The South African currency, the rand, fell to its lowest level in four years after President Jacob Zuma removed the country’s finance minister.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
The Africa-China summit will provide an opportunity to get a feel for how Chinese President Xi Jinping is responding to democratic developments in Africa.
President Jacob Zuma took over as leader of the ANC with a promise to reconnect the party with the people. His legacy suggests otherwise.
Reuters/Sumaya Hisham
Judged by general citizen sentiment expressed at the grassroots, Jacob Zuma has failed to bring the ANC closer to the people. Research shows substantial alienation between the ANC and communities.
I spent most of August 2015 in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia – a depressing and mournful tour indeed. The place I stayed in South Africa, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, is atypical. I am almost…
South African President Jacob Zuma, right, listens to Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng ahead of Zuma’s second inauguration in Pretoria.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
Tensions are probably inevitable in any constitutional democracy that empowers the courts to overrule the executive and legislature. But, judges are worried cabinet undermines the rule of law.
South African President Jacob Zuma is also head of the country’s governing ANC. Leaders of the party and its alliance partners are meeting to take stock amid tough times.
Reuters/Rogan Ward
The leaders of South Africa’s governing ANC and its alliance partners, the SACP and Cosatu, are holding an unprecedented week-long meeting at a time of grave difficulties afflicting the alliance.
The scene at Marikana on August 16, 2012. The South African Police Services came in for targeted criticism in the Farlam Commission report.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
Did the former union leader, multi-millionaire former businessman and current deputy president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, have the blood of 34 striking mineworkers on his hands?
Muhammadu Buhari’s victory in Nigeria emboldens him to play a leading role in African affairs.
Reuters
Former presidents Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo led confidently on African affairs because they were elected by comfortable majorities at home and had solid control of their political parties.
The relationship between Nigeria and South Africa has again been strained following xenophobic attacks in South Africa.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
It has been an interesting month for leaders across Africa. Goodluck Jonathan finally declared a “total war” against Boko Haram despite not having the means to wage one, and after a puzzlingly sluggish…
What are we to make of the results of the 2014 South African elections? On one level, it was largely predictable: the ANC was always going to lose some support, but not enough to please the opposition…
Jacob Zuma’s ANC won the 2014 South African election with 62% of the vote, 3% down from 2009. Its nearest rival, the Democratic Alliance, won 22%, 6% up. And the newcomers, Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom…
On the surface, 2014 appears to represent “business as usual” for the landscape of South Africa’s electoral politics. The African National Congress (ANC) has secured a fifth straight victory in the latest…
Victory dance: ANC says it will smash opposition.
EPA/Ihsaan Haeffejee
The African National Congress drew a crowd of more than 100,000 supporters to its final election rally in Soweto at the weekend and there was a palpably jubilant mood at the rally as supporters predicted…
Onward and upward? Guess which is which.
EPA/Ntswe Mokoena
At the end of 2012, I published a deliberately surreal novel entitled Joseph Kony and the Titans of Zagreb. In it, using satire and magic realism, I tied together the corrupt destinies of figures on both…
Get with it: AU chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma (left).
GovernmentZA
When the South African president, Jacob Zuma, returned from the African Union summit last weekend, his press statement said almost nothing that could not have been written before he left. The summit decided…
Is Mamphela Ramphele the next president of South Africa? No.
Chatham House
Over the past year, South Africa’s media have relished the excitement and hype around the emergence of two new political parties. Julius Malema, the expelled former leader of the ANC Youth League notorious…
Surly: Zuma’s presidency has been marked by scandal and mismanagement.
WEF
South Africa is mourning the death of Nelson Mandela, a founding father like no other. His legacy includes a still-lauded constitution, four peaceful, free and fair democratic elections (five if 2014 follows…