<![CDATA[SundayTimes]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.zaSat, 07 Nov 2026 11:28:49 +0000en1hourly1<![CDATA[LIVE UPDATES | Malema says EFF’s 2026 LGE performance a setback, not a defeat]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-05-live-updates-malema-says-effs-2026-lge-performance-a-setback-not-a-defeat/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-05-live-updates-malema-says-effs-2026-lge-performance-a-setback-not-a-defeat/Thu, 05 Nov 2026 20:10:09 +0000November 7 2026, 12:55

Malema says EFF’s 2026 LGE performance a setback, not a defeat

The EFF leader Julius Malema has described his party’s performance in the 2026 local government elections as a “setback” but not a “defeat”.

This, he said, is something the party will have to take stock of and use the lessons to prepare for the upcoming national and provincial elections in 2029.

The EFF support dropped from 10.3% in the 2021 local polls to 6.2% in 2026.

“We knew from the onset that these elections would not be a walk in the park,” said Malema.

“We knew we were going into a battle, and with that comes scars, but scars do not represent defeat; they represent the survival and bravery of revolutionaries who had the courage to fight and were ready to die with their boots on.”

Malema said that the EFF has lost 612 326 votes nationally and lost its 3rd place position, which is now occupied by the Jacob Zuma-led MK Party.

He, however, remained adamant that the EFF remains a “people’s movement despite this setback”.

“We will take stock as an organisation of our performances ward by ward, municipality by municipality and province by province. We will reflect on where we improved, where we maintained our votes and where we experienced setbacks and take the necessary steps for correction,” said Malema.

“A setback is not a defeat; it is an opportunity which gives us a moment to reflect on how to better present ourselves and our message of service delivery to the people.”

Malema said that the results of these local polls will result in a delay in the path of ensuring there’s reliable service delivery and dignity for poor people.

“We are more resolute than ever, and we’ll use these elections and their outcome to prepare for the upcoming national and provincial elections to be held in 2029. The EFF will not hide from the national picture, and we will not make excuses,” said Malema.

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MK Party wants eThekwini election results frozen over alleged IEC system failures

The uMkhonto weSizwe Party has demanded that the IEC immediately freeze the capturing of election results in disputed voting districts and wards in eThekwini, alleging systemic failures, discrepancies in results and irregularities in the counting and verification process.

In a formal objection submitted to the commission on Friday, November 6, the party accused the IEC of presiding over serious failures at its eThekwini Results Operations Centre (ROC), claiming that a system breakdown during the live results-capturing and data-transmission process had disrupted data streams and altered visible audit trails.

MK Party wants eThekwini election results frozen over alleged IEC system failures

November 7 2026, 08:20

November 6 2026, 19:43

Zille favours ActionSA or ANC coalition in Joburg

Democratic Alliance Johannesburg mayoral candidate Helen Zille says her preferred coalition options in the city are ActionSA or the ANC, arguing that a two-party government would be easier to manage than a broad coalition involving several smaller parties.

In an interview with TimesLIVE, Zille said preliminary election results suggested the DA could form a two-party coalition with either ActionSA or the ANC, although she cautioned that the final outcome would depend on the results and negotiations.

“I have been looking at the numbers. Before the final results are in, we could do a coalition with two parties in a two-party coalition with ActionSA or ANC,” she said.

Zille favours ActionSA or ANC coalition in Joburg

November 6 2026, 18:35

I despise the DA, but will work with them, says PA’s McKenzie after defeat

The Patriotic Alliance has signalled that it is willing to work with the Democratic Alliance in coalition governments despite party leader Gayton McKenzie’s repeated criticism of the blue party.

The submission came on Friday after the party lost its founding Eldorado Park Ward 18, in Johannesburg, to the DA.

Just after 5pm on Friday, the PA showed 2% of voter support nationwide and 1% of support in Gauteng.

McKenzie said the PA’s approach to coalitions would be guided by the needs of communities rather than personal animosity. “We don’t like the DA, let me be frank. I actually despise them, but we will work with them because it’s not about me.

