Meeting the challenges from the opposition will strengthen the ANC’s dominance. How well its new leadership copes will become clearer over the next few months.
President Jacob Zuma shouldn’t be allowed to detract from the momentum that Cyril Ramaphosa, the new president of the ruling ANC, has started to build.
The imposition of the fee free higher education proposal on South Africa’s National Treasury without due consideration represents an escalation of the state capture led by President Jacob Zuma.
The decision to give former Eskom CEO, Brian Molefe, a seat in the country’s parliament comes with the potential to cause great economic pain for South Africa.
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.
A row between South Africa’s finance minister and the country’s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations has prompted academics to pen an open letter asking President Jacob Zuma to intervene.
Finance minister Pravin Gordhan would need President Zuma’s undivided support to drive bold economic reforms. But, signs suggest that he does not have such support and is undermined by the president.
It is unlikely President Zuma will announce a structural changes in his State of the Nation Address. This, despite education being in dire need of fundamental restructuring and an economy in decline.
For more than 100 years South Africa’s ruling ANC and its leaders have often been able to speak to and for the nation with resonance and moral authority, their words matching actions. Not any more.
Pundits will closely watch President Jacob Zuma’s January 8 statement to see what he and the governing ANC consider to be priorities for the country in 2016.
South African President Jacob Zuma has lost control of his party and his administration. It is time citizens came together and gave the old man a helping hand to exit.
South Africa has had three finance ministers in four days. President Jacob Zuma will live with the fall-out for the rest of his term. Markets have a long-term memory and won’t easily forget.
Academics from several South African universities say that in the current world economy decisions about any country’s finance minister cannot be made “lightly or capriciously”.
Chair of the Board of Trustees and Head of African Futures & Innovation at the Institute for Security Studies. Extraordinary Professor in the Centre of Human Rights, University of Pretoria