One of the more striking findings of a recent Markinor survey on voter attitudes is a marked worsening in perceptions of the government?s record on transparency and accountability. Voter endorsement fell from 52% to 35% between May 2000 and March this year.
TO lose one court battle is a misfortune, but to lose four in a row looks like blind obedience to orders from the top, worthy of the Charge of the Light Brigade.
LET there be no doubt: South Africa’s response to last weekend’s election in Zimbabwe and its outcome will have a defining influence on the life chances of many millions of people in our region.
FOR once in our region – in the case of Zimbabwe – journalists’ taste for hyperbole and doomsday simile appears justified. Our neighbour’s future is, indeed, on a razor’s edge.
The most enduring legacy of South Africa’s R50-billion arms deal may turn out to be the terrible injury it has inflicted on our most important democratic institution – Parliament
IF deputy foreign minister Aziz Pahad really believes there will be credible elections in Zimbabwe, why is he also begging the developed world not to back off the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) if things go wrong?
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s "tacit" licence to provincial health MECs to roll out Aids drug programmes in their provinces might be seen as a cautious step forward by government. It is nothing of the kind
Last week’s <i>Mail & Guardian</i> report on the meeting between the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the African National Congress, at which unionists were accused of scheming to undermine President Thabo Mbeki, went down like a concrete balloon
President Thabo Mbeki’s state of the nation address next Friday, outlining the government’s agenda for the year, should be used as a kind of ceremony of national renewal
It has often been said that South Africa has an unusually high scandal threshold. It takes a mass murder, a rape of extreme brutality, or a body count of hundreds on the roads for anyone to pay attention
It is a time-honoured South African tradition ? as established as pap and boerewors. Appoint a commission of inquiry in order to seem to be doing something, and then hope the problem will go away.