I despise the DA, but will work with them, says PA’s McKenzie after defeat

November 6 2026, 18:02

Five things to know: What voters had to say about their voting experience

The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) asked voters, in a survey, for their opinion on how well the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) managed the election.

The results of the Election Satisfaction Survey found high confidence in the voting process, but a gradual decline in trust in the IEC.

South Africans who voted in the 2026 local government elections largely rated the electoral process as free, fair and professionally run.

The survey interviewed 13,198 voters at 300 voting stations across all nine provinces.

Five things to know: What voters had to say about their voting experience

November 6 2026, 17:20

IEC worker describes ‘inhumane’ conditions endured to count your vote

As the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) reports that the 2026 local government election results are being captured and processed significantly faster than in 2021, the election staff working behind closed doors are revealing the human cost of ensuring that every vote is counted.

Luzuko Simani, who served as a deputy presiding officer (DPO) at the Jan van Riebeeck Primary School voting centre in Cape Town, unpacked the gruelling, long hours required during the counting process, conditions he described as “inhumane”.

IEC worker describes ‘inhumane’ conditions endured to count your vote

November 6 2026, 17:00

WATCH | The Political Arena team talks to political leaders about LGE results

November 6 2026, 16:13

November 6 2026, 16:05

UDM shakes up Eastern Cape politics in historic vote as ANC loses majority

For the first time since 1995, the ANC has lost majority power in the second-largest metro in the Eastern Cape, Buffalo City municipality, after the UDM made inroads in a historic local municipality election result.

The local government results from the metro show a threat to the ANC’s long-standing dominance in the province ahead of the 2029 national and provincial elections.

The ANC, led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, held its last election campaign rally in the metro at Sisa Dukashe Stadium in Mdantsane, two days before this week’s elections. As the party would have it — the rally was the last it had as the majority party in KuGompo City (formerly East London).

UDM shakes up Eastern Cape politics in historic vote as ANC loses majority

November 6 2026, 15:55

‘Fearmongering is not democracy,’ says FF Plus national chairperson Wouter Wessels

Freedom Front Plus national chairperson Wouter Wessels has criticised the level of fear mongering displayed in this current election campaign, saying it is a practice far removed from democracy.

Instead, he believes voters should be allowed to associate with and campaign for whomever, without being threatened to do so.

“It also comes back to the politics of fear, with some parties saying it is a two-party race and that the vote shouldn’t be divided, so people are confused. Then other parties say if you don’t vote for us, if you vote for someone different then you are going to lose your grant, you will lose your RDP house and all those things are fear mongering and it is not good for democracy.”

Stop the fearmongering, it’s not democracy: FF Plus chair

November 6 2026, 15:45

November 6 2026, 14:56

WATCH | ActionSA wants to end ‘revolving door’ of Tshwane mayors

ActionSA says it will push for Dr Nasiphi Moya to remain executive mayor of Tshwane for another five years as the party prepares for coalition negotiations after the local government elections.

The party’s secretary-general, Michael Beaumont, said ActionSA would negotiate with parties willing to commit to a shared programme of government focused on service delivery, stability and accountability.

Beaumont said the party wanted to end the revolving door of mayors in the capital and would not support candidates with a track record of corruption or failure.

WATCH | ActionSA wants to end ‘revolving door’ of Tshwane mayors

November 6 2026, 14:30

Ex-MP Ndlozi explains why he didn’t vote in local government elections

Former EFF member of parliament Mbuyiseni Ndlozi has revealed that he did not vote in the recent 2026 local government elections, citing his dissatisfaction with the state of black political parties in South Africa.

South Africans headed to the polls this week to cast their ballots in the municipal elections. Out of 29.2-million registered voters across 23,696 voting stations nationwide, about 14.5-million citizens cast their votes.

Ex-MP Ndlozi explains why he didn’t vote in local government elections

November 6 2026, 14:28

WATCH | SACP and Afrika Mayibuye make inroads in municipal elections

The SACP and Afrika Mayibuye Movement (AMM) are emerging as new contenders in the local government elections, recording pockets of support in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo.

The two parties have attracted attention with their electoral performance, particularly the SACP, which broke away from its longstanding electoral alliance with the ANC to contest the elections independently.

