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?
Older generation freedom fighters like Nelson Mandela are losing currency among some young people in South Africa.
Yves Herman/Reuters
Student activists are losing faith in the legacies of anti-apartheid heroes like Nelson Mandela. Perhaps all South Africans should do the same. It may just be what the country needs for its future.
Students make their feelings known during a fees protest at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
Nic Bothma/EPA
States do not record the structural violence of racism as part of crime statistics. But this invisible violence has driven some people to self-harm. It has also masked forms of suicide.
South African President Nelson Mandela forged a powerful cabinet of national unity.
Reuters
South Africa’s ruling party has lost its moral and intellectual capacity to claim the mantle of leadership. The country’s economy won’t recover unless new political alignments emerge.
Johannesburg skyline: the challenge is to create a city that is liveable, safe and resource efficient.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
Populations revolt when lives are improving but not fast enough to meet their rising expectations.
South Africa’s deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa (L) and President Jacob Zuma. Ramaphosa has described the ANC government as being at war with itself.
EPA/Mike Hutchings
South Africa has reached a critical point. If patronage politicians win the battle within the ruling ANC and complete the capture of the state, the country will slip from stagnation into the abyss.
Des van Rooyen, cooperative governance minister and new treasurer-general of the MK Military Veterans Association.
eNCA.com
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.
The Democratic Alliance’s Herman Mashaba celebrates victory as Johannesburg’s new mayor after the ANC’s defeat.
The Star/Boxer Ngwenya
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?
Protesters decry the decision by the South African Broadcasting Corporation not to air scenes of violent protest.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
There were high hopes that the SABC would become a true public broadcaster after the end of apartheid when it was used ruthlessly as a propaganda machine. But those hopes have since been dashed.
EFF leaders Godrich Gardee, left, Julius Malema and Floyd Shivamvu brief journalists in Alexandra, near Johannesburg.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
In many ways the office of the Public Protector has become the barometer of the state of South Africa’s constitutional democracy.
President Jacob Zuma, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and former anti-apartheid activist Sophie de Bruyn at the unveiling of a monument to the 1956 women’s march.
GCIS
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.
Author Christine Qunta says forgiveness trumps justice in South Africa.
Elelwani Netshifhire
Qunta advocates a reparations fund to accelerate corrective policies, that schools be freed from colonial indoctrination and that African culture should be mainstreamed, especially African languages.
South Africa’s opposition Democratic Alliance party leader Mmusi Maimane.
EPA/Kim Ludbrook
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.
Not there yet: Mmusi Maimane campaigns in Johannesburg.
EPA/Kevin Sutherland
The ruling ANC has been seriously challenged by the Democratic Alliance, but South African politics is still about white privilege and black exclusion.
Supporters of South Africa’s governing ANC during President Jacob Zuma’s election campaign in Pretoria.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
For more than 20 years the ANC’s electoral support has appeared unyielding to the obvious weaknesses of its performance in government. To fall below 60% is psychologically significant for the party.
Supporters of South Africa’s governing ANC with a mock coffin of the opposition EFF at the ANC’s Siyanqoba rally ahead of local elections.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
The ANC’s waning urban vote and growing support rural is not a political trend unique to South Africa. Many of Africa’s liberation-movements-cum-governing-parties now depend on rural support for political longevity.
Voters wait their turn outside a polling station at Nkonjeni village in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The country is gearing up for local elections.
Reuters/Radu Sigheti
The opposition Democratic Alliance is hopeful that the African National Congress will fail to win a majority in three metros. This will open the door for it to rule in coalition with smaller parties.
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