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If we are to believe the opinion polls, the African National Congress will sweep to power with a two-thirds — or even a 70% — majority on April 14. How reliable are these surveys and what impact will these polls have on the undecided voter? Will they galvanise opposition supporters to cast their ballots and try and make sure that their parties are strengthened in the poll?
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Democratic Party veteran Helen Suzman laid into both the Democratic Alliance’s support for the death penalty and Patricia de Lille’s new party, the Independent Democrats, this week. She warned DA faithfuls now attracted to De Lille that the newcomer offered little substance.
Elections 2004
The National Development Agency (NDA) has appointed a new board of directors and a forensic investigation into its affairs is almost complete as the organisation seeks to forge a fresh and clean image for itself. The government last year instituted an investigation into the organisation after allegations of corruption.
Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang this week bowed to the
inevitable and encouraged other provinces to follow the three that have started comprehensive treatment of HIV/Aids.
Ask any senior African National Congress official who is going to be in the next Cabinet or who will lead the provinces, and they will tell you: ”Chief, the president is unpredictable.” Unofficially, there are murmurs that Mbeki is keeping his options open for as long as possible, to see if he can use the premier posts to solve some sticky political problems in the ANC.
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/ 20 February 2004
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The Pan Africanist Congress is struggling to raise enough money to register with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and contest the national and provincial elections. The Mail & Guardian has learned that the PAC has been told by potential donors to get its house in order before they can discuss committing funds to it.
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/ 13 February 2004
In the week of the opening of Parliament, Cabinet ministers spent much time trying to convince diplomats and the media of the government’s achievements and sought to show that controversies paled into insignificance when compared with the vast improvements it had made to the lives of South Africans.
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/ 6 February 2004
Opposition parties in Africa are always complaining that governments, secure in overwhelming majorities in their legislatures, ride roughshod over them. But many Southern African politicians point out that it is also crucial that opposition parties present themselves as credible — and better — alternatives to the existing governments.
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/ 23 January 2004
National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka declined to shake the hand of Mo Shaik at a toilet in Bloemfontein last year — but Ngcuka says he is now prepared to forgive all if they apologise. Ngcuka spoke this week in response to the release of the Hefer commission findings, which cleared him of allegations that he was a spy.
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/ 22 January 2004
The African National Congress is targeting white, coloured and Indian voters in Gauteng and the Western Cape to break what the party sees as the opposition’s stranglehold on minorities. Support of minorities for the ANC in the past two elections has been negligible, prompting the new strategy.