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/ 24 April 2008

Mpofu: SABC is resisting political pressure

South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) chief executive Dali Mpofu has conceded that the public broadcaster is under political pressure, but said it was resisting this pressure, Business Day reported on Thursday. ”The test is if you can withstand political pressure,” he said at a conference on media and electoral democracy held in Pretoria on Wednesday.

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/ 12 March 2008

SA believes Zim elections can be free and fair

South Africa believes conditions for a free and fair election in Zimbabwe exist — at least on paper, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Wednesday. Speaking to reporters at the Union Buildings, Pahad said the next 17 days in the run-up to the Zimbabwean presidential and parliamentary elections would be telling.

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/ 26 February 2008

KZN lauded for political tolerance

KwaZulu-Natal has been able to show the world that when power is contested, people do not have to die, Dr Brigalia Bam, chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission, said on Tuesday. She was speaking at the KwaZulu-Natal legislature in Pietermaritzburg on preparations for the 2009 election.

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/ 11 February 2008

DA backs Cosatu on SABC board challenge

The Democratic Alliance on Monday sided with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on a possible court challenge to the composition of the new South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) board. Cosatu confirmed earlier it is considering legal action to have a new board appointed by the National Assembly.

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/ 23 December 2007

New SABC chairperson rolls up her sleeves

The new chairperson of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, Khanyisiwe Mkhonza, paid tribute to the outgoing board in a statement to the media on Sunday. Mkhonza, who is the current chairperson of the public broadcasting services board sub-committee, also acknowledged challenges facing the new board.

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/ 6 November 2007

End of floor-crossing in sight?

The issue of floor-crossing should be resolved within months, says MP Vytjie Mentor, who chairs a parliamentary committee dealing with the matter. ”We don’t think that floor-crossing strengthens democracy. We have not seen empirical proof that it strengthens democracy,” she told a joint meeting with the home affairs committee on Tuesday.

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/ 14 October 2007

Togolese vote in parliamentary poll

The people of Togo go to the polls on Sunday to choose MPs in elections where all the main political parties are represented, including Gilchrist Olympio’s Union of Forces for Change (UFC). After almost two decades of election boycotts, this is the first time that Olympio’s UFC is challenging the ruling Rally of Togolese People.

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/ 19 September 2007

Ambitious floor-crossers out in the cold

Too much ambition might leave a politician without a seat on a council — this was the lesson that some councillors learned the hard way during the recent floor-crossing period. Figures released by the Independent Electoral Commission on Wednesday showed that 30 councillors would have no seats on individual municipal councils.

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/ 6 September 2007

ID accuses NPP of ‘misinformation campaign’

The newly formed National People’s Party (NPP) on Thursday claimed that five former members of the Independent Democrats (ID) had crossed the floor, bringing their Cape Town metro seats with them. However, the ID said two of the five — Abdulla Omar and Aaron Kallie — were expelled from the party before the floor-crossing window opened.