Speaking to Sowetan on the sidelines of vote counting at the National Results Operation Centre in Midrand on Friday, SACP national spokesperson Mbulelo Mandlana said the party was pleased with its performance.

WATCH | SACP and Afrika Mayibuye make inroads in municipal elections

November 6 2026, 13:14

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WATCH | Jacob Zuma says MK Party open to coalition talks

Former president Jacob Zuma says the MK Party is open to coalition talks.

Speaking at the Durban high court on Friday — where he came to support his daughter, former MK Party MP Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla — Zuma gave his trademark laugh as he answered questions about the party’s performance in Wednesday’s elections.

WATCH | Jacob Zuma says MK Party open to coalition talks

November 6 2026, 11:53

November 6 2026, 12:00

WATCH LIVE | The Political Arena speaks to Helen Zille and what the early results mean

November 6 2026, 11:11

November 6 2026, 09:44

WATCH LIVE | The Political Arena team unpacks trends on the election results

November 6 2026, 09:40

DA gains in five metros — Hill-Lewis says talks must put residents first

DA federal leader Geordin Hill-Lewis has called on political parties to put aside their election differences and prioritise stable local government, as coalition negotiations loom across the country following Wednesday’s municipal elections.

Addressing the media at the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC’s) national results centre in Midrand on Friday, Hill-Lewis said political leaders had a responsibility to rise above the divisions of the election campaign and form governments capable of turning around struggling municipalities.

He said the emerging results suggested that about 150-160 councils, representing roughly two-thirds of the country’s local municipalities, would require coalition governments.

DA gains in five metros — Hill-Lewis says talks must put residents first

November 6 2026, 08:55

WATCH LIVE | DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis briefs media

November 6 2026, 08:50

20 suspects nabbed for election related offences in Limpopo

Limpopo police have arrested 20 suspects for election related offences since the commencement of the 2026 Local Government Elections.

According to police, a total of about 33 cases relating to election-related incidents have been registered across Limpopo.

The offences include contravention of the Electoral Act 73 of 1998, fraud, common assault, malicious damage to property and pointing of a firearm.

20 suspects nabbed for election related offences in Limpopo

November 6 2026, 08:43

Frustration and action shift power in KZN

KwaZulu-Natal has shifted.

In its first local government election, the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK Party) has emerged as the province’s leading party in early counting.

The African National Congress (ANC) has fallen to second place in a province it once dominated.

By Thursday, with 30% counted, the IEC put the MK Party on 33%-34%, the ANC on 25%, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) on 22% and the Democratic Alliance (DA) on 10%-12%.

Frustration and action shift power in KZN

November 6 2026, 08:30

Gauteng urban voters break with historical political loyalties as hung councils loom

With Gauteng’s metropolitan municipalities appearing unlikely to produce outright winners, an analyst has described voters in the country’s economic hub as increasingly different from those elsewhere.

With about half of the votes counted and declared by Thursday night, Johannesburg and Tshwane had three parties each polling more than 20% of the vote — a rarity in many municipalities across the country.

Wade Manning, executive director of Defend Our Democracy, said voters in Johannesburg were increasingly prioritising local issues over traditional political loyalties.

Gauteng urban voters break with historical political loyalties as hung councils loom

November 6 2026, 08:15

Ntuli casts doubt on ANC-DA deal for Johannesburg mayoralty, takes swipe at Zille

ANC head of elections Mdumiseni Ntuli has cast doubt on a possible deal between the ANC and the DA that could see Helen Zille elected as Johannesburg mayor, suggesting her campaign rhetoric had left a sour taste among ANC leaders.

In an interview with The Political Arena at the IEC Results Centre on Thursday, Ntuli, who is also the ANC’s chief whip in parliament, said some within the party would be uncomfortable working with the DA following what he described as Zille’s arrogance during the campaign.

“A number of us will be very uncomfortable with the display of arrogance of Helen Zille. I’m talking about Johannesburg. This thing that she is the messiah, she is going to travel all the way from Cape Town to fix Johannesburg.

