Freedom Day 2020 was the most baleful in SA’s recent history since we spent it under house arrest. That phantom from our past, ostensibly banished by our 1996 constitution, is back with a vengeance due to a viral pathogen we cannot see, cannot interdict effectively but can, under stringent conditions, delay. And since so little is known [...]
Here's a remarkable and democratically depressing fact: South African voters rarely change their national government. Under the whites-only franchise until 1989, the National Party won an extraordinary 11 consecutive elections. Since the advent of full democracy in 1994, the ANC has won five polls on the trot. The 40-plus percentage points separating the ANC from [...]
In Malema’s delicate phraseology, “We are going for your white man, we are going to cut your throat” His view on nationals from the key Brics nations? “Chinese are like Indians. They think they are close to whiteness. When they practise racism, they are even worse than whites.” Of course this bilious and crude ethnic [...]
A few days late and many dollars short‚ as the old saying goes‚ Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday in East London delivered the ANC January 8 statement in celebration of the movement’s 106th anniversary. The lack of funds is not a reflection on the self-styled Buffalo Man’s huge net worth‚ but on the costly populist promises [...]
"Finance minister Pravin Gordhan, stands like Horatio on the bridge trying to hold back the ratings agencies" A FRIEND of mine in London sent me an amazing betting statistic. If you had wagered a paltry £5 on a trifecta of Leicester City winning the Premier League in May, Britain voting for Brexit in June and [...]
MORE than 14,000km, most of the Atlantic Ocean and a six-hour time difference separate Cape Town from Cleveland, Ohio. Yet, last Thursday, at more or less the same time, these two cities hosted versions of political theatre that drew large radio and TV ratings on the expectation that politics at its most intense and interesting [...]
Julius Malema has chosen to participate in Parliament, yet regards himself unbound by its rules and precedents, writes Tony Leon THURSDAY night’s debacle in Parliament reminded me of a spectacularly bad football match. Instead of focusing on the man with the ball, the spectators’ attention pivots to the activities away from the centrepiece — the [...]
