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/ 12 February 2008
South Africa’s elite, FBI-style Scorpions anti-crime unit will be dissolved, Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula said on Tuesday. ”The Scorpions … will be dissolved and the organised crime unit of the police will be phased out and a new, amalgamated unit will be created,” Nqakula told Parliament in Cape Town.
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/ 8 February 2008
There was nothing ”unusual” about President Thabo Mbeki’s Friday State of the Nation address, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said. ”Contrary to the stated theme of his speech, this was business as usual for the president,” she said. Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille said Mbeki’s address was ”another list of promises”.
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/ 7 February 2008
There is a greater public sense of anticipation about what President Thabo Mbeki will say in his State of the Nation address on Friday than before any previous such speech he has delivered since assuming office in 1999. This is in part due to the recent dramatic twist in Mbeki’s political fortunes.
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/ 29 January 2008
The Independent Democrats (ID) said on Monday it would bring a motion of no confidence against President Thabo Mbeki and his Cabinet for failing to avert power cuts that have forced some industries to shut down. ID leader Patricia de Lille accused Mbeki of having ignored warnings about the crunch in electricity supplies.
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/ 12 January 2008
Police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi has quit as head of international crime-fighting body Interpol, the organisation said on Sunday. The news follows President Thabo Mbeki’s announcement on Saturday that Selebi, who faces allegations of corruption, fraud, racketeering and defeating the ends of justice, was going on extended leave of absence.
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/ 11 January 2008
Patricia de Lille’s Independent Democrats (ID) on Friday called for the government to regulate bread prices. Rising bread prices were hurting the poor and the unemployed the most, according to Rodney Lentit, the ID’s local government liaison officer. Bread prices were deregulated in 1991.
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/ 10 January 2008
Police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi’s bid to stop the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) from proceeding with prosecution against him will be heard in the Pretoria High Court on Friday. Selebi has brought an urgent application seeking more information about the charges the NPA intends levelling against him.
Opposition parties on Tuesday voiced their concern over the National Prosecution Authority’s (NPA) delay in announcing whether it will charge police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi, with the Freedom Front Plus accusing the NPA of double standards.
Arms-deal corruption must be probed by an independent judiciary, Independent Democrats (ID) leader Patricia de Lille said on Tuesday. ”It is the African National Congress’s right to set up an ad-hoc committee on the arms deal, but we in the ID want all the allegations of corruption in the deal to be tested by an independent judiciary,” said De Lille.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Tuesday asked that acting National Director of Public Prosecutions Mokotedi Mpshe be called to Parliament to explain the delay in making public the decision on whether or not to charge police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi.
The African National Congress (ANC) will appoint an ad-hoc committee to draw up a ”detailed factual report” on the arms deal, the party announced in Johannesburg on Tuesday. ”We are not asking for the re-opening of the arms deal. We need to get a detailed formal report … to take informed decisions,” party secretary general Gwede Mantashe told journalists.
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/ 31 December 2007
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The state has identified a list of 218 witnesses it intends calling to testify in its case against African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma. Attached to the indictment, filed in the Pietermaritzburg High Court, the list of witnesses includes Independent Democrat party leader Patricia de Lille and former ANC MP Andrew Feinstein.
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/ 19 December 2007
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The African National Congress’s 52nd national conference got down on Wednesday to the nitty-gritty work of the commission that discusses the party’s policies in an atmosphere that one delegate described as the ”cessation of hostilities” over its new president Jacob Zuma.
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/ 3 December 2007
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South African President Thabo Mbeki and his arch-rival, Jacob Zuma, have both officially confirmed they are candidates for party chief of the African National Congress (ANC), their offices said Monday. ”Mr Jacob Zuma signed the ANC nomination form over the weekend in London,” Zuma’s spokesperson, Ranjeni Munusamy, said.
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/ 23 November 2007
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South Africans must speak up if they want the death penalty back, African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma said on Friday. Speaking to about 250 people at an anti-crime rally at Mitchells Plain on the Cape Flats, he also called for ”extraordinary measures” against crime.
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/ 21 November 2007
President Thabo Mbeki’s announcement on Wednesday of a ”window of opportunity” for people convicted of alleged political offences before June 16 1999 has been warmly welcomed by most political parties. Pan Africanist Congress leader Motsoko Pheko hailed Mbeki’s announcement as an act of courage against odds.
