Polls predict ANC likely to lose parliamentary majority, due to high unemployment and wealth inequality
South Africa marked 30 years since the end of apartheid and the birth of its democracy with a ceremony in the capital that included a 21-gun salute and the waving of the country’s multicoloured flag.
Any sense of celebration on the momentous anniversary was however set against a growing discontent with the current government.
Continue reading...Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula resigned amid accusations she solicited bribes when she was defence minister
South Africa’s former parliament speaker has been charged with corruption and money laundering, in the latest scandal to hit the governing African National Congress (ANC) party before elections in May.
Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, who resigned from her post as speaker on Wednesday, appeared before a court in Pretoria after she handed herself in to police and was formally detained.
Continue reading...Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula denies allegations she took bribes over three years while defence minister
South African prosecutors said on Monday they intended to charge the parliamentary speaker with corruption, alleging she took $135,000 (£107,000) and a wig in bribes over a three-year period while she was defence minister.
Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, the speaker of the National Assembly, has not been arrested or charged. The prosecutors spoke at a court hearing over her claims that authorities hadn’t properly informed her of allegations or followed correct procedure.
Continue reading...Operation Dudula changes tactics from evictions and violence, with plans to fight elections on platform of expelling foreigners
An anti-migrant vigilante organisation in South Africa has registered as a political party and plans to contest seats in next year’s general elections.
Operation Dudula, whose name means “to force out” in Zulu, wants all foreign nationals who are in the country unofficially to be deported.
Continue reading...Mourners pay tribute to controversial former leader of Inkatha Freedom Party who died last week aged 95
Thousands of mourners gathered in South Africa’s eastern town of Ulundi on Saturday for the state funeral of veteran politician and Zulu prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
Buthelezi, a controversial figure during the apartheid liberation struggle because of his bitter rivalry with the African National Congress (ANC), died last week aged 95.
Continue reading...While some paid tribute to the British monarch, the presence in London of certain guests proved less than welcome
In South Africa, as across the African Commonwealth countries, Saturday’s coronation of King Charles III prompted mixed reactions.
There was much interest in Pretty Yende, the South African soprano who sang at the beginning of the ceremony, and some high-profile public figures sent their best wishes to the monarch.
Continue reading...South Africa’s president wins second five-year term and will lead party into elections in 2024
The South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has been re-elected as leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) for a second five-year term in a party leadership contest.
Votes casts by delegates at the party conference gave Ramaphosa a clear victory over his rival, Zweli Mkhize, a former party treasurer and health minister.
Continue reading...Incumbent faces Zweli Mkhize, whom he suspended as health minister over corruption allegations, in a party vote
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) nominated just two candidates to run for its top job on Saturday, leaving President Cyril Ramaphosa facing the health minister he suspended over corruption allegations in a party vote.
The winner will have the ANC’s blessing to run for president in 2024 elections under its banner, historically a shoo-in for the country’s top job since the party’s leading light Nelson Mandela ended white minority rule in 1994.
Continue reading...Hazim Mustafa says he paid $580,000 for cattle at South African president’s ranch in 2019
A Sudanese businessman has confirmed that he made the payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars for cattle at the centre of the scandal threatening to unseat South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa.
The embattled president launched legal action on Monday to challenge a report handed over last week by an independent panel appointed by parliament that accused him of serious misconduct after the theft from his private game ranch of a sum reported to be between $500,000 (£410,000) and $5m in cash almost three years ago.
Continue reading...Ruling party’s decision is a relief for the country’s president after doubts about his political future
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party has said it will block attempts to impeach the country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, at a crucial vote in parliament on Tuesday, providing relief to the embattled leader after days of uncertainty about his political future.
Ramaphosa launched legal action on Monday to challenge a report handed over last week by an independent panel appointed by parliament that accused him of serious misconduct after the theft from his private game ranch of somewhere between $500,000 (£410,000) and $5m in cash almost three years ago.
Continue reading...Cyril Ramaphosa rejects call to stand down after accusation of ‘serious misconduct’
Cyril Ramaphosa, the embattled president of South Africa, has rejected calls to step down and said he will seek a judicial review of a report handed over last week by an independent panel appointed by parliament that accused him of “serious misconduct”, aides said.
The move may forestall looming impeachment but could plunge South Africa into a prolonged bout of political instability.
Continue reading...South African president cancels all official engagements and was reported to be close to resigning over ‘Farmgate’
Farmgate scandal: what is it and why does it matter?
The South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, is fighting for his political life as rivals and supporters face off in a divisive battle for control of the ruling party, the African National Congress.
