South Africa, following its peaceful transition, occupied the moral high ground and could influence the agenda of intergovernmental bodies like the United Nations. Not anymore.
Cyril Ramaphosa (left) has succeed South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma to lead the African National Congress.
EPA/Kim Ludbrook
South Africa’s ruling ANC has a new leader - Cyril Ramaphosa. But this doesn’t mean that the country is out of the woods. Political instability remains a real possibility.
There is a fallout between alliance partners the South African Communist Party and the governing ANC.
EPA/Kim Ludbrook
The South African Communist Party’s decision to compete in an election against its alliance partner the ANC is a watershed moment for them, with important implications for the country.
South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma, with presidential contenders Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
The race for the presidency of South Africa’s governing ANC will go down to the wire. Exact calculations for the frontrunners are impossible and the result is likely to be known by 17 or 18 December.
Guests and delegates attend the opening of the Pan African Parliament’s second sitting in Midrand, Johannesburg.
Reuters/Juda Ngwenya
The limited “consultative and advisory powers” of the Pan African Parliament hamper the African Union’s ability to achieve a prosperous and peaceful Africa as envisioned in its Agenda 2063.
South Africa’s finance minister, Malusi Gigaba, has had to look towards selling off state owned assets to plug a fiscal hole.
REUTERS/Rogan Ward
Privatisation talk in South Africa shows how state owned enterprises are being used as tools for enrichment by the connected and less as key elements of development.
South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa claims the country’s security agencies hacked his emails.
GCIS
It would be no surprise if Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa’s claims of the state spying on him turn out to be true. After all, state spy agencies have been abused before in ANC factional battles.
South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.
GCIS
South Africa’s Deputy President, Cyril Ramaphosa, claims the intelligence services are being used to discredit him and prevent him becoming the country’s next leader.
Happy at the helm: Robert and Grace Mugabe.
EPA/Aaron Ufumeli
South African President Jacob Zuma, should be worried about the outcome of the no confidence vote in him. His legitimacy in the ANC and the country has plummeted.
SACP’s Blade Nzimande, left, with Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.
GCIS
After tiptoeing around the idea of contesting state power South Africa’s Communist Party is looking to strengthen its position now that the ANC is no longer the dominant force it used to be.
Shaun Abrahams, Head of the South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority has failed to pursue members of the executive. But a separate prosecuting body assigned only political cases could be the answer.
Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane has lit a grass fire in South Africa’s financial circles.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
South Africa’s Public Protector, Busisiwe Mkhwebane has touched on two highly contentious issues: the unresolved bailout for a local bank three decades ago. And the role of the country’s Reserve Bank.
A protest in support of Raymond Suttner released from detention in 1988 by apartheid authorities.
Robert Botha/Times Media Group
In the new introduction to his prison memoir South African anti-apartheid stalwart Raymond Suttner uses the word ‘betrayal’ to explain his break from the ANC.
Academics find themselves in a world filled with people who aren’t interested in facts.
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Populist movements are on the rise. Their supporters distrust the establishment, elites, authority and official sources. The post-truth world is a post-expert world.
For the decolonisation of knowledge to be successful, it must be driven by critical thinking.
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Phrases like “knowledge production” conceal the fact that knowledge answers to something beyond itself and beyond us. To produce knowledge is to find out about something.
There’s no doubt South African universities need to undergo a real shift. But are the country’s current intellectual and academic forces up to the task?
Security officials remove members of the Economic Freedom Fighters during South African President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation Address.
Reuters/Sumaya Hisham
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.