South Africa General Discussion

[Kitteh]

I believe it's time for this thread, since I couldn't find a general one for SA with the search (if anybody can point me to one I'll delete this).

Also, I thought it would be good to compile a list of country resources for anyone who's interested, so:

Forum Resources

My thread about the ANC leadership election coming up later this month -
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=164353.0

Hashemite's awesome SA maps thread -
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=160225.0

SA Local By-Elections thread (also Hash) -
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=166002.0

SA 2011 Municipal Elections thread -
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=133967.0

SA 2009 General Election thread -
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=93669.0

Non-Forum Resources

Newpapers

Mail & Guardian - www.mg.co.za
The best national newspaper for coverage of politics, government, current events, etc.

The Daily Maverick - www.dailymaverick.co.za
A more opinionated newspaper than the M&G. Typically features opinion pieces from both regular contributors and notable people who write in from time to time. Often much more in depth than the M&G, but it's opinion and not strictly news you have to be ready to take things with a grain of salt. Some of the contributors have a lot of bias, but others are really excellent.

Hayibo - www.hayibo.com
Just for fun. The SA equivalent of The Onion.

Other

2011 Election results map from News24 - http://www.news24.com/maps?year=2011
This is the only interactive map of SA election results that I know of. Has the 2011 municipal elections down to the district level and the 2006 municipals too for comparison.



If anyone else has anything to add to this list please comment. I'm by no means an expert.

[Kitteh]

To kick this off, a big report today on how Jacob Zuma gained millions through corruption:

http://mg.co.za/article/2012-12-07-00-secret-report-reveals-how-millions-flowed-to-zuma

Corruption involving Zuma, the government, or the ANC (actually, that's redundant, the ANC and the government are one and the same at this point) is nothing new, but what is most shocking about this one is that Nelson Mandela is implicated. Mandela apparently helped pay off a lot of Zuma's debts (that he had acquired through banks lending him ridiculous amounts of money because of his position) after Zuma was fired from the post of ANC Deputy Secretary in 2005. There's nothing in here that suggests Mandela himself was corrupt, but he did step in to save Zuma's a-- when all of Zuma's corruption was about to come crashing down on him. Pretty sad to see even Mandela being caught up in this garbage, even indirectly.

[Kitteh]

Nelson Mandela is in the hospital today. It doesn't sound too bad, but given that he's 94 anything like this is scary. Best wishes for him.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2012/12/08/mandela-in-pta-hospital-for-tests

[Kitteh]

*bump*

Obviously, all that people care about from SA right now is Pistorius, but buried under that I found a pretty interesting story about who will succeed Jacob Zuma as President:

http://mg.co.za/article/2013-02-22-00-why-cyril-ramaphosa-wont-be-king

Zuma has said that he will step down as President by the 2014 elections. For a long time, it had been assumed that Cyril Ramaphosa would be his chosen successor. I gave a profile of Ramaphosa in my ANC leadership election thread that's worth quoting here:

Ramaphosa is a perfect example of everything that's wrong with the modern ANC. He was one of the heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle, the main organizer of the National Union of Miners, who grew the NUM from a minor union into a major force. He was one of the leaders of the negotiations that ended apartheid. He was elected to parliament as a member of the ANC in 1994 and in 1997 attempted to run for president but was defeated by Thabo Mbeki for the ANC leadership. After that he left politics for the private sector, at which point his career starts to go downhill. Ramaphosa became extremely wealthy investing in mining interests. He held positions in a number of mining companies, including a seat on the board of Lonmin which owned the infamous Marikana mine when the strike broke out. During the strike he was strongly against the miners, calling for action against the "criminal" strike. Unfortunately, he got what he wanted.

The Guardian has a good article on this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/25/cyril-ramaphosa-marikana-email

It's an extremely depressing story; one of the biggest sellouts in history.

Anyway, Ramaphosa had long been considered Zuma's protege, strongly aligned with his faction in the ANC. In December he was elected to ANC Deputy President with Zuma's backing. But now apparently it looks like Zuma and Ramaphosa have had some sort of a falling out and Zuma is now leaning towards choosing his ex-wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who is currently chair of the African Union, as his successor. Apparently Zuma's supporters have gotten the sense that if elected President, Ramaphosa might reopen the corruption case against Zuma that was dropped in 2009 because of political pressure by the ANC government. This would be very interesting; my guess is (if it's true, which it seems to be) that Ramaphosa was planning to announce this soon after taking office, which would mean just before the 2014 elections, as a move to restore ANC support. Someone in the Zuma camp must have found out about this, and so now Ramaphosa is on the outs. Dlamini-Zuma is closely allied with Zuma, but she's also a relatively competent person who shares similar pro-business (relative to the ANC) and pro-African unity views as former President Thabo Mbeki which would make her tolerable to the parts of the ANC that are not too friendly to Zuma. She also would be the first female president of SA, and the ANC probably hopes that this would help them get some votes in 2014.