There is merriment on social media, writes Tony Leon, but Zuma is in a deadly serious battle for the economy as he shrugs off election losses and takes SOEs under his control. Memes - those social media images that go viral on the internet - were in overdrive this week to herald the improbable trifecta [...]
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. [...]
'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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
Last week's landing at Air Force Base Waterkloof by a planeload of Indian grandees was altogether a more welcome occasion than the last time arrivals there made the headlines. Readers will recall that state- or Gupta-capture was first heralded in April 2013, when the infamous family flew in a chartered jet for a wedding and, [...]
AMONG the many benefits of being in residence as a Fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics some years back, was to become acquainted with some of the faculty at a university overflowing with the academic equivalents of rock stars. Niall Ferguson, the whip-smart and charismatic professor of history, had a keen interest in SA, which [...]