Ntuli casts doubt on ANC-DA deal for Johannesburg mayoralty, takes swipe at Zille

November 5 2026, 21:54

WATCH | ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba outlines the conditions his party wants met before entering into a coalition with another party.

 

November 5 2026, 21:39

WATCH | ANC’s Nomvula Mokonyane says the results show the party is being renewed and that voters still have confidence in the ANC.

November 5 2026, 20:45

Northern Cape leads election results capture as IEC says more than 60% processed

The Northern Cape is leading the capturing of results in the 2026 local government elections with 87% of results captured as the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) continues its counting, verification and auditing processes countrywide.

IEC chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo said the commission was pleased with the steady progress being made with more than 60% of the results captured by 5pm.

Northern Cape leads election results capture as IEC says more than 60% processed

November 5 2026, 21:00

WATCH | ATM national chairperson Mandisa Mashiya says the party will not consider entering into coalitions with parties it considers corrupt or those whose principles do not align with its own.

November 5 2026, 20:42

DA leads Western Cape as coalitions loom in councils

The DA is maintaining its dominance across much of the Western Cape, but early results from the 2026 local government elections point to a number of closely contested municipal councils where no party has secured an outright majority.

With 50% of the province’s 1,623 voting districts counted, the DA had secured 53.4% of the provincial vote, followed by the ANC on 14%, the PA on 11.1% and the Freedom Front Plus on 5.4%.

DA leads Western Cape as coalitions loom in councils

November 5 2026, 19.01

DA takes majority control of at least four councils in Western Cape, 13 hung still and counting

The DA has secured majority control of at least four out of 24 local municipalities in the Western Cape after the counting and declaration of votes was concluded in at least 17 local councils across the province by 6pm on Thursday.

Western Cape IEC Chief Micheal Hendrickse said that at that time, there were at least 13 hung councils in the province, which means they would have to be governed by coalition arrangements.

DA takes majority control of at least four councils in Western Cape, 13 hung still and counting

View Live Election Results 🗳️

November 5 2026, 17:40

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WATCH LIVE| The Political Arena team breaks down the LGE results as they trickle in

November 5 2026, 17:20

November 5 2026, 17:11

DA’s victory projection sparks backlash as rival parties urge patience

The Democratic Alliance’s projection of securing about 59% of the vote in the City of Cape Town has drawn mixed reactions from rival political parties, with some accusing the party of prematurely declaring victory before the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) had completed its counting process.

On Thursday the DA held a mini celebration outside the IEC results centre in Century City, where Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis announced that the party was claiming victory in the metro based on its election projections.

DA’s victory projection sparks backlash as rival parties urge patience

November 5 2026, 17:08

‘We won’t be in bed with corrupt people’: ATM draws hard line on coalition deals

The African Transformation Movement (ATM) has set strict boundaries regarding potential coalition governments, stating it will not get into bed with corrupt individuals or parties.

This comes as the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) continues counting and verifying votes after Wednesday’s local government elections. Final results are expected to be announced in the coming days.

With 43.3% of voting districts currently processed, the ATM sits outside the top 10 parties nationally, holding roughly 0.9% of the vote. The ANC and DA continue to lead the national tally.

‘We won’t be in bed with corrupt people’: ATM draws hard line on coalition deals

November 5 2026, 16:52

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WATCH | The DA celebrates a major milestone, claiming one million black votes as it overtakes the EFF. Ashor Saraupen weighs in on the party’s growing support, election gains, and coalition prospects.

November 5 2026, 14:46

November 5 2026 14:02

ActionSA eyes coalition roles as early Tshwane results show gains

ActionSA says it is encouraged by early local government election results in Gauteng, as it appears to be on course to strengthen its position in the City of Tshwane and increase its influence ahead of the 2029 national and provincial elections.

By lunchtime on Thursday, the DA led in Tshwane with 30.6% of the vote, while ActionSA was second at 22.8%.

ActionSA national spokesperson Michael Beaumont said the party was gaining momentum in several wards and had made significant inroads in areas previously dominated by the ANC, which is currently sitting at 21.9%.

