South Africa

President Thabo Mbeki and Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula are so far standing by National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi, who is at the centre of a bizarre...

Jackie Selebi's appointment as the first black Police Commissioner was initially well received. In August 2004, he was elected as the first African President of the International Criminal...

Alcan is to build a US$2.7 billion smelter at the Coega Industrial Development Zone (IDZ) in South Africa's Eastern Cape. This could salvage the Zone's faltering fortunes -...

An overpriced rand and government protectionism block foreign direct investment and economic growth. That is the view of a team of Harvard University economists, who are advising the...

The issue centres on the legitmacy of share trading involving hundreds of milions of dollars undertaken by the late mining magnate Brett Kebble before he was murdered in...

Even the most conservative African National Congress activists admit that a schism has developed in the party between supporters of President Thabo Mbeki and those of sacked Deputy...

Preparatory conferences 1.The African National Congress Provincial Conferences will be fiercely lobbied by Jacob Zuma's and Thabo Mbeki's camps. The Provincial Conferences will be held after Mbeki delivers...

The African National Congress strictly determines eligibility to vote at national conferences. Branches usually nominate two delegates, more in large urban branches . . .

South Africa's giant Anglo American Corporation (AAC) is moving away from its African roots. It is restructuring and may be taken over by an American corporation. It controls...

A growing and diversified economy, a liberal constitution, a big army and residual post-apartheid moral high ground makes Tshwane (formerly Pretoria) a natural centre for African diplomacy. It...

Manoeuvring over the succession to President Thabo Mbeki in 2009 is becoming increasingly fraught - so much so that a high-level negotiating group was set up last week...

Jacob Zuma's supporters claim that a battle of ideas and loyalties is gripping the African National Congress. On his side are the populists, while President Thabo Mbeki leads...

The main disagreement, over policy on Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, has been fudged; both sides now back United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's initiative to offer support for...

President Hu Jintao missed out South Africa on his tour of Africa and the Gulf last month, when he visited Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Nigeria and Kenya. That wasn't...

Jacob Zuma began his political fight-back as soon as he left the Johannesburg High Court on 8 May, after his acquittal on charges of rape (AC Vol 47...

The many misfortunes of Jacob Zuma, self-inflicted or otherwise, have elevated Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka (AC Vol 47 No 6). Almost without effort, she has replaced Zuma as...

In the middle of a politically damaging rape trial and facing another on corruption charges in July, Jacob Zuma finds his finances under heavy pressure. His total legal...

Local elections offered South Africans their chance to punish the governing African National Congress. Its urban record is grim: in several areas, there have been riots against poor...

Accusing some government officials of trying to destroy him over the past five years, besieged former Deputy President Jacob Zuma told Africa Confidential that he had a duty...

Cape Town's political season opens during the city's sunniest weeks, drawing journalists and commentators down from Johannesburg in droves. The government had hoped to fix their attention...

The Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (ASGISA) accepts that poverty and unemployment are the country's main economic problems and promises to halve both by 2014....