‘Why should artists vote for you?" This was the question posed to the fishers-of-votes by arts organisations in different provinces over the past month. Generally, it is pretty hard for arts-related concerns to get on to the radar screens of political parties, but in the game of elections, even artists qualify as players, writes Mike van Graan.
Most parties have not given much prominence to environmental issues, focusing instead on jobs and crime. Yet we are already seeing the first frightening heralds of climate change, caused by excessive greenhouse-gas emissions. This could mean crop failure and famine in Southern Africa in the near future. Are any of our politicians paying attention?
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>The Independent Democrats said it has whisked away seven Democratic Alliance members on the eve of elections, although the DA says the ID is guilty of "double-counting defections". Themba Sono, deputy leader of the ID, welcomed "senior registered members of the DA" at a media briefing in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
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Road accidents are the biggest cause of death in South Africa among children between the ages of four and 15, and a national plan of action is needed to combat this ”epidemic”, Western Cape provincial minister of health Piet Meyer said on Tuesday. He said on average two children die every day on the country’s roads.
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The convoy leaves before dawn, snaking deep into Zululand while villages sleep. By first light we are at the rendezvous and ready for the final day of Operation Rolling Thunder. Helicopters clatter down on to the field and in groups of 14 soldiers and police officers scramble aboard as the machines rise and race towards mountain peaks.
Heavy rains over parts of the central Karoo at the weekend have inflicted millions of rands of damage to roads and bridges in the region, and caused at least one dam to overflow, the Western Cape government reported on Monday. Communities downstream have been warned about possible flooding.
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The Democratic Alliance’s attorneys will approach the Cape High Court’s judges’ chambers on Monday morning to inform the presiding officer in an urgent application that an out-of-court settlement had been reached over the weekend.
Special Report: Elections 2004
Sales at South Africa’s 30th annual Nederburg Auction on April 2 and 3, arguably the highlight of the wine industry’s calendar, saw wine sales fall by 11,2% to R6,73-million from the record R7,58-million achieved in 2003, the first time a decline has been recorded since 1993.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>One way of analysing elections is to think of them in four phases. First, there are the campaign issues: what do people care about? Second, there is the response of the contesting parties: what campaign strategy do they employ? Third, there are the results. And fourth, political consequences. There is very little strategic capacity to run election campaigns in South Africa, writes Richard Calland.
The assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin — the partially sighted, wheelchair-bound quadraplegic — is a clear demonstration of the paralysis and blindness of Ariel Sharon and the Israeli government, writes Ronnie Kasrils, Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, and Maz Ozinsky is an MPL for the African National Congress in the Western Cape.
Election manifestos: More police doesn’t mean less lawlessness. For many voters, crime is the key issue of this election, and it is not surprising that political parties have given the matter a bit of thought in preparing their election manifestos. Each party makes some excellent points, but at times the rhetoric descends into simply promising more, better and faster.
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Freedom Front Western Cape leader Corne Mulder is suing the Democratic Alliance’s provincial election coordinator, Robin Carlisle, and his party in the Cape High Court for damages to the amount of R250Â 000. The damages are being sought for alleged slander and damage to Mulder’s reputation.
Special Report: Elections 2004
Twenty-seven facilities had met the basic requirements for accreditation to provide quality care for Aids patients, the national Department of Health has announced. The 27 facilities will begin admitting patients and performing HIV testing and medical examinations.
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Democratic Alliance chief whip Douglas Gibson on Wednesday disagreed with one of his MPs when he contended that the DA is not actively campaigning for the lesbian and gay vote in the April elections. Gibson and gay MP Mike Waters were responding to a statement from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance.
Special Report: Elections 2004
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Polls indicate that South Africa’s former ruling party will be lucky to get 15% in the upcoming election — down from about 38% in 1999 — in its stronghold of the Western Cape. But there was no sign of despondency in its ranks when its leader, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, took to meeting voters on the West Coast on Tuesday.
