South Africa

Blackouts returned to major cities in November as the embattled Electricity Supply Commission began load-shedding for the second time this year. It is the latest drama in a...

It is ironic that while Eskom battles to keep the lights on, planners have warned there is a risk of building too much new generating capacity. Uncertainty over...

Political assassinations have risen to alarming proportions since the end of apartheid and are likely to continue, especially as new trades union rivalries emerge and the 2016 municipal...

President Jacob Zuma had barely taken office last May before the first shots in the battle to succeed him were fired. He has already blocked the election of...

Six months into President Jacob Zuma's last term of office, the economic forecasts are worsening. The governing African National Congress is suffering from strategic splits in its Triple...

The South African Revenue Service was one of the most effective state agencies of the post-apartheid era. Often held up as a model tax organisation for developing countries...

It is becoming clear what kind of workers' party will emerge to challenge South Africa's political establishment when the once-mighty, 2.2 million-member Congress of South African Trade Unions...

Relations between South Africa and Nigeria have plunged to new depths. South African ex-President Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo are working behind the scenes to try...

South Africa's state-owned Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) is being restructured to become the regional centre of the new development bank for the BRICS group of Brazil,...

Within the space of a week, Julius Malema, the self-styled 'commander-in chief' of the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), has been charged with both corruption and parliamentary indiscipline,...

The efforts of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and other top officials in the African National Congress, such as ANC Deputy General Secretary Jessie Duarte, have made little headway...

Five months after the May general elections that returned President Jacob Zuma and the African National Congress to office, the provincial conference of the Gauteng ANC, which opened...

A US$50 billion agreement with Russia to build up to eight nuclear reactors has raised the alarm in South Africa about the speed and secrecy with which the...

Bridgette Radebe, Chairperson of Mmakau Mining, President of the South African Mining Development Association which represents black-owned mining companies and self-styled 'Mining Queen' is using the transfer-pricing issue...

Africa's largest trades union federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, celebrates its 30th anniversary and its twelfth congress next year. Yet many believe Cosatu is at...

The new leadership of the African National Congress Youth League, which is standing for election on 24-26 September in Gauteng, will have the blessing of President Jacob Zuma...

When the red boiler-suited Julius Malema took his parliamentary seat in May as leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), everyone knew the political scene had changed for...

Public Protector Thuli Madonsela still has an open file on the funding of President Jacob Zuma's private homestead, Nkandla (AC Vol 55 No 6). Now, she is again...

South Africans are trying to figure out the secret of the hold that Hlaudi Motsoeneng has on his position as Chief Operations Officer of the South African Broadcasting...

President Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation address to parliament was a disappointment to many. He did not expand on the African National Congress's plans to meet its...

A legacy of 'radical socio-economic transformation' is President Jacob Zuma's aim yet his new government has more old friends than new brooms. Far from the promised 'leaner and...

As President Jacob Zuma contemplates the membership of his new cabinet, proven loyalty is likely to rival expertise in heping him make his choices. His inauguration takes place...

It could have been so much worse for the governing African National Congress. President Jacob Zuma faced unprecedented personal criticism and ridicule because of the shooting of mineworkers...

Faction fighting, heated arguments over jobs and corruption – South Africa is back to politics as usual after the adjournment of the murder trial of Olympic athlete Oscar...

The deal between rival factions of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, mediated by Cyril Ramaphosa on 8 April, is likely to prove temporary. Hostilities are set...

The findings of an official investigation that President Jacob Zuma personally benefited from the multi-million dollar refurbishment of his Nkandla homestead will weaken his position and cost the...

The rows over state spending on Nkandla and recurring protests at the lack of public services prompted the governing African National Congress leadership to look very carefully at...

Any escalation of the tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats after the 4 March attack on the Pretoria home of the exiled Rwandan General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa now looks improbable....

Although the victory of the African National Congress is not in doubt, general elections on 7 May will show the pace and extent of political realignments (AC Vol...

Just how important the cost of Jacob Zuma's Nkandla homestead has become for his presidency and the elections was clear from the way it dominated a private meeting...

Pravin Gordhan confounded widespread predictions that this would be a feel-good budget aimed at assuring African National Congress victory in the May election. The Finance Minister took most...

Nearly 6 million rand (US$560,000) was spent on the ceremony for the State of the Nation Address as a tired-looking President Jacob Zuma put a brave face on...

After Public Service Minister Lindiwe Sisulu and Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande, both African National Congress loyalists, disengaged from an ostentatious clinch on 4 February, they predicted they...

The governing African National Congress is seeing a sharp decline in support in recent opinion polls, less than six months before legislative and local elections. South Africans...

There is no serious doubt that the governing African National Congress will easily win the general election likely to be held in the last two weeks of April....