The recent announcement by the New National Party that it has adopted the Freedom Charter and intends to work closely with the African National Congress is significant to South African politics, and not a historic event, like many people erroneously assert. A historic event is something much more profound.
Both South Africa’s "rainbow romantics" and its "revolutionary left" suffer from a failure to grasp many of the political realities of the country after apartheid — and this often makes irrelevant their contributions on how to tackle the social and economic challenges facing the nation.
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/ 12 February 2004
The complaint by opposition parties that South Africa is fast becoming a one-party state is stubbornly not going away, and is set to dominate the forthcoming election.
In this view, the African National Congress is becoming too powerful and is likely to subvert South Africa’s democracy, running the country into the ground in the process. Some people — tongue in cheek — claim this has already happened.
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/ 5 February 2004
The electoral campaign is replete with an assertion that has dogged South Africa’s transition to democracy: the view that the youth are apathetic and, most seriously, contemptuous of politics. This view is variously held in the media, public discourse, academia and wider society. If accurate, it clearly presents a potent danger.
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/ 29 January 2004
Disturbingly — but not surprisingly, given the polarisation in South African politics — the start of party electoral campaigns has been marred by the acrimonious debate over the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) live coverage of President Thabo Mbeki’s address at an African National Congress rally in January.