Dr Ziba Jiyane was elected national chairperson of the Inkatha Freedom Party at its annual general conference last week. He was nominated from the floor and comprehensively beat party president Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s choice, Lionel Mtshali, by about 600 votes. Jiyane returns to leadership after he left politics in 1997 because of ill-health. The M&G has a word with him.
The Inkatha Freedom Party is to launch a rejuvenation process at its annual conference in Ulundi by strengthening the position of party secretary general.
Party leaders have their backs against the wall after a disastrous performance in the April elections, when the IFP lost control of the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government and suffered a further decline in national support.
Crime experts have assured worried parents that kidnapping for ransom is unlikely to become a trend in South Africa. South Africans have been shocked by the tragic kidnapping and killing of 21-year-old Leigh Matthews, and left fearful that these events signal the emergence of a wave of such crimes.
The battle for the control of the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) at its national congress in Pretoria has been firmly won by its left wing. At the congress in Pretoria this week, incumbent president Vusi Nhlapo lost the vote to former vice-president Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya, 136 votes to 243.
In one of its most contentious findings, the Human Rights Commission (HRC) questions whether the government will be able to meet President Thabo Mbeki’s commitment to complete the land restitution process by the end of next year. The HRC, tasked by the Constitution to advance social and economic rights, released its Economic and Social Rights 5th Report 2002/2003 last week.
Saheso farm school outside Ventersdorp in the North West province was closed early this year because it could not provide quality education and there was no support from the provincial department of education. Farm children across the country face conditions that make it impossible for them to receive an adequate basic education.
Staff at the troubled National Development Agency have written a new letter of protest to its board to complain about ongoing chaos at the organisation. Minister of Social Development Zola Skweyiya instituted a probe eight months ago into mismanagement, fraud and corruption in the agency.
The Democratic Alliance calls it the kiss of death — but the marriage of the African National Congress and the New National Party is symptomatic of a new politics of survival that other political parties could resort to. After the NNP federal council meeting last weekend, the two parties announced they would strengthen their working relationship, a move widely interpreted as the ANC swallowing up the dying Nats.
The African National Congress has denied that it bowed to pressure in withdrawing the nomination of Vincent Smith as chair of the public accounts committee (Scopa).
The ANC caused surprise this week when it put forward New National Party member Francois Beukman as the chair when it had previously indicated it might settle for Smith.
Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhenkesi Stofile has scrapped racial quotas for teams, saying they have not helped to accelerate the transformation of sports codes, which are currently not representative of the people of South Africa But national teams will remain lily-white unless selectors and coaches are put under
pressure, writes Rapule Tabane.