Politics and Governance

The State Of The South African Refugee Protection Regime: Part III - Party Politics

Asylum has become a battleground for party politics and electioneering.This brief - the third in a three-part series - reviews the asylum policies and statements of four of South Africa’s major political parties (the ANC, DA, EFF and COPE) in the run up to the 2019 election.

Eskom’s latest tariff application - Our Submission to the National Energy Regulator

This brief contains a summary of the Helen Suzman Foundation’s submission to the National Energy Regulator on Eskom’s latest tariff application. It describes the extremely serious financial situation in which Eskom finds itself and the strategic issues that need to be addressed.

Structural Interdicts: An Effective Means Of Ensuring Political Accountability?

Incapacity. Incompetence. Pure recalcitrance. Intentional non-compliance. Corruption. These are among the most egregious reasons for any government’s inability to create and implement policies to achieve the purposes set out in legislation.

Keeping An Eye On The 2019 National & Provincial Elections

This brief explores the challenges facing the Electoral Commission in the run-up to the 2019 National and Provincial elections - and what it is being done to address them.

Curing South Africa's “Sea Blindness” - Cyril Ramaphosa, SONA and the Indian Ocean Rim Association

South Africa got its new Valentine shortly before the clock ticked to midnight on 14th February 2018, as Jacob Zuma exited and Cyril Ramaphosa became first, acting President, then President-Elect and finally President of the Republic in less than twenty-four hours.

Zimbabwe II - Politics

The first brief in this series outlined key demographic and economic conditions and dynamics. This brief considers their political implications.

Political Party Funding VII - The Treasury Bombshell

This brief outlines the presentation by the National Treasury on 1 September 2017 to the Parliamentary Ad Hoc Committee on the Funding of Political Parties and considers its implications.

Political Party Funding VI - Civil Society Submissions

This is the final brief of a six part series. The first provided a background to the current debate on political party funding. The second brief dealt with the legal position, and the third suggested a framework within which law might develop. The fourth dealt with international experience. This brief deals with submissions made to Parliament by civil society organisations, following on from the fifth brief which looked at political parties’ submissions.

Political Party Funding V - Political Party Submissions

This is the fifth brief of a six part series. The first provided a background to the current debate on political party funding. The second brief dealt with the legal position, and the third suggested a framework within which law might develop.

POLITICAL PARTY FUNDING IV - THE GLOBAL PICTURE

This is the fourth part of a six brief series. The first provided a background to the current debate on political party funding, the second described with the legal position and the third suggested a framework within which law might develop. This brief deals with international experience. The fifth will deal with submissions made to Parliament by political parties and the sixth with submissions made by civil society organisations.

This is the third part of a six brief series. The first provided a background to the current debate on political party funding, and the second dealt with the legal position. This brief suggests a framework within which law might develop. The fourth deals with international experience. The fifth will deal with submissions made to Parliament by political parties and the sixth with submissions made by civil society organisations.

This is the second brief of a six part series. The first part provides a background to the current debate on political party funding. This brief deals with the legal position, and the third suggests a framework within which law might develop. The fourth deals with international experience. The fifth will deal with submissions made to Parliament by political parties and the sixth with submissions made by civil society organisations.

This is the first brief of a six part series. It provides a background to the current debate on political party funding. The second brief deals with the legal position, and the third suggests a framework within which law might develop. The fourth deals with international experience. The fifth will deal with submissions made to Parliament by political parties and the sixth with submissions made by civil society organisations.

This brief by Charles Collocott looks at the possibility of changes to the mandate of the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) in light of such suggestions made by the current Minister of Finance.

In this brief Charles Simkins explores the 'assets' and 'liabilities' of the ANC policy conference.

In an increasingly fractious political environment, the ANC’s draft policy document on Peace and Stability includes bold claims about interference from foreign intelligence services in domestic South African politics. In addition, the document labels a wide range of groups as accomplices in this plot. This brief, by Charles Simkins, takes issue with this characterisation and looks at why these accusations are concerning for South Africa’s constitutional democracy.

This brief deals with the way in which ANC policy is developed. Further briefs will consider the substance of recently released draft policy documents for the June National Policy Conference.

Over the past few years allegations of treason have become more regular in South Africa. While there has only been one major treason case in the 23 years since the end of Apartheid, there have recently been a number of accusations of treason levelled against a variety of individuals, ranging from student activists to senior politicians. These allegations can be seen in the context of the implementation of treason law in southern Africa, with a number of pending treason cases in other countries that have been seen as politically motivated.

As a result of the publicity which several state-owned enterprises have enjoyed recently, especially from a governance and finance perspective, the logical question is to what degree they pose a real danger to the health of the State’s finances. This brief by Charles Collocott is based on the detailed Budget Review, as published by National Treasury on the date of the budget speech on 22 February 2017.

This brief sketches the background to attempts by the ACSA Board to address alleged fraud and corruption - and in reaction, the Minister of Transport attempts to fire almost half the Board.

