Jacob Zuma

One year of GNU: Power-sharing or power struggle?

Tony Leon considers the first anniversary of South Africa’s coalition government, reflecting on the ANC’s political decline, the DA’s limited power in the partnership, and the challenges of restoring voter faith amid mounting dissatisfaction. On 11 June 2024, exactly one year ago, the DA presented its “framework agreement” for a coalition government to govern South Africa [...]

The Mayor of Cape Town, Geordin Hill-Lewis, engages in a thought-provoking conversation with Tony Leon about his latest book, ‘Being There: Backstories from the Political Front’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NoFl_pxo-Q&list=PL73Gj_So3oSVSq5C7dggvXLVYWcrue6kh

Douglas Gibson: A life of persistence, loyalty, and adaptability in politics

Tony Leon remembers Douglas Gibson, who died last Friday, as one of the great builders of our politics. Long-lived, controversial British politician Enoch Powell memorably said, “All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.” Powell died [...]

Economic freefall: SA faces a perfect storm of worsening dilemmas

In an act of conspicuous national self-destruction, the ANC has set the scene for the ejection of the DA from the GNU, writes Tony Leon. Circa 1899, the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, developed the idea of "screen memory". This suggested that one memory can function to hide another, typically, unconscious mental content. Perhaps only psychologists [...]

ANC’s chaotic Budget shenanigans: ‘You are not serious people’

Logan Roy was the magnificent and monstrous patriarch at the centre of the satirical television masterpiece Succession. In the second episode of its final season in 2023, Roy delivered a killer line to his dysfunctional children, "I love you, but you are not serious people". Absent any amity, indeed amid high levels of acrimony, "you [...]

Echoes of populism: The Peronists in Argentina, the Zumas in SA, the Trumps in the US

A core task of an ambassador is to put the best gloss abroad on challenging aspects on the home front. True to this idea, on the eve of his departure to the United States as ambassador-designate, Ebrahim Rasool said of the fragile GNU here, and the exclusion of Jacob Zuma's MK Party from it: "There [...]

eNCA – 29 Days in June. Aired Sunday 25th August at 8pm

For 29 days in June, South Africa was gripped by a political drama. eNCA goes behind closed doors to uncover the make-or-break moments that forged the government of national unity. https://www.enca.com/shows/29-days-june-annika-larsen-special-report  

From Trump’s GOP to South Africa’s EFF: how the populists are not that popular

When Donald J Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president on 20 January 2017, he delivered a dystopian speech on the state of his nation, summarised as "American Carnage". Leaving that event, George W Bush, the 43rd president and last Republican to hold that office before Trump, remarked on his successor's oration: "That was some weird s..t." [...]

Go to Top