ActionSA eyes coalition roles as early Tshwane results show gains

November 5 2026, 13:20

WATCH LIVE | The Political Arena team breaks down the early election results

November 5 2026, 13:05

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IEC reports faster results processing as Zille happy with DA performance

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) says the 2026 local government election results are being processed at a faster pace than during the previous municipal elections, with 18 municipalities having completed the results process by 9am on Thursday.

IEC chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo said the commission had received 23,444 results slips, representing 35.5% of the 66,073 expected results from local municipalities, metros and district councils across the country’s 23,000 voting stations.

“Of these, 22,983 results slips, representing 34.8%, had been captured into the results system, while 16,791, or 25%, had undergone independent auditing.”

IEC reports faster results processing as Zille happy with DA performance

November 5 2026, 10:43

November 5 2026, 10:00

WATCH LIVE | IEC updates media on early vote-counting

November 5 2026, 09:44

WATCH LIVE | The Political Arena team looks at the numbers trickling in

November 5 2026, 09:20

KZN voter turnout tops national average at 48.7 percent

KwaZulu-Natal’s preliminary voter turnout stood at 48.7%, above the national figure of 45.8% on Thursday morning.

Provincial electoral officer Ntombifuthi Masinga said the figures remained provisional, with only 18% of the province’s results captured and 12% audited.

The turnout figures put KZN 2.9 percentage points ahead of the national average, but Masinga said that outstanding results could change the picture.

KZN voter turnout tops national average at 48.7 percent

November 5 2026 09:14

21% of the votes have now been counted. The ANC is currently leading, having received 1.34 million votes, followed by the DA with 1.27 million and the MKP currently has 240,000 votes.

November 5 2026 09:00

10% of votes captured in Gauteng and the DA is leading with 39.26% followed by ANC with 18.55% and ActionSA at 15.17%.

November 5 2026 08:52

A lot of pink spots on the KZN map this morning, with Jacob Zuma’s MKP taking an early lead of 32.6%, followed by ANC with 23.99%. The IFP is closely behind with 21.95%. Only 11% of votes have been captured.

November 5 2026, 08:48

Woman arrested at Mugoboya voting station for disrupting voting

A 25-year-old woman has been arrested for allegedly disrupting the voting process at Mugoboya voting station in the Mopani district on Wednesday.

The woman is expected to appear before the Lenyenye magistrate’s court on Friday.

She was arrested following an incident in which she allegedly attempted to take photographs and record a video while casting her vote. The presiding officer informed her that such conduct was prohibited by law and would not be permitted.

Woman arrested at Mugoboya voting station for disrupting voting

November 5 2026 08:42

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November 5 2026, 07:21

Local Municipal Elections 2026 : Leading parties
Local Municipal Elections 2026 : Leading parties

Party % Support Seats Votes
ANC 31.76% 120 862,877
DA 31.23% 81 848,677
MKP 5.13% 4 139,382

Local Municipal Elections 2026 - % Support Comparison
Local Municipal Elections 2026 - % Support Comparison
  • Counting is at 15% complete
  • For all your live results visit the IEC.

November 5 2026, 07:00

Youth unemployment tops concerns as Atteridgeville, Saulsville residents vote

The communities of Atteridgeville and Saulsville cast their votes in the local government elections on Wednesday, hoping their preferred candidates will address unemployment and create more job opportunities for young people.

When TimesLIVE visited several voting stations in the area, residents expressed concern about the high levels of youth unemployment, saying many young people remain without opportunities, with some turning to drugs as a coping mechanism.

Youth unemployment tops concerns as Atteridgeville, Saulsville residents vote

November 5 2026, 05:00

Youth stay away from polls as townships turn quiet while suburbs queue to vote

Thousands of young people appeared to have turned their back on the local government elections in townships such as Nyanga, Langa and Khayelitsha, with some opting to treat election day as a public holiday rather than exercise their right to vote.

While some voting stations in these communities were relatively quiet, with mostly elderly residents turning out, long queues could be seen at several polling stations in the suburbs, highlighting a stark contrast in voter participation across the city.

