Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has little room to manoeuvre despite his tough medium-term budget cuts.
The labour union federation is the only one ‘flabbergasted’ at the IMF saying inflexible labour laws in South Africa are hampering economic growth.
President Jacob Zuma can be eerily mesmerising but he also holds some rather eclectic views and sometimes expresses them bizarrely.
For as long as the policy conflicts and ideological battles of the alliance are fought by means of the knife, uncertainty will continue.
Culture can hold people together, providing a sense of belonging. Like religion, it gives traditional communities a set of social rules to live by.
Labour unrest that has taken new and more challenging forms is compounding the effects of slumping commodity prices.
The Polokwane conference taught us what we thought were the physics of the 21st-century ANC.
The run-up to Mangaung has seen vicious infighting, organisational chaos and accusations of fraud and manipulation at ANC branch level.
Endless stories are recounted by garnishee administration companies about staff members going home empty-handed on payday.
Some of the president’s private arrangements demand public scrutiny, because they pose real risks for him and for crucial areas of governance.
In the little death of democracy that is the finalisation of the secrecy Bill, there is a kernel of hope – an invigorated civil society.
Hysteria and paranoia. That is what leaders of the ANC and the SACP accuse the press of when concerns about threats to freedom of speech are raised.
If you were looking for moral clarity this week, the smoke-dimmed sunlight of the Cape winelands was not the place to find it.
South African political language can be baffling, but the most recent utterances on "Nkandlagate" surely mark a new level of tortuous sophistry.
A priority crimes litigation unit exists in the National Prosecuting Authority and has a mandate to prosecute apartheid-era human rights violators.
South Africans should be able to understand that what is legally permissible and what is wise or constructive are not the same.
Progress had been made on the Protection of State Information Bill. Not enough to render it safe for democracy, but progress nonetheless.
Does Cyril Ramaphosa have blood on his hands? That is the question being asked, and is far too glibly answered.
Politicians have had their frustrations with the courts and from time to time they have expressed them in terms that rightly give cause for concern.
President Jacob Zuma this week announced the first concrete measures aimed at bringing the violent illegal strikes that have flared up under control.
This week the government responded to two of the issues facing a depressed South Africa – Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla upgrade and protracted strikes.
The ANC Women’s League tried to defend itself this week following a widely condemned comment by Clara Ndlovu, its Mpumalanga provincial secretary.
This season’s wave of hooliganism poses an alarming threat to the future of the Premier Soccer League.
Why is the government so intent on dodging questions about the splurge on ‘security’ at President Jacob Zuma’s rural homestead?
On Monday, the long lie that is the ANC pre-conference embargo on "leadership contestation" finally ends.
Many workers now believe violence is justified, indeed necessary. Some, notably in the transport union Satawu.
For all its failings, the military remains effective in one regard: instilling fear. And striking workers at Marikana felt that fear this week.
The "global war on terror" and its awful sequelae seem very far away to most South Africans.
Cosatu’s conference must be energised by the need to find a response to the crisis at SA’s mines, rather than enervated by ANC factional politics.
In 1994, our leaders, be they political, business or labour, inspired us as they fashioned the way forward. Now they are conspicuous by their absence.
There’s been a lot of talk of leadership lately, at conferences in Sandton and among ordinary South Africans. Much of that talk is about its absence.
The Institute of Race Relations argued in a report this week, that grants have been crucial to improved living standards over the past decade.