Mmusi Maimane

Spectre of past returns to haunt DA with race narrative about De Lille

The fiasco around the rapid ousting of Cape Town mayor Peter Marais 17 years ago also differs from the damaging drawn-out imbroglio The DA is in turmoil. The party leadership attempts to fire its Cape Town mayor, who is both coloured and a populist, though also someone who has migrated across the party political map. [...]

By |2018-05-16T21:59:45+00:00May 16th, 2018|Democratic Alliance, Mmusi Maimane|0 Comments

Lessons from the pitch for parties on a sticky wicket

How might the Steve Smith-led Aussie ball-tampering scandal at Newlands inform some of the key issues affecting the body politic and our economy? The obvious answer is that even the prime minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull, on Sunday described the incident as “completely beyond belief” and called for “decisive action” from Cricket Australia. Incidentally, this [...]

A tale of two seriously damaged presidents. One of them is ours

'The return of Molefe to Eskom and the ridiculous reasons offered for it makes even Trump’s explanation for firing James Comey seem plausible' Here are two — of several — quotes plucked from the weekend which seem to describe the depressing national condition into which the Jacob Zuma presidency has plunged South Africa with its [...]

Herman Mashaba: Most vulnerable at the moment of his greatest triumph

Jacob Zuma once famously blamed Jan van Riebeeck for creating South Africa's problems. On Monday, the nation watched a chaotic marathon meeting where the most glittering metro prize of all, Johannesburg, slipped from the ANC's grasp. Now the president can go even further back in our colonial history to cast about for his party's woes. [...]

Why the election’s biggest winner was Patricia de Lille

'She posted the biggest win of any party in any city' Last Wednesday, with their pens in thousands of polling stations across South Africa, the voters delivered a stunning klap to the ruling ANC. These local polls won outsize international attention, from affirming editorials in The New York Times to the front page of London's [...]

Elections offer the promise of a political horizon in flux

SPARE a thought for Jacob Zuma, president of the sharply diminished ANC, who presided last week over his party’s worst election result since 1994. His controversial homestead in Nkandla is now in a municipality controlled by his provincial nemesis, the Inkatha Freedom Party. It doesn’t get any better when he goes to work: In Pretoria, [...]

Why Mmusi’s battle is also a test for SA

The DA leader faces a stiffer electoral test than his predecessors did, writes Tony Leon On a visit to London last month, a British friend of mine had a meeting with the leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA), Mmusi Maimane. My friend advised that he was impressed with Maimane, but embarrassed that he kept calling [...]

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