Youth stay away from polls as townships turn quiet while suburbs queue to vote

November 5 2026, 05:00

SOWETAN | Big day for democracy as millions cast votes

Yesterday, millions of South Africans descended on polling stations to vote for change in the local government elections, much as they did in the first democratic elections in 1994.

Although much of the public debate in the coming days will focus on voter turnout and the outcome, the significance of the voters who showed up at voting stations should not be minimised. Like those who turned up in 1994 to usher in the first democratic government, this year’s local government election is about more than platitudes and numbers.

Given the growing dissatisfaction with the state of municipalities and the delivery of basic services such as water, electricity and sanitation, yesterday’s voting was also about the maturity of our democracy. Voter registration has trended upward, even when turnout in some elections has been inconsistent.

SOWETAN | Big day for democracy as millions cast votes

November 5 2026, 05:00

Young and old come out for change

From first-time voters hoping to secure jobs and safer communities, to pensioners determined to see long-promised basic services delivered, young and old voters went to the polls on Wednesday with one common demand: change.

In Hammanskraal, Midrand, Johannesburg and the Vaal, voters said their ballots represented an opportunity to influence the future of communities struggling with unemployment, crime, poor roads, water shortages and failing municipal services.

For 24-year-old Puseletso Mafuma, voting for the first time in Temba, Hammanskraal, was an emotional milestone that made her feel her voice finally mattered. “I feel relieved that finally, I get to choose which party rules. It feels like I have a say, you know. It feels like my voice is finally getting heard,” she said.

Young and old come out for change

November 5 2026, 04:45

EDITORIAL | Thank you, your vote made a difference

As South Africans flocked to churches, schools and community centres yesterday to make their mark in a quest for improved service delivery and a better life, another election played out on the other side of the world that has the potential to move the needle down at the bottom of Africa.

Despite being in another country thousands of kilometres away, the US midterm elections have had repercussions across the world. The landslide Democrat victory has shifted the balance of power and effectively made President Donald Trump a lame duck for his remaining two years in office.

EDITORIAL | Thank you, your vote made a difference

November 5 2026, 04:45

Change in the air as election fever sweeps eThekwini

ANC exile-era struggle songs replaced protest chants in Durban’s CBD on Wednesday where ironically a flash mob of singing MK Party supporters shimmied down Diakonia Avenue, in almost anticipatory celebration.

Minutes later, not to be outdone or written off, a group of ANC-clad supporters waved the party’s flag, singing and ululating to drum up support along the street where voting stations were set up at the Durban Music Centre and YMCA Park.

There snaking queues of voters waited patiently, determined to put an end to the rot, crime and water crisis in the volatile economic hub, which has courted xenophobic civil unrest in the past two month.

Change in the air as election fever sweeps eThekwini

November 5 2026, 04:30

EXPLAINER | How the IEC’s dispute resolution system works

South Africa’s electoral dispute resolution system gives political parties several avenues to challenge alleged irregularities, report administrative failures and seek action against breaches of election rules. But the processes are not interchangeable and parties must use the correct legal channel and meet the applicable deadlines if they want their complaints to be considered.

As South Africans voted in Wednesday’s local government elections, the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) must ensure that complaints are dealt with in accordance with the law.

EXPLAINER | How the IEC’s dispute resolution system works

November 5 2026, 04:30

WATCH | ‘What’s the point of voting?’ ask people who boycotted elections

While millions of South Africans made their way to voting stations to cast their votes on Wednesday, residents of Ga-Chokoe outside Mokopane in Limpopo boycotted the elections over a dispute concerning municipal ward demarcation.

Mahlora Primary School, which was designated as a voting station, was empty for most of the day as residents refused to cast their ballots.

Only the police and IEC officials could be seen inside the school. There weren’t even party agents outside. The roads were empty as residents decided to stay home. This followed a community meeting where it was decided that no-one would vote.

WATCH | ‘What’s the point of voting?’ ask people who boycotted elections

November 5 2026, 04:30

SA voter turnout threatens to redraw political map

More than 40% of South Africa’s registered voters had cast ballots by 5pm in municipal elections on Wednesday, with three hours of voting remaining, as the contest threatens to further weaken the ANC and reshape coalitions governing the country’s biggest cities.

