Our website use cookies to improve and personalize your experience and to display advertisements (if any). Our website may also include cookies from third parties like Google Adsense, Google Analytics, and Youtube. By using the website, you consent to the use of cookies.

South Africa’s election results present 3 options for government: all are fraught with danger

South Africa’s election results present 3 options for government: all are fraught with danger

SOUTH Africans do not have a deep culture of coalitions. There have been a few coalitions at provincial and municipal levels but most of these were quite unstable. The outcome of the 2024 national election up-ended 30 years of electoral dominance by the African National Congress. The party garnered only 40.18% of the vote while the Democratic Alliance got 21.81%, the uMkhonto weSizwe Party 14.58% and the Economic Freedom Fighters 9.52%. That means that the country will need to learn to dance the coalition dance, a dance that under the best of conditions is fraught with partners stepping on each…
Read More
The two faces of Jacob Zuma – former South African president campaigns to unseat the ANC he once led. Who supports him and why?

The two faces of Jacob Zuma – former South African president campaigns to unseat the ANC he once led. Who supports him and why?

FORMER South African president Jacob Zuma’s political comeback builds on support from marginalised and angry constituencies within or close to the governing African National Congress (ANC). His vengeful but “loyal” rebellion against the ANC resonates with these political constituencies. SUSAN BOOYSEN, Visiting Professor and Professor Emeritus, University of the Witwatersrand In mid-December 2023, Zuma announced that he would be supporting the newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK Party), rather than the ANC, in the upcoming national election. But he would not resign from the ANC. Umkhonto we Sizwe is the name of the ANC’s former guerrilla army. This latest assault…
Read More