What Mbeki said about Zimbabwe a week ago was: ”If no one wins a clear majority, the law provides for a re-run. If that happens, I would not describe it as a crisis.” But what he might consider to be nuance and diplomatic sophistication many would regard as plain absurd. His legacy is draining away almost as fast as his power within the ANC.
Partly prompted by Andrew Feinstein, there appears to be influential support for an amnesty-based approach to dealing with the unresolved questions of the arms deal. This idea should be nipped in the bud. It has a superficial attraction, but it is ill-conceived. This country has had enough amnesty; it is time for some justice, writes Richard Calland.
Justice Albie Sachs will be missed when his term at the Constitutional Court comes to an end next year. Indeed, September 2009 will be a very important milestone for the court. Along with Sachs, three others of the original court that was appointed late in 1994 will move on.
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/ 18 February 2008
South Africa has entered a period that can be characterised as a “Second Transition”. It lacks the grand narrative of the first and the international spotlight is not as intense. There are political, institutional and constitutional implications to this Second Transition.
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/ 5 February 2008
The international financial system is in turmoil. The world is heading for a big fat recession. Developing economies, already vulnerable to global shocks such as sharp oil price hikes, will likely catch the proverbial cold. Widespread power failures are shutting down South African cities and industries.
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/ 15 January 2008
There is more than a touch of Ronald Reagan — or even, dare one say it, George W Bush — in Jacob Zuma. Apparently happily unencumbered by the need to demonstrate a towering intellectual faculty, he is an archetypal instinctive politician — streetwise, savvy and not to be underestimated.
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/ 11 December 2007
There is a moment when you can sense the power draining away, when a point of no return has been reached and passed. Prime Minister Gordon Brown is facing that moment now in Britain, as a sense of staleness, sleaze and incompetence overwhelms his government.
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/ 27 November 2007
There are two really big problems with the struggle for leadership of the ANC and they are both covered by the deployment of one simple metaphor: the iceberg. Most of what you see is the tip protruding from the water. Much of what matters is below. But the water is very dark and very cold. Few people, if any, really know all that is happening below the surface.
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/ 13 November 2007
At last Mark Gevisser’s long-awaited biography of Thabo Mbeki is out. For a project that began in 1999 and took eight years to complete, the title <i>The Dream Deferred</i> seems especially apt. As a subject, Mbeki is a walking "writer’s block". Not only is he a densely complex person, as the book confirms, but he shimmers in the light, making it all but impossible to have a single thesis to explain the man.
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/ 29 October 2007
Our political culture remains decidedly short of real satire; surely it is a test of the robustness of a democracy: if it can’t take the humorous hits, our political leadership is hardly likely to be willing to answer the difficult questions. Jacob Zuma has sued Zapiro, the cartoonist: What does this tell us about his attitude to public accountability?