South Africa’s problem is that its constitution is a perfect brochure of the nation it aspires to be. But the contractors entrusted with its future have an entirely different project in mind.
#FeesMustFall, and its demands for zero university fee increases, is in a second cycle of mass resistance in South Africa.
Mike Hutchings/Reuters
The making of South Africa’s Constitution took six long years. Now, 20 years later, the process of drawing up this revered document is being tainted with myth making.
President Jacob Zuma is the common denominator in South Africa’s governance problems.
Nic Bothma/EPA
Defects in political governance, especially President Jacob Zuma’s failure to provide leadership, have induced a crisis of confidence in South Africa’s economy.
Can President Jacob Zuma continue to cling to power?
Mike Hutchings/Reuters
The former public protector’s report has stirred national consciousness. Jacob Zuma is swimming against the tide. Is he sinking, or might he still pull the trick of a proverbial cat with nine lives?
The criminal case against South African finance minister Pravin Gordhan, right, is an example of President Jacob Zuma’s abuse of state institutions.
GCIS
The use of the prosecuting authority and the police in ANC succession struggles has a long history. What’s different in the Zuma era is the symbiosis between elite police and the prosecution service.
South African President Jacob Zuma. What next?
Reuters/Philimon Bulawayo
South African President Jacob Zuma’s days of spinning out court cases indefinitely and at taxpayers’ expense may soon come to an end – possibly his worst news in a week of bad news.
South Africa and Ethiopia are part of a wave of protests sweeping across parts of Africa that are known as Africa Uprising.
Reuters/Tiksa Negeri
The growing revolt against South Africa’s president, amid state capture allegations, is not an isolated event, but part of a much wider pan-African uprising led by the continent’s disaffected youth.
Protestors call for the removal of South Africa President Jacob Zuma outside court in Pretoria, the capital city.
Mike Hutchings/Reuters
For the moment President Zuma’s supporters control the governing ANC’s levers of power. But an unprecedented number of people in the ANC are turning against him. How long will the centre hold?
A student passes South African riot police during free education protests at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
Some students argue wrongly that the ANC has betrayed the promise of free higher education made in the Freedom Charter. The governing party’s populism is also to blame for the confusion.
Nelson Mandela came to power in 1994 with a promise to redress historical in equalities in South Africa.
Shutterstock
South Africa’s 2016 medium term budget was awaited with bated breath amid rising political tensions, increasingly violent student protests and the threat of a credit downgrade.
University authorities in South Africa have agreed to most fees protesters’ demands. Yet, the protesters keep moving the goalposts. Do they want more than fees to fall?
Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela depicted on church wall in west London.
Toby Melville/Reuters
South African universities are aflame as student protests for free education turn violent. But, would a non-violent approach, as preached by Martin Luther King, be more effective in their cause?
South Africa’s minister of finance, Pravin Gordhan, is under attack.
Reuters
Closer examination of criminal charges brought against South Africa’s finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, suggest that they are weak in law and serve a political agenda.
Challenging times for some BRICS countries.
Reuters
BRICS is slowly being written off as a bloc that can administer coherent political action.
South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma (right) and Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa. The jury is out on whether Ramaphosa will break ranks.
Mike Hutchings/Reuters
The stakes have not been higher since the heady days of the early 1990s when South Africa also looked over the brink. Now it is less about brink and more about who will blink
The 2016 South African local government elections showed the country moving away from single party dominance.
Rogan Ward/Retuers
Recent political events suggest that South Africa is at a crossroad where it could either be tipped into a fully corrupted state or saved by multi-party plurality
Sol Plaatje never stopped learning, nor teaching.
Flowcomm/Flickr
How did Sol Plaatje, a man with only four years of formal schooling, become one of South Africa’s most brilliant and committed public educators?
Sol Plaatje at his writing desk taken from his book Native Life in South Africa.
Historical Papers Research Archive, University of the Witwatersrand A979 Fca3.
The centennial publication of Sol Plaatje’s seminal, ‘Native Life’ is a timely reminder of his estimation of intellectual work, in contrast to the current disparagement of ‘clever blacks’.
Chief Research Specialist in Democracy and Citizenship at the Human Science Research Council and a Research Fellow Centre for African Studies, University of the Free State