Feint and Margin

All along I have been advocating Brett Murray’s right to paint what he wishes. I was like Tselane Tambo asking the president to get over it, inquire of the painting’s deeper meaning and get on with running the country. I have been like Ayanda Mabhulu the irreverent artist who had committed the same act as [...]

It is now common knowledge that Julius Malema, has been found guilty of sowing division within the ANC and has been expelled from the party. Looking at the simple facts of the disciplinary hearings and the punitive measures that were meted out, one is left with a series of questions, that deserve further exploration at [...]

There has been much uproar in South Africa recently, with the ruling ANC, proposing some amendments to the country’s much celebrated constitution. The ANC has proposed a review of the constitutionally guaranteed powers of South Africa’s judiciary amongst many other suggestions that it has put forward for public discussion. Naturally, this has drawn much criticism [...]

Julius Malema must die for President Zuma. Julius Malema has always stood by his words without ny apologies. Malema said that he would die for President Zuma whilst doing everything in his power to ensure that the then President Mbeki is seen as the worst kind of dictator that had to be removed as president [...]

So according to ANC Secretary General  Gwede Mantashe, the reason the ANC did so badly amongst minority voters in the recent local government elections was to put it in two words: Julius Malema. According to this logic the ANC would have won more minority votes if there was no Julius Malema. How true is this [...]

Corruption in South Africa is unique in that the majority of citizens do not pay taxes beyond the VAT they are occasionally charged as end consumers. Outside of this tax, the burden of tax is as unequal as the spread of wealth. Abstractly, I agree with this principal – those who have the most in society and therefore gain the most by society’s stability should bear the greatest burden – however, there is a risk in a democracy such as ours, that with the burden of the purse not being borne by even remotely a majority of the citizens (I think you’ll find the DA’s % of the vote tallies quite neatly to the majority of tax payers… hrm… something to ponder), the majority of the citizens will not PUNISH the party in Government (often misunderstood as the government: just the way they like it…) for thieving from the public purse because the link has never been made that the money was theirs (the people’s) in the first place.

Name the most powerful opposition politician? Who makes the government fear for its continuity? Helen Zille? Please… Terror Lekota? Give me a break… If there is one citizen who the government and the ruling party should rightly fear it is Vavi. How does the Alliance hold when there are clearly factions which are deeply at odds with one another when it comes to the vision for the future of the country? Clearly history has something to do with it, also the myth that it is so ‘cold’ outside of the Alliance.

There is a very real, and terrifying possibility that should the bill and the proposed tribunals become law, and the opposition fails in its Section 80 referral of the law to the Constitutional Court (or indeed, even if that is successful), and a test case is sent to the ConCourt instead that the highest court on matters constitutional may in fact rule in favour of the ANC. Just ponder that one for a moment…