Mbuyisi Mgibisa
Guest Author
No image available
/ 1 December 2006

ANC membership doubles ahead of Eastern Cape conference

The bitter war for the soul of the ANC is reviving interest in politics among ordinary people in the Eastern Cape. ANC membership in the province’s seven regions has more than doubled ahead of the four-day provincial party conference, . The conference will elect a new provincial ANC leadership which will, in turn, have a major impact on the national leadership struggle.

No image available
/ 1 December 2006

Is govt Aids progress here to stay?

<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/291293/aidsday06.gif" align=left>Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s expected return to office after three weeks of illness has raised fears that the progress recently made by the government and civil society in the HIV/Aids arena could be jeopardised. The trepidation arose after Tshabalala-Msimang launched an attack on her deputy.

No image available
/ 24 November 2006

A fight to crown a king

When more than 1 200 Eastern Cape ANC branch delegates descend on Fort Hare University, Alice the heart and soul of the 94-year-old liberation movement will be up for grabs. The Eastern Cape ANC conference will have a major impact on the struggle over who will succeed Thabo Mbeki as party president and, ultimately, who will lead South Africa when Mbeki steps down in 2009.

No image available
/ 24 November 2006

ANC chief whip faces five-cow fine

Relatives of the 21-year-old woman who has accused ANC chief whip Mbulelo Goniwe of sexual harassment are pressing her to drop the charges and return to Lusikisiki in the Eastern Cape to face a traditional court. If the court finds Goniwe guilty, said a family spokesperson, he will be fined five cows.

No image available
/ 6 November 2006

How the next president will be chosen

While President Thabo Mbeki will only give up his Union Buildings office in 2009, the next president will effectively be chosen in just over a year’s time at the ANC’s watershed elective conference in Polokwane, Limpopo. How will it happen? And how are the cards stacked? Zukile Majova and Mbuyisi Mgibisa investigated to bring you this exclusive report, taking you into the mechanics of an elective conference.

No image available
/ 25 October 2006

Mthatha in dire straits

The Eastern Cape’s third-largest local municipality is bogged down by political paralysis and a financial crisis that has it on the verge of collapse, a local government report has revealed. Presented to the province’s Local Government and Traditional Affairs Minister Sam Kwelita in August, the report, titled Progress on the Implementation of the Municipal Recovery Plan, paints a grim picture of the King Sabata Dalindyebo municipality.

No image available
/ 21 October 2006

Blade Nzimande digs in

Members of the South African Communist Party politburo have advised its secretariat to be less combative and to raise its differences with the alliance partners in a more ”strategic” manner. They raised concerns that the confrontational approach was plunging the party into ”unnecessary” conflicts with the ANC and its leadership.

No image available
/ 6 October 2006

Mbeki support splits E Cape ANC

Two of the Eastern Cape’s biggest ANC regions, Nelson Mandela (Port Elizabeth) and OR Tambo (Umtata), are starkly divided over whether Thabo Mbeki should continue leading the party. Senior ANC members in the province have expressed ”serious concern” over their dia­metrical opposition, saying ”they are dividing the provincial ANC into two main camps linked to Jacob Zuma and Mbeki”.

No image available
/ 19 September 2006

Mayor’s death link to ‘Taliban’

Jaycee Nxamakele, the former mayor of Matlosana in Klerksdorp who recently committed suicide after killing his wife and children, may have been targeted for a political purge by an ANC faction in North West nicknamed "the Talibans". Perceptions that factional plotting was responsible for the tragedy sparked pandemonium at Nxamakele’s funeral.