January 26 revealed stark contrasts for two nationalist leaders as their countries and the world enter the second of perhaps endless years of the coronavirus pandemic. However, there was something a little arch about African nationalist Cyril Ramaphosa’s virtual appearance that day at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Davos Dialogues. He railed against what he [...]
“Putting the moron into oxymoron” struck me as the right lens to view the latest restrictions and beach closures announced on Monday by President Cyril Ramaphosa. Still, he is the messenger — here and in so many instances — for the whims, prejudices, non-scientific and often evidence-free diktats of co-operative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta) [...]
“The National Coronavirus Command Council”, which for past 10 weeks has governed our lives sans any input from parliament, sounds ominous enough to be plucked from the old Soviet Union playbook. Actually it is far more a case of command than council. On Sunday evening, beyond the clichés and warmed-up rhetoric of Cyril Ramaphosa, he [...]
As South Africans endure the seventh week of home imprisonment, the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic is, to borrow from the song in The King and I, “a puzzlement”. First puzzle is our new overlord, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. She seems to imagine that viral microbes possess an intelligence wing. And while several of her fellow ministers, [...]
Instead of co-ordinated governance, SA has seen disjointed decision-making and sweepingly bad decisions by the ANC Tony Blair, in his first term as British Prime Minister in 1997, introduced the idea of ‘joined up government’. This idea changed and influenced, according to policy mavens, how structures are organised, how budgets are allocated and how public [...]
Instead of co-ordinated governance, SA has seen disjointed decision-making and sweepingly bad decisions by the ANC Tony Blair, in his first term as British Prime Minister in 1997, introduced the idea of ‘joined up government’. This idea changed and influenced, according to policy mavens, how structures are organised, how budgets are allocated and how public [...]
Last Sunday heralded the promise of real political change in France and South Africa. Tony Leon analyses the parallels and differences There’s a pessimistic French expression Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose, which translates as the more things change, the more they stay the same. Two unrelated political events exactly one week ago [...]
If you have liked the presidency of Jacob Zuma so far, you will love the possible future rule of his former wife, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. And while our Department of International Relations and Co-operation has been mute on the use by the Syrian government of poison gas on its own people, it has found the [...]