This brief reviews some of the problems related to our National Archives.

This brief looks at the electoral task team report and its relevance with regards to the outcomes of the latest local government elections.

This brief looks at the extent of golden handshakes in the public sector and legislation governing financial misconduct.

This Brief done by Charles Simkins is the technical report which follows the Brief on voter behaviour in the metros.

This Brief by Charles Simkins looks at voter behaviour in metros and what the results of the 2016 Local Government Elections mean. The technical report to this Brief will follow shortly.

This Brief done by HSF's Richard Griffin discusses the rationality of the appointment of public officials in South Africa

This is the second part in a two part series of Briefs which focuses on populism in South Africa

This Brief is the first in a two part series and this Brief discusses populism.

Andrew Barlow looks to Brazil and recent developments regarding Dilma Rousseff's impeachment. He argues that there are lessons for our own President to draw on.

The recent statement by President Zuma that the ANC, not the country, comes first is not just, or only, an ordinary political assertion that the ANC is best suited to govern the people. It is also a conceptual claim that without the ANC there cannot ‘be’ a country; it is a claim that rests on foundations that are essentially totalitarian in nature.

In a land mark study of government in the Third Reich[1] , Ernst Fraenkel distinguished between the normative and positive state. His thesis has been given crisp expression as follows by Richard Evans:

The God That Failed was published in 1949. Edited by Richard Crossman, who was later to become a cabinet minister in Labour governments in the United Kingdom, it contained six essays by well-known figures of the time. Three (Arthur Koestler, Ignazio Silone and Richard Wright) were dubbed as the initiates, because they had been members of Communist parties for some time and the other three (Andre Gide, Louis Fischer and Stephen Spender) were ‘worshipers from afar’, because either they were never members or members only for a brief period.

This Brief sets out voter geographical information derived from the voting patterns as observed in the 2014 National Election.

Commentary on the ANC National General Council 2015 discussion documents.

The second Brief set out the allocation of seats to metros and produced a baseline projection of the outcome of the 2016 local government election based on the 2014 national election party support pattern. This Brief considers the quantitative projections of the elections and the qualitative observations on parties' performances therein.

The first Brief in this series dealt with important rules of the game. This Brief takes the next step and projects a base line for 2016.

This Brief sets out two important things to know about the system.

This brief looks at the 'golden handshake' taken by the former National Prosecuting Authority Head, Mxolisi Nxasana and discusses the pattern of 'golden handshakes'.

This brief seeks to shed light on the role the Speaker ought to play in the South African Parliament. It should not be read as an attempt to discuss the performance of any particular Speaker.

One can support a constitutional democracy on the grounds that it is a better form of government than any other. One can be a revolutionary, dissatisfied with the existing political order and wanting to overthrow it in favour of an envisaged better alternative. But to claim to be a constitutional democrat and a revolutionary at the same time – now that is odd. Yet, we see it constantly in contemporary South Africa. What explains the phenomenon?

South Africa has been a segmented society for centuries. It still is. For example, marriages across ethnic and religious lines are relatively rare. Ethnic identities were crystallised into a system of racial classification by the apartheid state. This is a context in which identity politics might have had disastrous consequences and it was often predicted that apartheid would end in a general conflagration. Despite substantial political violence in the decade before 1994, this did not happen. For the last century and a half, infectious disease has been the more important killer. Deaths from AIDS in the opening few years of this century – some of which could have been avoided by more rapid roll out of treatment - exceeded all the mortality from war and political violence since 1850.

Globally, the Cold War era has been succeeded by both the salience of market oriented economic development and the growth of identity politics. Understanding the relationship of liberalism and identity politics is a key issue for our time globally and specifically for understanding South African politics.

"[T]he NEC noted the extent to which Parliamentary processes have descended into chaos and the unruly offensive on the ANC in Parliament, Parliament itself and on democracy in our country. Hooliganism and insult are at unprecedented levels and are unfortunately being defined as a tool of engagement. The decorum and dignity of Parliament as an institution is being dragged through the mud under the cover of the right to be robust." - Statement of the ANC National Executive Committee following meeting held 21-29 September 2014

The recent behaviour of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), and the responses to it by the African National Congress (ANC), and the Democratic Alliance (DA), is worrying and troublesome. This brief explains why their conduct bodes ill for Parliament as an institution which is vital to democracy.

With the 2014 General elections behind us, it is not too soon to start focusing on Local elections. This brief unpacks the components of South Africa's local elections.

This is the first in a series of Briefs dealing with elections in South Africa. This Brief unpacks some of the main components of the South African General Elections.

This Brief makes some observations on the Presidential Review Committee’s (PRC) Final Report on the State of South Africa’s State Owned Enterprises (SOEs).

Discussions about electoral reform in South Africa have again come to the forefront over the last few weeks. This brief succinctly discusses the attitudes of four political parties towards electoral reform and how reform may or may not effect change to accountability and representation.