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Posts Tagged ‘Jacob Zuma’

jacob zuma and the media

Posted in South Africa, tagged , , , on June 17, 2009 | 4 Comments »

About a month ago “Global Pulse,” a TV and series on US satellite channel, LINK TV, did this quick analysis of global media coverage of Jacob Zuma, before and after he became South Africa’s fourth democratic president. As Global Link shows the media hardly blinked as it went from deriding to praising Zuma without winking. The media covered in the insert include South Africa’s SABC, France’s TV 5 Afrique, the British BBC, Germany’s Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera and Iran’s Press TV.

HT: SACSIS.org.za

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President Jacob Zuma’s first real test

Posted in South Africa, tagged , , , , , on May 22, 2009 | 1 Comment »

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Did the newly elected South African President pass?

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the most powerful man in South Africa

Posted in South Africa, tagged , , , , on May 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

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The age of Jacob Zuma (profiled here by my friend Doug Foster in an excellent piece in The Atlantic) officially kicked off earlier this month. Not surprisingly, Zuma only retained nine of his predecessor Thabo Mbeki’s Cabinet (the Cabinet of interim President Kgalema Montlanthe was merely a stop-gap until Zuma put his own stamp down).

Everybody was watching to see whether he would keep or replace Mbeki’s finance minister, Trevor Manuel, associated with the conservative economic policies adopted by the government since 1996 (policies that were good for the market, but bad for the country’s poor majority).

In the end, Zuma appointed a new finance minister, Pravin Gordhan (full disclosure: I like Gordhan, who served on the board of my last employer in South Africa), who reformed the country’s tax service. But Zuma also did something else: he promoted Manuel to a new post: as minister in the presidency of a powerful new department, the national planning commission, which will coordinate government policy.

The long and the short of it: Trevor Manuel is still the most powerful man in South Africa’s government.

Among those who are happy, predictably, is The Economist.

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a politician ate all the money

Posted in Music, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Excellent piece of political commentary on contemporary South African political and social life for the majority of the country’s people.

Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, among others, make brief appearances.

The video is for a song by the same name by South African reggae band, Tidal Wave.

Give me more of this music.

HT: Mahala

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the age of Jacob Zuma

Posted in South Africa, tagged , , , , , on May 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

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Africa Confidential speculates on the make-up of his Cabinet and his style of governance.

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what kind of President will Jacob Zuma be?

Posted in South Africa, tagged , , , , , on May 5, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Stephen Sackur, presenter of the BBC’s HARDtalk program, interviews a combative Mathews Phosa. Sackur, unfortunately is no match for Phosa. Most of his questions come across like bad headlines from South Africa’s newspapers, or from the website of the small opposition party, the Democratic Alliance.

For example, Sackur has a problem with the ANC’s national support or why people voted it into majorities in 8 of the 9 provinces, but not with the DA’s victory in the Western Cape. This makes Phosa to ask in a clumsy manner: So it is only democratic when the opposition wins an election? Sacker has no response.

And so it goes on an on.

This is a shame since Zuma, Phosa and the ANC needs to be held accountable.

But don’t take my word for it, watch for yourself:

Posted with vodpod

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Thabo Mbeki and his father’s people

Posted in Books, tagged , , , , , on April 29, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Excerpt from former New York Times Johannesburg correspondent Suzanne Daley’s review of Mark Gevisser’s book of the former South African President, “A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream”:

[Here is] the description of the funeral of Mbeki’s father in 2001. Govan Mbeki, who had been more activist than parent, insisted that he be buried in a dilapidated, litter-strewn local cemetery near Port Elizabeth. This produced, as Govan must clearly have understood it would, a painful tableau for his son, the president who had not succeeded in lifting most of his countrymen out of poverty. “There was something festive and celebratory in the air — not just that Govan Mbeki truly was a local hero in these neglected quarters, but that the carnival of power had come to town — and most onlookers cheered for the dignitaries they recognized,” Gevisser writes. “Some, however, made no bones about their feelings. ‘Look at your fancy cars!’ one woman yelled to a prominent black businessman as he alighted from his BMW.”

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‘the art and technique of always landing on your feet’

Posted in politics, tagged , , on April 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

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One of my favorite writers, Bryan Rostron,* (I consider his occasional pieces on South Africa in publications like The New Statesman as an antidote to the ramblings of RW Johnson), opines on the age of Jacob Zuma.

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war veterans

Posted in South Africa, tagged , , , , , on April 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Posted with vodpod

The election in South Africa are now over, but the unfinished business is not.

Take the thousands of ANC combatants who fought Apartheid, but neglected by the Mandela and Mbeki regimes. The ANC’s armed wing was quickly–and abruptly–disbanded after 1990. As a result, the majority of ex-MK combatants have not been properly integrated into the new army, in desperation some have gotten involved in crime. 84 percent of them are unemployed.

A small group of ex MK combatants in Alexandra north of Johannesburg–profiled in this excellent Al Jazeera English documentary made days before the elections–try to eat, stay out of trouble, heal (through “ecotherapy”), not lose their minds from post-traumatic stress and try to take their future into their own hands by starting small business. (Their business will surprise you).

They also see new President Jacob Zuma, a former member of the ANC’s armed wing himself, as being more beholden to their plight. (They want a Ministry of Military Veterans’ Affairs.)

The line to Zuma’s door is going to be long.

The video above is part one.

Links to part two, three and four.

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when he is not dancing

Posted in politics, tagged , , , , on April 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

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South African commentator Fazila Farouk puts aside the conventional-speak and focuses on the real questions post-elections last week. And she is not optimistic about the Zuma Presidency:

“… What path, in the midst of all these, will Zuma and his new ANC carve out for South Africa’s future? Who will their role models be? Under Zuma’s stewardship, will the ANC finally right the wrongs of our apartheid past? Early signs are worrying. Zuma has not said anything that indicates a break from the past, which would put South Africa firmly on the road to dealing with structural poverty. For the time being it looks pretty much as though the poor are still going to get screwed. South Africa’s economy is still firmly rooted in the legacy of apartheid and the pressure to maintain the status quo is strong. Over the years, the economic policies of the ANC, rather than transforming the economic landscape, have divided our economy and we are led to believe that this dualism between the first and second economy is a necessary evil. So while the ANC has always promised “a better life for all,” high-level research reveals that it is their obsession with neo-liberal economics that perpetuates the apartheid status quo in post-apartheid South Africa.“

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