Skip to main content

Voters Deliver Stinging Rebuke to ANC in South African Elections

Emma Graham-Harrison The Guardian
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party conceded defeat in Nelson Mandela Bay and could lose political control of Johannesburg and Pretoria in the greatest electoral defeat for the ANC since the fall of apartheid. Widespread unemployment and poverty, rampant corruption, and political infighting were deemed the main contributors to the ANC’s political setback, particularly in the urban centers. Never before had the ANC received less than 60% of the vote.

Soweto 40 Years Later: South Africa’s Still Violent Policing

Andrew Faull The Conversation
On June 16, 1976, thousands of school children in Soweto, Johannesburg, took to the streets to protest the apartheid government’s decision to educate them in Afrikaans. The police used teargas and then gunfire and the apartheid system was shaken irrevocably. While the South African Police Service is now very different from its apartheid predecessor, far too many similarities remain. One cannot reform a police service without reforming the context in which it operates.

Luminaries, Comrades and Objectors: A Growing Army of Zuma’s Opponents

Greg Nicolson Daily Maverick (South Africa)
South African President Jacob Zuma’s apology April 4th has done little to resolve the political crisis wracking South Africa. The March 31st Constitutional Court ruling he used his position for personal gain and “failed to uphold, defend and respect the Constitution,” came on the heels of allegations by respected members of the African National Congress that an influential business family allied with Zuma had offered them cabinet posts in return for political favors.

Liberation and Ethics - Is there a connection?

Raymond Suttner Polity (South Africa)
It is no exaggeration to suggest that the legitimacy not only of President Jacob Zuma and the ANC, but also the notion of the liberation struggle itself is in shreds. For some of us, it was unthinkable that such an alliance of forces could degenerate into a moneymaking, lawless and violent operation represented by people who were prepared to trample on the values that we understood the movement to embody. Certainly, this did not happen overnight.

labor

What is Happening in the Steel Industry?

Walton Pantland Union Solidarity International
Rich countries make money by owning things – physical and intellectual property – and setting global standards the rest of the world must adhere to. This also means an economic shift within these countries, away from well-paid, secure, skilled jobs in industry to a precarious, service-based economy.

South Africa Freezes Tuition Fees After Student Protests

NORIMITSU ONISHI The New York Times
Protests have erupted across many of South Africa’s public universities this year, with anger focusing on the deep-rooted economic and racial cleavages remaining a generation after the end of apartheid.

Piketty says "Tax the Rich"

Thomas Piketty AfricaFocus Bulletin
In a speech challenging both national and global inequality, with a particular focus on France and South Africa, economist Thomas Piketty concluded with calls for taxes on wealth, and a public global registry of financial assets to make that possible. The speech evoked a frenzy of comment - from praise to denunciations of Piketty's analysis as Marxist or alternately, unrealistic, to those who criticized him for having a flawed analysis that disregarded Marxist insights.

Tidbits - September 24, 2015 - Refugee Crisis, Solidarity; Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders, Woman Held in Mental Health Facility; Rhiannon Giddens; and more...

Portside
Reader Comments: Refugee Crisis, Solidarity and Worker Rights; Radical Roots of Great Grape Strike and the United Farmworkers; Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders; Woman Held in Mental Health Facility Because Police Didn't Believe Her; Rhiannon Giddens and Old-Time Music's Black Roots; Announcements - New York and Los Angeles - Greece,Spain, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Cuba

labor

South Africa’s Domestic Workers Gain a Minimum Wage

Luso Mnthali Equal Times
The conditions of employment for domestic workers vary from house to house, but along with miners, domestic workers have long endured one of the most exploitative employment relationships in South Africa’s history. Although a new minimum wage is more than domestic workers have ever earned, it is still not enough -- what is needed is a living wage.

Tidbits - April 30, 2015 - Baltimore; Martin Luther King on Protesters Who Use Violence; How to Help; US `World Leader' in Child Poverty; and more...

Portside
Reader Comments - Baltimore and Martin Luther King on Protesters Who Use Violence; How to Help - Baltimore-Ferguson Legal Defense Committee; US `World Leader' in Child Poverty; FBI Faked Testimony; Yemen; El Salvador; Venezuela; Ukraine; South Africa; Turkey; Peace Movement; The Symbolic Left; 2016 Elections; TPP; More Responses to The Tragedy of Party Communism; Announcements (all New York): May Day Against Waltons; She's Beautiful When She's Angry; Mayor 1% - Forum
Subscribe to South Africa