Journalists Thami Mazwai, left, and Jon Qwelane before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s special hearing on the media. They accused the white-owned press of colluding with apartheid.
Reuters
To mark the African National Congress’ policy review conference, we bring you a selection of previously published articles about the state of South Africa’s governing party and the country.
The Economic Freedom Fighters’ entry into parliament is the most dramatic example of political realignment in South Africa.
Reuters/Skyler Reid
The Marikana massacre of 2012 triggered strikes across South Africa and political realignment. But could this, and the formation of the United Front to rival the ANC, have long-term significance?
I spent most of August 2015 in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia – a depressing and mournful tour indeed. The place I stayed in South Africa, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, is atypical. I am almost…
Like other middle-income economies, South Africa suffers from a high rate of unemployment and an under-skilled workforce.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
South Africa’s lack of a clear policy direction, poor leadership, corruption and electricity supply problems will be the major constraints to its economic growth over the next 20 years.
In a track called Bring it Back Home, Hugh Masekela bemoans the tendency by politicians, who after ascending to power, discard the people who helped them get there.
Andrea De Silva/Reuters
Concert organisers began to compete for government contracts. Often these contracts came with conditions as to who, among musicians, was desirable at government events.
The more than two million houses built by the state and transferred to the residents as freehold property, many with solar energy, are the most visible of the Freedom Charter’s achievements.
Reuters
The Freedom Charter, adopted at a meeting in Soweto on June 25-26 1955, triggered a paradigm shift in thinking about the democratic rights of black South Africans and their protection under the law.
What are we to make of the results of the 2014 South African elections? On one level, it was largely predictable: the ANC was always going to lose some support, but not enough to please the opposition…
Jacob Zuma’s ANC won the 2014 South African election with 62% of the vote, 3% down from 2009. Its nearest rival, the Democratic Alliance, won 22%, 6% up. And the newcomers, Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom…
On the surface, 2014 appears to represent “business as usual” for the landscape of South Africa’s electoral politics. The African National Congress (ANC) has secured a fifth straight victory in the latest…
Victory dance: ANC says it will smash opposition.
EPA/Ihsaan Haeffejee
The African National Congress drew a crowd of more than 100,000 supporters to its final election rally in Soweto at the weekend and there was a palpably jubilant mood at the rally as supporters predicted…
South Africans will go to the polls on 7 May in what promises to be the country’s most interesting election since 1994. Commentators are already speculating (wildly, and without any reasonable evidence…
Is Mamphela Ramphele the next president of South Africa? No.
Chatham House
Over the past year, South Africa’s media have relished the excitement and hype around the emergence of two new political parties. Julius Malema, the expelled former leader of the ANC Youth League notorious…
Icon and reality: Nelson and Winnie Mandela as seen on screen.
Production Companies Videovision Entertainment Distant Horizon Origin Pictures (in association with) Pathé
The timing could not have been more poignant: as South African president Jacob Zuma announced to the world that Nelson Mandela, the father of his nation, had breathed his last, Mandela’s daughters, Zenani…
It is now for history to judge Nelson Mandela.
Paul SImpson
It is as the iconic figure of the struggle to end the repugnant system of apartheid that Nelson Mandela will be most simply, fondly and longest remembered. What type of society South Africa has become…
Making history: Mandela addressing the United Nations in 1990, shortly after being released from prison.
UN Photo/P Sudhakaran
As the figurehead of South Africa’s struggle for freedom, Nelson Mandela inspired generations of political activists around the world. He is, quite possibly, the most revered politician in world history…
President Jacob Zuma’s party remains the dominant force in South Africa despite a number of political and social changes.
EPA/Kim Ludbrook
As part of my work for the University of Sydney and the Australian government, I’ve visited South Africa seven times since retiring from politics in 2006. Each time something new has happened, and what…
Chief Research Specialist in Democracy and Citizenship at the Human Science Research Council and a Research Fellow Centre for African Studies, University of the Free State