Editorial: Face the truth, Zuma
President Jacob Zuma can be eerily mesmerising but he also holds some rather eclectic views and sometimes expresses them bizarrely.
Editorial
Editorial: Challenge Zuma at your peril
For as long as the policy conflicts and ideological battles of the alliance are fought by means of the knife, uncertainty will continue.
Editorial: Ulwaluko laws are vital
Culture can hold people together, providing a sense of belonging. Like religion, it gives traditional communities a set of social rules to live by.
Editorial: Rand buried in consensus politics
Labour unrest that has taken new and more challenging forms is compounding the effects of slumping commodity prices.
Editorial: Feel it. The day of reckoning is here
The Polokwane conference taught us what we thought were the physics of the 21st-century ANC.
Editorial: ANC purges won’t bring stability
The run-up to Mangaung has seen vicious infighting, organisational chaos and accusations of fraud and manipulation at ANC branch level.
Editorial: Grapple garnishee ghoul
Endless stories are recounted by garnishee administration companies about staff members going home empty-handed on payday.
Editorial: Private deals that demand scrutiny
Some of the president’s private arrangements demand public scrutiny, because they pose real risks for him and for crucial areas of governance.
Editorial: Secrecy Bill same old ugly in spite of concessions
In the little death of democracy that is the finalisation of the secrecy Bill, there is a kernel of hope – an invigorated civil society.
Editorial: Crude implements of censorship
Hysteria and paranoia. That is what leaders of the ANC and the SACP accuse the press of when concerns about threats to freedom of speech are raised.
Editorial: Farm workers deserve better
If you were looking for moral clarity this week, the smoke-dimmed sunlight of the Cape winelands was not the place to find it.
Editorial: Compounding the problem
South African political language can be baffling, but the most recent utterances on "Nkandlagate" surely mark a new level of tortuous sophistry.
Editorial: Time to bring this torturer to book
A priority crimes litigation unit exists in the National Prosecuting Authority and has a mandate to prosecute apartheid-era human rights violators.
Editorial: Hate speech goes untested
South Africans should be able to understand that what is legally permissible and what is wise or constructive are not the same.
Editorial: Keeping secrets safe
Progress had been made on the Protection of State Information Bill. Not enough to render it safe for democracy, but progress nonetheless.
Editorial: Empowerment’s ironic price tag
Does Cyril Ramaphosa have blood on his hands? That is the question being asked, and is far too glibly answered.
Editorial: Don’t buck the rule of law
Politicians have had their frustrations with the courts and from time to time they have expressed them in terms that rightly give cause for concern.
Editorial: We’d like to trust Zuma, but …
President Jacob Zuma this week announced the first concrete measures aimed at bringing the violent illegal strikes that have flared up under control.
Editorial: Totally inadequate response to crises
This week the government responded to two of the issues facing a depressed South Africa – Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla upgrade and protracted strikes.
ANC’s insult to women
The ANC Women’s League tried to defend itself this week following a widely condemned comment by Clara Ndlovu, its Mpumalanga provincial secretary.
Boot out soccer thugs to save the PSL
This season’s wave of hooliganism poses an alarming threat to the future of the Premier Soccer League.
Editorial: An inconvenient Nkandla truth?
Why is the government so intent on dodging questions about the splurge on ‘security’ at President Jacob Zuma’s rural homestead?
Editorial: Time for effective electoral politics
On Monday, the long lie that is the ANC pre-conference embargo on "leadership contestation" finally ends.
Test of unions’ credibility
Many workers now believe violence is justified, indeed necessary. Some, notably in the transport union Satawu.
Editorial: Troops must stay clear of protests
For all its failings, the military remains effective in one regard: instilling fear. And striking workers at Marikana felt that fear this week.
South Africa’s infantile foreign policy
The "global war on terror" and its awful sequelae seem very far away to most South Africans.
Editorial: Cosatu must put its members first
Cosatu’s conference must be energised by the need to find a response to the crisis at SA’s mines, rather than enervated by ANC factional politics.
Editorial: Disquieting lack of leadership
In 1994, our leaders, be they political, business or labour, inspired us as they fashioned the way forward. Now they are conspicuous by their absence.
Editorial: Glimmers of true leadership
There’s been a lot of talk of leadership lately, at conferences in Sandton and among ordinary South Africans. Much of that talk is about its absence.
Editorial: Don’t short-change the poor
The Institute of Race Relations argued in a report this week, that grants have been crucial to improved living standards over the past decade.
Editorial: Silence that hurts
Julius Malema may not have an organised mass base outside the ANC, but he is a past master at going where there is pain.
Editorial: Politicking among police
President Jacob Zuma’s appointments to the prosecution service have poisoned South Africa’s sensitive criminal justice system.
