The ANC should draw the lesson that South Africans are unlikely to tolerate the ongoing descent of their politics into the gutter without strident resistance - in the streets, if necessary.
The planting of messages and countering narratives in the media is not new. It’s part and parcel of contemporary politics especially during elections. The internet simply makes an old problem worse.
It’s vital that the problems at the South African Broadcasting Corporation be fixed in the public interest and for democracy, given its wide media reach in the country.
Here are five political leaders from around the world who are emerging as significant talents and possible contenders for influence in 2017 and beyond.
The fallout at the meeting of South Africa’s governing ANC clearly exposed how the party’s factionalism has spilled over into government. This is likely to paralyse governance even further.
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.
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?
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?
MK, the army of the then banned ANC, electrified millions of oppressed people to rise against the apartheid regime. Today, its veterans are being used in factional battles within the ruling party.
In this new world where its lost thousands of votes does South Africa’s ruling ANC know who it is, how to be in opposition, or how it might fight its way back to winning ways?
Business people who become politicians can bring fresh energy into the public service. They come from an ecosystem that is driven by urgency to produce measurable results.
South Africa’s watershed local elections have resulted in upsets for the ANC in key metropoles. But will the new, minority coalition regimes live up to their mandate of providing basic services?
South Africa’s past tells us that, under certain conditions, women mobilise in ways that produce significant political results. But the country’s present shows how easily these gains can evaporate.
Various commentators have wrongly over the last 22 years said that black people voted blindly for ANC governments. There’s no better example why the academy needs a dramatic post-colonial overhaul.
Patronage and clientelism is slipping away from the ANC and accruing to those who pledge their political futures to the Democratic Alliance. It will have to guard against incumbency arrogance.
The ruling ANC has been seriously challenged by the Democratic Alliance, but South African politics is still about white privilege and black exclusion.
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