The power struggle came after an independent panel appointed by parliament said there was evidence suggesting the South African president committed “serious misconduct” after millions of dollars in cash was reportedly stolen from his private game ranch almost three years ago.
Continue reading...Tory government eager to focus on trade rather than Cyril Ramaphosa’s refusal to put sanctions on Russia
The South African president has started a two-day state visit to the UK, the first since King Charles took the throne, with the Conservative government eager to focus on trade rather than challenge South Africa’s refusal to impose sanctions on Russia over the invasion of Ukraine.
Cyril Ramaphosa’s trip has been much delayed due to Covid and only by chance became the first state visit of the king’s reign.
Continue reading...A new generation could end decades of MPLA rule this week and serve notice on Africa’s veteran leaders in polls seen as test of democracy
Millions of Angolans will vote this week in a landmark election described as an “existential moment” for the key oil-rich central African state, and a test for democracy across a swath of the continent.
The poll on Wednesday pits veteran politicians against a generation of young voters just beginning to grasp that they can bring about a radical change and escape from the shadow of the cold war.
Continue reading...Frederik Willem – FW – de Klerk, who has died aged 85, was the last president of South Africa under apartheid. He was often compared with Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, for his work in consigning a bankrupt and reviled regime to oblivion.
When De Klerk succeeded PW Botha in 1989, he oversaw an event no less unexpected than the collapse of Soviet communism was when Gorbachev came to power in 1985. His stunning act of realpolitik in announcing sweeping political reform, including the release of his eventual successor, Nelson Mandela, was the grand gesture that saved his country, and in 1993 they shared the Nobel peace prize. The following year Mandela became the country’s first democratically elected leader.
Continue reading...She risked arrest, torture and jail to fight racism in 1980s South Africa, and her story is being made into a film
As a white South African, Sue Dobson risked arrest, torture and imprisonment spying for the black nationalist cause during the latter days of the brutal apartheid regime. She was a middle-class woman in her 20s when she joined the African National Congress (ANC) and infiltrated the white minority government – even having a honey-pot affair with a police official to obtain information, with the full support of her husband, a fellow activist. When her cover was blown in 1989, she fled to Britain, where she sought political asylum after threats to her life.
Now, for the first time in 30 years, she is ready to talk publicly about her story – that of a “very ordinary” woman who played an extraordinary part in fighting racism.
Continue reading...South Africa’s justice minister says former president could be paroled after four months of 15-month sentence
South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma, whose decision to hand himself in to police to serve a 15-month jail term has been greeted as a victory for the troubled country’s efforts to enforce the rule of law, could be free in four months, the justice minister has said.
The minister, Ronald Lamola, told journalists outside the prison where Zuma was being held on Thursday that the former leader would be eligible for parole either because his sentence was less than two years or for medical reasons.
Continue reading...Apartheid-era South African president calls for justice for female victims of violence in Guardian article but some say his own record needs scrutiny
South Africans don’t give much thought to FW de Klerk these days. Like Mikhail Gorbachev, his fellow Nobel peace laureate, the last apartheid president is more highly regarded outside his own country than in it.
But some South Africans were taken aback to see De Klerk putting himself forward in a Guardian article on 10 March as an advocate of protecting women from violence and asserting that “holding perpetrators accountable, irrespective of how long ago the crime was committed, is essential to stamping out impunity and preventing future atrocities”.
Continue reading...George Bizos, who has died aged 92, was the best known lawyer in South Africa. To many, his stout and slightly rumpled figure represented all that was best about the law, a man who was seemingly always there, attack or defence, when a wrong had been committed or human rights trampled on.
His most famous client was Nelson Mandela. At the Rivonia trial of 1963-64– in which the leadership of the African National Congress were tried for sabotage, a capital offence – Bizos made a small, but significant intervention, which may have saved Mandela’s life. It came when Mandela was preparing his famous statement from the dock with the help of lawyers and others. The statement ended with the words “it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die”.
Continue reading...Series of misunderstandings and protection from other African leaders meant Britain could only wound the regime
Britain’s 40-year effort to find a way to either influence or dislodge Robert Mugabe is one of the country’s great post-war foreign policy failures. It is a story spanning six UK prime ministers, nearly £1bn in aid and every conceivable strategy.
Whether the cause of that failure lies at the door of a colonial mindset in the Foreign Office, a failed land transfer policy, the collective weakness of the Commonwealth, a cowardly African political elite or simply the corrupt thuggery of Mugabe himself will be a matter of dispute for generations.
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