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/ 20 November 2007
The City of Cape Town’s spy saga took another turn on Tuesday with Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille deciding on legal action against controversial expelled councillor Badih Chaaban. De Lille met police on Tuesday afternoon in connection with the alleged illegal surveillance of politicians in the city.
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/ 20 November 2007
President Thabo Mbeki’s office said an investigation into the arms deal had already found no wrongdoing on the part of government. This followed a media report based on an addendum to Mbeki’s online letter in his capacity as president of the African National Congress on November 16.
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/ 13 November 2007
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 democracies have long been shaped. South Africa too has a rich history of political fiction, from Alan Paton to Nadine Gordimer, André Brink, Njabulo Ndebele and Lewis Nkosi. But there is, of course, a vast difference between the literary political novel and the "novel of politics", writes Marianne Thamm.
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/ 8 November 2007
With just more than a month to the African National Congress presidential election, Jacob Zuma will be waiting to see whether the National Prosecuting Authority will recharge him for corruption. Court rulings on Thursday clarified the status of searches and documents related to the investigation against him concerning alleged corruption in the arms deal.
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/ 8 November 2007
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African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma will approach the Constitutional Court for leave to appeal two of Thursday’s Supreme Court of Appeal judgements, said his lawyer. They would also ”observe with keen interest” whether the rulings emboldened the National Prosecuting Authority to again indict Zuma on any charges.
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/ 7 November 2007
The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund is ”unaware” of having received any money from German arms manufacturer Thyssen-Krupp during the arms deal. Speaking in the National Assembly on Tuesday, Patricia de Lille said the African National Congress and the children’s fund benefited inappropriately from the arms deal.
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/ 6 November 2007
African National Congress (ANC) chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota has rejected allegations by Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille that the ANC and the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund benefited inappropriately from the arms deal. De Lille on Tuesday said such allegations had been speculation up until now.
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/ 31 October 2007
The Cape Town City council on Wednesday upheld the metro disciplinary committee’s recommendation that leader of the National People’s Party (NPP) Badih Chaaban be expelled as councillor. Chief whip of the council Anthea Serritslev said a full sitting of council voted in favour of Chaaban’s expulsion.
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/ 29 October 2007
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille has asked the police to let her listen to tapes related to the city’s ”spy” affair. Her request, in a letter to provincial Commissioner Mzwandile Petros on Monday, comes after police played some of the tapes to journalists. She said in a statement that Petros had also ”presented” the tapes to Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool.
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/ 25 October 2007
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Most South Africans think Jacob Zuma will become South Africa’s next president, TNS Research Surveys said on Thursday — although many also fear a Zuma presidency would be disastrous. Two thousand respondents were asked in a survey who would become the next president of South Africa in 2009.
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/ 19 October 2007
A disciplinary committee of the Cape Town city council has recommended that controversial councillor Badhi Chaaban be removed from office. The disciplinary hearings — which Chaaban claimed were a kangaroo court — followed claims that he sought to bribe councillors to cross the floor to his National People’s Party.
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/ 19 October 2007
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South Africa’s politicians are not immune to Rugby World Cup fever, with a fair number already in or on their way to Paris for Saturday’s final against England at the Stade de France. Leading the way, President Thabo Mbeki left for France on Friday morning, sporting his Springbok jersey and cap.
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/ 15 October 2007
A lawyer for Sunday Times editor Mondli Makhanya and deputy managing editor Jocelyn Maker has said they would hand themselves over to police in Cape Town this week, instead of waiting to be arrested for the alleged possession of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s medical records.
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/ 14 October 2007
Opposition parties and the South African National Editors’ Forum have expressed concern at reports of police plans to arrest Sunday Times editor Mondli Makhanya and journalist Jocelyn Maker over the theft of Health Minister Manto-Tshabalala-Msimang’s medical records.
South African President Thabo Mbeki came under mounting pressure over the weekend to explain his suspension of the country’s top prosecutor, a controversial move weeks before a crunch vote on his leadership of the African National Congress (ANC).
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/ 25 September 2007
Parliamentary opposition parties were unmoved on Tuesday by the Presidency’s explanation of the suspension of National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli. Freedom Front Plus MP Willie Spies said: ”We have left [a meeting with the Presidency] with more questions than there were answers.”