The 2024 elections may be the tipping point that enables opposition parties to portray themselves as viable contenders in forming a national coalition government.
During the apartheid era, Transkei was one of several government-designated ‘homelands.’
Susan Winters Cook/ Getty Images
Klara Fischer, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
The South African government has failed to reverse the decline in smallholder farming that began during apartheid. A different approach is needed to support smallholder livelihoods.
Some newspapers defied government threats in 2013, and published pictures of President Jacob Zuma’s private home, which was revamped using taxpayers’ money.
Alexander Joe/AFP via Getty Images.
Would South Africa have been torn apart by civil war without the myth of Nelson Mandela?
Young jobless South African graduates protest outside the Union Buildings, the seat of government, in Pretoria.
Frennie Shivambu/Gallo Images via Getty Images
The third and final part of our series What happened to Nelson Mandela’s South Africa on The Conversation Weekly podcast. Featuring interviews with Sithembile Mbete and Richard Calland.
Young men waiting to be offered casual jobs in Hermanus, Western Cape, South Africa.
shutterstock
Commerce, culture and heritage mix in rather strange and sometimes unsettling ways in South Africa, especially when the struggle for freedom is commemorated.
Some of the satellite dishes that make up the MeerKAT.
South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO)
The security services that watch over South Africans today are a far cry from the instruments of minority rule of the apartheid era. They are subject to the constitution and the rule of law.
A 2014 protest in Durban, South Africa against expensive coal-fired electricity and for cheaper renewable energy.
Climate March/Flickr
After 30 years of democracy, South Africa is in a deep electricity crisis which can only be solved if the government moves speedily to set up solar and wind plants.
Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma: two very different styles of governing.
Jon Hrusa/EPA
The second episode of What happened to Nelson Mandela’s South Africa?, a three-part podcast series on The Conversation Weekly. Featuring interviews with Mashupye Maserumule and Michael Sachs.
Public confidence in the Constitutional Court is key to its legitimacy.
Felix Dlangamandla/AFP via Getty Images.
The court covered itself in glory in the first 15 years, but its performance has been patchy since then, coinciding with Jacob Zuma’s presidency.
The April 1994 international mediation team in South Africa, with Washington Okumu sitting between the US’s Henry Kissinger and the UK’s Peter Carrington.
Washington Okumu, reused by Nancy J. Jacobs with permission
The first episode of What happened to Nelson Mandela’s South Africa?, a three-part podcast series on The Conversation Weekly. Featuring interviews with Steven Friedman and Sandy Africa.
Nelson Mandela takes the oath as South Africa’s president in Pretoria on 10 May 1994.
Walter Dhladhla/AFP via Getty Images
A lot of good has happened since apartheid ended in 1994. Sadly, 30 years on, the country is in a political and economic crisis. Many are questioning the choices of the past three decades.