The continuity of corporate capture, of corruption, of the arrogance of state and executive power, of the demobilisation of the grassroots, is crucial to understanding what Zuma has done and will continue to do. And this rot did not start with the rise of Zuma to the throne. It is deeply rooted in the politics of the ruling ANC party post-apartheid.

South Africa’s democracy is in trouble. The present situation is, in objective terms, a house divided; a house that is tottering on rotten foundations. Despite the more general advances that have been made under the ANC’s rule since 1994, power has not only remained in the hands of a small minority but has increasingly been exercised in service to capital. 

The ANC has morphed from its earlier transition days as a ‘modern’ bourgeois political party designed to consolidate a class-based system of power overlaid with narrow racial interests to an inveterately factionalised, patronage-centred, corrupt, rent seeking and increasingly undemocratic ex-liberation movement.

In a democracy worthy the name, no specific belief, conscience, thought, opinion or religion has special legal or societal status.

In 20 years, the population which has chosen not to vote has increased by 9.4 million. What does this largely hidden tale tell us about South Africa’s political system and its democracy?

Public opinion is fast shifting in South Africa about the use of marijuana, which is criminalised. A key legal argument in the debate is that prohibiting dagga use while allowing tobacco and alcohol amounts to discrimination, which violates equality as guaranteed by the Constitution

Despite government and ruling party hype, South Africa remains a country in which the capitalist class and their small minority of middle class and political hangers-on ride the ‘world class’ gravy train while telling the rest of the people to cram into the ‘third class’ carriages

There is a very broad conception of national security wherein state spooks have come to see themselves as the main watchdog of society, almost separate and above the constitutional and democratic order

If capital is to be believed, it is the worker who is the main source of South Africa’s contemporary social and economic problems

After many years of lack of broad-based civil society coalitions, there now exist new spaces and places in South Africa for progressive civil society to reclaim a unity of strategic purpose and action.

As the ANC holds its national leadership conference at Mangaung this month, Dale T. McKinley takes a satirical look at the party elite who have become increasingly tone-deaf to the demands of the masses

Another bombshell is about to be dropped onto South Africa’s raging political and legal battlefield and it involves one of the most contentious and emotive issues in our country - land.

By the late 2000s, the bed had turned into a fully fledged forest. Not content with what were already very decent wage packages financed by the public purse, high-ranking politicians and public sector officialdom at every level were awarding themselves with super-salaries and a huge range of benefit sweeteners. Indeed, South Africa has to be one of the countries in the world where the majority of this public sector ‘cadre’ are made millionaires every year and that’s not counting what many of them make on the side.

By merging domestic and foreign intelligence, the new Bill raises the unenviable spectre of the all-powerful apartheid-era Bureau of State Security – and not without good reason.

As South Africa's ANC prepares to mark its 100th anniversary, Dale T. McKinley reflects on how capital came to trump the aspirations of workers in the aftermath of the Polokwane conference four years ago.

Dale T. McKinley takes a clause by clause look at South Africa’s Protection of Information Bill (POIB) – known publicly as the Secrecy Bill. It is ‘all very real and even more dangerous’, he writes, and South Africans should speak up now before it is too late.

‘As the public, we all have a right to know what rules and regulations govern the financial behaviour of our public officials and how they spend our public monies so that we can hold them accountable,’ writes Dale T. McKinley. So why is the South African government so keen to keep the contents of its ministerial handbook out of the public eye?

cc Dale McKinley explains how black economic empowerment in South Africa has come to be associated with elite accumulation, corruption and extreme inequality.

Dale T. McKinley introduces a new word into the political lexicon – polipreneurship. The word describes the idea of politics as business, but also the way in which politics is seen and approached.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/500/10_500.gifDale McKinley discusses how Pambazuka News has avoided eclipsing grassroots activism in Africa by adhering to a Pan-African and internationalist foundation. He also adds new directions for the platform to pursue.