for Rupert Lorimer. Until his death in early January, Lorimer was the last living member of the group of six new MPs who, in 1974, were elected to parliament for the Progressive Party, [...]

Go to Top