Tony Leon traces a line from the Berlin Wall to Simon’s Town, arguing that South Africa’s choices now side with repression over freedom – risking trade, investment and diplomatic fallout. My late parliamentary colleague Harry Schwarz had a gift for explaining complexity in understandable terms. Many decades after his arrival in 1934 in South Africa [...]
Tony Leon questions whether current ANC and DA leadership can deliver on their repeated promises while staying true to their ideological foundations in the government of national unity. Bar the fact that both Winston Churchill, who saved the world from Nazism, and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, current ruler of Dubai, loved horse racing, there [...]
From the R2 billion Tembisa Hospital looting spree to punitive racial quotas that could bankrupt retailers, the government continues to simultaneously rely on business to fix state failures while treating the private sector as an enemy of the people, argues Tony Leon. About a decade ago, I addressed a group of business leaders in Durban [...]
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s latest newsletter on fighting corruption reads like a masterclass in denial and euphemism, claiming South Africa must “build a society in which corruption cannot take root” while keeping Zondo Commission-implicated ministers in his Cabinet and failing to prosecute a single politician, despite overwhelming evidence of state capture, argues Tony Leon. On August [...]
South Africa’s leadership – “the lanyard class” – is dangerously disconnected from domestic realities, prioritising international engagement over pressing local concerns. And it will affect the outcome of elections, writes Tony Leon. In December 2019, former British prime minister, Boris Johnson, used Trumpian populism when he won the election on the back of Brexit. Though earlier [...]
By using Machiavelli to diagnose Ramaphosa and the ANC’s leadership, Tony Leon argues that they have achieved the worst possible outcome - neither feared nor loved by voters. The works of Niccolò Machiavelli - the medieval Florentine philosopher and diplomat - are still cited as a how-to manual for effective leadership in all realms. Machiavelli’s reputation as [...]
https://www.news24.com/multimedia/podcasts/podcast-the-lead-tony-leon-on-the-state-of-the-gnu-the-da-and-brown-envelopes-20250806-1023
It is a case of every man, woman or party for themselves, and the country buckles in the absence of joined-up government, writes Tony Leon. In Zbig, a new and fascinating biography of the late hardline US National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Edward Luce writes, “figures in senior [government] roles have no time to replenish their stock [...]
https://www.news24.com/weekender/interview-tony-leon-on-the-gnu-helen-zille-and-the-joy-of-dachshunds-20250523-0441
https://www.netwerk24.com/netwerk24/kunste/boeke/intieme-blik-op-n-besonderse-loopbaan-20250525
