Marianne Thamm

The opposition’s new rock star has been making waves in Parliament with his can-do attitude, writes Marianne Thamm.

Perhaps we should view the recent volley of insults about self-confessed womanising and wild whore libidos as a lancing of a national boil.

People often tell DA leader Helen Zille that she is in the ”wrong party”. ”It’s madness,” she says. ”Of course I’m not ­- there’s no alternative.”

Bantu Holomisa elicited frenzied cheering at Cope’s recent national convention, underscoring his continued popularity with disaffected black voters.

Many charge that the ID is more of a one-person lobby group than an opposition party, but De Lille counters that it has grown both in membership terms

Marianne Thamm, Open Society Research Fellow for 2008, reports on new electoral volatility that poses a threat to the ANC’s overwhelming majority.

"What mobilised people for Zuma was the way he was fired as deputy president. People think it was done because he’s a Zulu".

Four provinces are gearing up for possible Congress of the People governments after a week of campaigning by leaders of the new party.

The growing flexibility of voter attitudes highlighted by research is good news for ANC rebels planning a new party to fight next year’s elections.

The European and American tradition of the political novel is deeply entrenched. From Emile Zola to Gore Vidal, the perceptions and attitudes of citizens in these smug old…

The European and American tradition of the political novel is deeply entrenched. From Emile Zola to Gore Vidal, the perceptions and attitudes of citizens in these smug old…

Now that the posturing and rhetoric that has dominated Western Cape politics in the two months prior to this week’s agreed compromise on the system of local government is over…

Everyone in Hout Bay agrees: the tipping-point was the murder of Gerhard Vergeer on Sunday March 13 last year. Vergeer, his wife and three children had arrived in the…

The crisis over the Cape Town mayoral system is coming to a head, with mayor Helen Zille set to meet Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi on Friday.…

University of Cape Town Professor Girish Kotwal, who used university laboratories to research an herbal concoction touted as a ”anti-HIV” remedy, has resigned from his position…