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How healthy is South Africa’s public health system? And how big are the gaps between promises and practice? We visit the provinces to determine South Africa’s real state of health. This week the <i>M&G</i> looks at Limpopo, the most northerly of South Africa’s nine provinces, where the extreme poverty of the local inhabitants is constrasted starkly with world-famous luxury game lodges.
There has been a strengthening of businesses in townships across South Africa over the past decade, Minister of Trade and Industry Alec Erwin said during a small-business breakfast meeting in Langa on Friday. He urged Langa business people to come together to help establish a business centre.
The Western Cape provincial working committee of the African National Congress has temporarily suspended Kannaland Municipality Mayor Jeffrey Donson as an ANC member, pending a hearing. According to reports, Donson, who moonlights as a DJ, was confronted by taxpayers over the alleged use of public money to fund this other career.
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Western Cape Premier and New National Party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk has emerged as the most popular premier candidate in that province in a Markinor poll conducted in January/February. In KwaZulu-Natal, the African National Congress’s top-ranking candidate for the legislature, S’bu Ndebele, won the popularity stake in the poll.
Special Report: Elections 2004
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South African official opposition leader Tony Leon has questioned the shroud of silence which hangs in ruling African National Congress circles over the prospect that Finance Minister Trevor Manuel could be deputy president one day.
Special Report: Elections 2004
The Karoo dorp of Beaufort West is a curious mix. It is the birthplace of heart surgeon Christiaan Barnard and has a museum in his honour. It is the place where anti-apartheid activists downed a helicopter in the 1980s. Unemployment stands at an estimated 60% among the about 60Â 000 Central Karoo residents. Taking the Central Karoo from bust to boom needs more jobs that will stay.
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Ten percent to 12% of the vote — that is what Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille predicts her party will get in next month’s general election. The fiery party leader, called the one-woman-show by many of her opponents, on Tuesday introduced her provincial leaders and premier’s candidates to the media.
Special Report: Elections 2004
The Western Cape director of public prosecutions has decided not to prosecute three men arrested in connection with a fatal shootout last week in front of former president Nelson Mandela’s Constantia home, SABC radio reported on Tuesday. The three men had been facing charges of attempted murder.
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) will have to hold a formal hearing regarding a complaint lodged by the South African Jewish Board of Deputies concerning a broadcast on Muslim station Radio 786 that the board alleges was anti-Jewish.
Thousands of Capetonians participated in Monday’s Freedom Parade, the public launch of the 10 Years of Freedom celebrations in the Western Cape. The parade saw two processions parading from opposite sides of the Cape Flats to converge at Athlone Stadium.
Education Minister Kader Asmal’s intention to appoint a truth commission to deal with the damage of apartheid education would be a divisive step, says Western Cape education minister Andre Gaum. It would merely open up old wounds and not contribute to improving the education system, says Gaum.
The right to vote and the opportunity it provides for an individual to contribute to social change is a very simple, powerful tool in the democratic process, and we in South Africa have waited long and suffered much to secure this right. For this reason alone we should all discharge our responsibility as voting citizens with due care and informed thought.
The three men who were arrested following the shooting of an ex-soldier outside former president Nelson Mandela’s home on Tuesday were to appear in court on Thursday afternoon. The matter would be postponed for seven days to allow the police to conclude its investigation, directorate spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said.
A decision on whether to prosecute three men arrested following the shooting of an ex-soldier outside former President Nelson Mandela’s home will be made on Thursday. Authorities have 48 hours from their arrests to charge the men, or free them.
A third man has been arrested in connection with an incident outside former president Nelson Mandela’s home on Tuesday in which a disgruntled former soldier was shot dead, police said on Wednesday afternoon. The man was arrested in Knysna in the Western Cape around 10pm on Tuesday, according to police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Selby Bokaba.
The Greenpoint and Seapoint areas of Cape Town, known as relatively high crime areas in the city, are set to receive eight new CCTV cameras as part of an expansion of the municipal government’s crime-fighting efforts. Western Cape Premier Marthinus van Schalkwyk said that R4,3-million had been allocated for the project.