The murder of Free State Premier Beatrice Marshoff’s right-hand man, Noby Ngombane, is likely to deepen the long-running crisis in an already unstable and fractured province. Ngombane was murdered on Tuesday night by unknown gunmen who drew up in a car outside his home, shot him five times and disappeared.
The Young Communist League believes the South African Communist Party may vote at a special conference next month to go it alone in this year’s local elections .
Young Communist League secretary general Buti Manamela said: ”As far as we know, the dominant position in the party is that we should contest power through elections.”
With almost half the Cabinet comprising women, the face and shape of power has changed in South Africa. Many of the women lead the clusters, the groupings of individual ministries through which policy implementation increasingly takes place. The country is a world leader in female public representation and last week’s briefings by the full Cabinet provided an opportunity to assess their performance.
No image available
/ 18 February 2005
The government is planning a radical overhaul of the governance and administration of the courts, on the grounds that existing oversight mechanisms have failed to achieve thorough transformation. Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Brigitte Mabandla announced this week that a ”concept paper” on the transformation of the judicial system will be tabled before Cabinet.
No image available
/ 11 February 2005
The increasingly bitter debate over the presidential succession has taken a new twist, with the African National Congress Youth League suggesting Thabo Mbeki should quit as ANC leader when he leaves the presidency. Youth league president Fikile Mbalula told the M&G any proposal to separate the party presidency from that of the country was divisive and a distortion of ANC history.
No image available
/ 11 February 2005
Yet another Free State township erupted in protest on Thursday, with residents trying to block the N1 to Bloemfontein to highlight unhappiness with service delivery. Mmamahabane, near Ventersburg, was the second township in two days to be engulfed in unrest in the beleaguered province. The residents demanded that the ANC and the provincial government address their grievances over councillors.
No image available
/ 5 February 2005
The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) secretariat could be relocated from South Africa to Ethiopia by the end of the year as part of a strategy to accelerate its integration into African Union structures, a move widely criticised by political commentators who fear that the continent’s recovery plan will be subsumed into AU bureaucracy.
No image available
/ 4 February 2005
The South African Communist Party will discuss contesting elections under its own banner at its forthcoming special congress in Durban. The party says that the discussion does not mean opposition to alliance partner, the African National Congress, despite differences of approaches on Zimbabwe and black economic empowerment.
No image available
/ 2 February 2005
It is a common refrain: South Africa is a unitary state and it is reactionary and small-minded to engage in parochial battles about which town should fall under which provincial government. So why would councillors resign, tyres be burnt and stayaways be held because some residents of the far East Rand and far West Rand do not want to be moved away from Gauteng?
No image available
/ 21 January 2005
The African National Congress’s surprise censure of Zanu-PF this week is seen as a spin-off from last year’s fence-mending between the ANC and Zimbabwe’s largest opposition party. During a visit to South Africa last year, Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai endorsed President Thabo Mbeki as an honest broker between Zimbabwe’s two antagonists.