South Africa

The boom in Indian-South African relations is bringing together politicians, companies, and even Bollywood film stars and African actors. Both have their iconic statesmen – Nelson Mandela and Mohandas Gandhi, who briefly...

Jacob Zuma's campaign for the presidency of the African National Congress is called the 'unstoppable tsunami'. A poll of party branches gives him the support of 61% of...

Jacob Zuma has built up such a lead in the race for the African National Congress presidency that his opponents are stepping up efforts to find a new...

African National Congress officials hope to find a third way, with President Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma stepping out of the leadership race to make room for a...

South African President Thabo Mbeki stopped over in Harare on 22 November and persuaded Zimbabwe's main opposition party to carry on talking to the ruling Zimbabwe African...

Octogenarian President Abdoulaye Wade and his 65-year-old South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki seem to disagree about many things, especially the African Union and the New Partnership for African...

President Thabo Mbeki and his sacked deputy Jacob Zuma dominate the contest to elect the President of the African National Congress at next month's party congress. Neither has...

After the toughest weeks of his presidency, Thabo Mbeki basked in the national euphoria generated by the Springboks’ Rugby World Cup victory over England in Paris. He used...

Relations between Britain and South Africa, not helped by the Springboks’ 15-6 defeat of England in the Rugby World Cup in Paris on 20 October, have become poisonous...

The Inkatha Freedom Party, so long dominant in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), is losing its grip and risks disintegration. Its leader, Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, told its national conference (13-14 October)...

The King of the Zulus, Goodwill Zwelithini, has been allocated 30 million rand (US$4.4 mn.) by the state for the 2006/2007 financial year. There are fears that he...

President Thabo Mbeki's attempts to reform the system of traditional leaders to bring it into line with democracy are not universally popular. Traditional leaders are resisting, especially in...

The suspension by President Thabo Mbeki of the National Director of Public Prosecutions, Vusi Pikoli, may foreshadow a constitutional crisis. At the very least, it embitters the contest...

Insiders say that President Thabo Mbeki is frustrated by the National Prosecuting Authority's inability to make headway in its case against Jacob Zuma. Last September, Judge Herbert Msimang...

South Africa's intelligence services, police and army appear rudderless, with increasingly limited civilian or democratic oversight. Vusi Pikoli is the fifth chief of a security department to leave...

Formally, the race to lead the African National Congress starts in October and its presidential candidate will be elected by a national conference in December. Yet the leading...

After many years of debate among politicians, business and unions, the draft of a grand industrial strategy for South Africa has emerged in time for the party conference...

Last week Adriaan Vlok, a former Police Minister, was given a ten-year suspended sentence for conspiracy to kill; that was one piece of unfinished business from the apartheid...

The government is battling to contain the fallout from the 8 August sacking of popular Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge.

The row over the future of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang's future is now a battle between African National Congress factions ahead of December's leadership elections.

It was a great revivalist meeting for South Africa's resurgent left-wing activists. Some 1,300 SACP delegates gathered in Port Elizabeth on 11-14 July to hear speaker after speaker...

Which national officials were elected or re-elected at the South African Communist Party's National Conference on 11-14 July?

The bids are out for Thabo Mbeki's services when his term as national president expires in mid-2009, regardless of who runs the governing African National Congress.

Tokyo Sexwale and Cyril Ramaphosa have joined the presidential succession race but they face suspicion from several senior African National Congress officials who want the party to keep...

Cyril Ramaphosa's personal fortune is listed as 500 million rand (US$72 mn), but informal estimates put it at around R2 billion.

Tokyo Sexwale is Chairman of Mvelaphanda Holdings, a diversified investment company, formed in 1998. With the backing of Nelson Mandela, Sexwale had persuaded the Ruperts, an Afrikaner business...

Sensational accusations are flying between Pretoria and Luanda as South Africa's presidential race heats up, with frontrunners Jacob Zuma and Tokyo Sexwale both accused of interfering in Angolan...

Cape Town's Mayor, Helen Zille, took more than 70% of delegates' votes in the election for leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA) on 6 May and will prove...

Presidential hopeful Jacob Zuma keeps up his political ambitions. At a well-attended May Day rally in North West Province, he called on workers to challenge African National Congress...

Mayor Helen Zille's most visible achievement involves the construction of a 68,000-seat football stadium for the 2010 World Cup. She fought hard to cap the city's financial contribution...

African National Congress power-broker Tokyo Sexwale plans to combine the annual Bastille Festival on 14 July with a celebration of Nelson Mandela's release from the Victor Verster Prison...

Rich South Africans enjoy polo on the grounds at Plettenberg Bay. It now emerges that all the 13 fields are illegal and that two of their main sponsors...

Police say they know who killed Brett Kebble, but not why. The answer may be found among his political and business friends. Kebble, a fraudster, mining magnate and...

The main claimant against Brett Kebble's assets is Randgold & Exploration Company, which is claiming R5.8 billion (US$801 million) from Johannesburg Consolidated Investments (JCI), a company into which...

The budget was full of handouts. On 21 February Finance Minister Trevor Manuel dished out tax cuts, paid off apartheid-era debt, and boosted public spending on almost everything...

The global stock market jitters on 27 February - prompted by 9% falls on the Shanghai and Hong Kong markets - hold two lessons for South Africa. Firstly,...

Cape Town was gripped by a heat wave with temperatures soaring into the high 30s, in the days leading up to the opening of parliament on 9 February...

The National Assembly has 131 female members out of 400, up from just 12 before the 1994 elections. This places South Africa twelfth in the global league of...

Union leader turned tycoon Cyril Ramaphosa has discreetly informed senior members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions that he is prepared to be a candidate for...

South Africa, host to the New Partnership for African Development (NePAD) Secretariat and driving force behind the African Peer Review Mechanism, should have run a model assessment, bringing...