Trade union federation Cosatu has called on its members to “recapture” the ANC, echoing the South African Communist Party’s call last weekend for a major transformation and renewal of the ruling party. Cosatu’s statement, after a central executive committee meeting this week, signals an open campaign by the two ANC allies this year to shape the outcome of the ANC conference in December.

Be careful what you wish for — you might just get it. That, for me, was the sad lesson of Thabo Mbeki’s State of the Nation address. He was bludgeoned into making the right noises about crime, and neither he nor the South African public is any the better for it, writes the Mail & Guardian‘s assciate editor, Rapule Tabane.

The social security pension, which government plans to introduce for all working South Africans will be mandatory. President Thabo Mbeki said that instead of acceding to requests for the instatement of the basic income grant, government would introduce a comprehensive social security system.

Rapule Tabane asked Themba Maseko, chief government spokesperson, to clarify remarks he made about the FNB anti-crime campaign. ”We have been calling for people to take a stand and do something about crime. But if they want to do that by encouraging the community to act against government through hundreds of thousands of letters, then it suggests the problem is the president’s office,” says Maseko.

A week before President Thabo Mbeki’s State of the Nation address, his “age of hope”, trumpeted in last year’s speech, is at risk. Despite 96 straight months of economic growth his recent dismissal of concerns about of two of South Africa’s most pernicious social ills — crime and corruption — have undercut public confidence in his presidency.

Left-wing activists have welcomed the planned launch by the African National Congress of a broad “front for development”, saying it will help restore the party’s character as a mass movement. The ruling party announced after its extended national executive lekgotla last weekend that it was establishing a broad front to “harness the energies and efforts of a broad range of groupings”.

Who scores a D for leadership? Whose strength is her frankness? Whose department did move to clean up some of the mess of past years in 2006? Who is a pragmatist either in hiding or deluded about the power of the state? The Mail & Guardian presents its yearly, no-holds-barred Cabinet report card.

Who scores a D for leadership? Whose strength is her frankness? Whose department did move to clean up some of the mess of past years in 2006? Who is a pragmatist either in hiding or deluded about the power of the state? The Mail & Guardian presents its yearly, no-holds-barred Cabinet report card.