The Democratic Alliance’s Tony Leon on Monday accused President Thabo Mbeki, African National Congress president Jacob Zuma and Cape Judge President John Hlophe of ”constitutional vandalism”. Addressing the Mizrachi Organisation in Cape Town, the former DA leader called for a government inclusive of ”all talent” available.
<b>COUNTERPOINT:</b> While we agree with our colleague Drew Forrest that Mbeki is a man past his sell-by date, we do not agree that the paper was ahead of its time in its appraisal of Mbeki. The <i>Mail & Guardian</i> 2001 and the<i> M&G</i> 2008 are two different papers.
President Thabo Mbeki must release the letter he allegedly wrote to George Bush asking the American president to ”butt out” of Zimbabwe, the Democratic Alliance said on Thursday. Mbeki’s four-page letter to Bush apparently criticised the United States for taking sides against Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe.
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=zuma_report"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/243078/zuma.jpg" align=left border=0></a>Addressing an audience in London on Wednesday, Tony Leon — the former leader of the Democratic Alliance — expressed fears that under Jacob Zuma as president, South Africa could revert to a stereotype of "Big Man", African-style kleptocracy replete with redistributive and populist economics with lashings of demagoguery.
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille was emerging as a person who would go to extremes to cover up the truth, a former member of the DA said on Tuesday. ”[She is] a person who criticises the judiciary and the media because their duties do not fit her political agenda,” Kobus Brynard, a Western Cape MPL for the African National Congress, said.
Zimbabwe’s ambassador to South Africa on Monday criticised the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for claiming that President Thabo Mbeki had not been an ”honest broker”. He was briefing Parliament’s portfolio committee on foreign affairs ahead of his country’s ”harmonised” March 29 elections.
Tony Leon, the former leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA), is writing to the chair of the foreign affairs portfolio committee in Parliament, asking him to summon Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to explain what the government is doing to protect South Africa businesses from being nationalised by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
No image available
/ 13 February 2008
Former leader of the Democratic Alliance Tony Leon, who now speaks for the party on foreign affairs, has launched a scathing attack on South Africa’s plan to host a second World Conference against Racism in Durban next year. "Quite what good will come of this exercise remains open to serious question," he said.
No image available
/ 10 February 2008
In his State of the Nation address on Friday, President Thabo Mbeki repeated an all too familiar pattern of legitimising Zimbabwean elections before they have even taken place, said the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) spokesperson for foreign affairs Tony Leon.
No image available
/ 10 February 2008
Hansard, the official record of parliamentary proceedings, does not agree with Buyelwa Patience Sonjica’s version of recent events, the Sunday Independent reported. Sonjica, the Minister of Minerals and Energy, said on Tuesday that she did not say that all South Africans should go to bed earlier so that they could grow and become cleverer.
No image available
/ 7 February 2008
The British high commission has confirmed that it is conducting a global review of its visit visa requirements. High commissioner Paul Boateng said on Wednesday that Britain is in regular contact with the South African government regarding the process and that no decision has been taken.
No image available
/ 6 February 2008
Any move by Britain to impose visa requirements on South Africans will have a serious effect on business and travel links between the two countries, the Democratic Alliance (DA) warned. British legislators were now examining evidence that might lead to such a visa requirement, the DA’s Tony Leon said.
No image available
/ 5 February 2008
Minerals and Energy Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica on Tuesday denied advising South Africans to go to bed early as a means of conserving electricity. ”That speech didn’t say ‘Go to bed, go to bed, go to bed’,” she said at a media briefing at the launch of the department’s national energy efficiency campaign.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has called for the Presidency to break its silence over the ongoing fracas in Kenya. ”An upfront reiteration by the South African Presidency that it will not countenance ballot rigging and improper retention of power would be both appropriate and timeous,” the DA’s Tony Leon said.
No image available
/ 27 November 2007
There are two really big problems with the struggle for leadership of the ANC and they are both covered by the deployment of one simple metaphor: the iceberg. Most of what you see is the tip protruding from the water. Much of what matters is below. But the water is very dark and very cold. Few people, if any, really know all that is happening below the surface.
No image available
/ 24 November 2007
Journalist Charlene Smith on Friday demanded a public apology from Mark Gevisser, author of the book Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred, saying he had published ”serious inaccuracies”. She was referring to an article by her, published in the Washington Post, that Gevisser quoted in his biography of Mbeki.
No image available
/ 25 October 2007
![]()
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.
President Thabo Mbeki and Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille met in Cape Town on Tuesday to discuss a range of current issues. These included crime, skills shortages, floor-crossing and the dismissal of former deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge.
If the Democratic Alliance is to shrug aside it baggage from the past, it could hardly do better than vote Cape Town mayor Helen Zille into the top job.