About 12-million people had voted by that point, up from 3.5-million at 10am, according to preliminary figures released by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) in a briefing on Wednesday night. Gauteng recorded the highest number of votes at about 3-million, followed by KwaZulu-Natal at 2.5-million and the Western Cape at 1.5-million.

SA voter turnout threatens to redraw political map

November 4 2026, 21:58

ANC says two members attacked in KZN while on way to vote

The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal says two of its members were injured and taken to hospital after an alleged attack in Abaqulusi, while police say the incident was not politically motivated.

The party alleged on Wednesday that IFP supporters assaulted its voters on their way to vote in Siyaphambili voting district in ward 4 of Abaqulusi local municipality.

ANC says two members attacked in KZN while on way to vote

November 4 2026, 20:47

When voting closes: IEC explains next steps and results declaration

With voting in Wednesday’s election drawing to a close, the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has outlined the processes that follows, from the counting of ballots at voting stations to the verification and eventual announcement of the results.

IEC chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo said all ballot papers would be counted at the voting stations.

When voting closes: IEC explains next steps and results declaration

November 4 2026, 20:20

SA voter turnout threatens to redraw political map

More than 40% of South Africa’s registered voters had cast ballots by 5pm in municipal elections on Wednesday, with three hours of voting remaining, as the contest threatens to further weaken the ANC and reshape coalitions governing the country’s biggest cities.

About 12-million people had voted by that point, up from 3.5-million at 10am, according to preliminary figures released by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) in a briefing on Wednesday night. Gauteng recorded the highest number of votes at about 3-million, followed by KwaZulu-Natal at 2.5-million and the Western Cape at 1.5-million.

SA voter turnout threatens to redraw political map

November 4 2026, 19:51

WATCH | ‘No water, no vote’: East Rand residents skip polls over three-day outage

Several residents in eSindane, Tsakane, on the East Rand, stayed away from voting stations on Wednesday, saying they had gone three days without water and felt neglected by those seeking their votes.

Residents said the water outage, which began on Monday morning, had left them struggling with basic household needs, including cooking, bathing and doing laundry, while intermittent electricity supply added to their frustrations.

WATCH | ‘No water, no vote’: East Rand residents skip polls over three-day outage

November 4 2026, 19:16

MK supporters celebrate early in eThekwini

ANC exile-era struggle songs replaced protest chants in Durban’s CBD on Wednesday, where a flash mob of singing MK party supporters shimmied down Diakonia Avenue in almost anticipatory celebration.

MK supporters celebrate early in eThekwini

November 4 2026, 19:11

Water crisis takes centre stage in municipal election battle

Political leaders cast their votes countrywide on Wednesday as the battle for control of South Africa’s 257 municipalities intensified, with service delivery failures, particularly persistent water shortages, emerging as a big election battleground.

Water crisis takes centre stage in municipal election battle

November 4 2026, 18:59

WATCH | Old people standing in queues say they didn’t know about special votes

Some elderly voters who were approved for special votes turned up at polling stations in Kathorus (Katlehong, Thokoza, Vosloorus), Ekurhuleni, with election observers reporting confusion over the process and concerns about people trying to use their age to skip queues.

An observer said several senior citizens who were expected to vote on Monday or Tuesday had instead arrived on election day.

WATCH | Old people standing in queues say they didn’t know about special votes

November 4 2026, 18:52

IEC assures voters they will not be turned away if they arrive before 9pm

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has assured voters that they will be allowed to cast their ballots even if voting is extended beyond the official 9pm closing time, provided they arrive at their registered voting stations before the deadline.

This comes as voting enters its final hours in the 2026 local government elections, with preliminary figures showing that 12-million voters had cast their ballots across the country by 5pm on Wednesday.

IEC assures voters they will not be turned away if they arrive before 9pm

November 4 2026, 18:51

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‘Vote for dignity,’ urges EFF Joburg mayoral candidate Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng

EFF mayoral candidate for Johannesburg Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng has urged voters to exercise their democratic right despite the despondency.

“Voting is the single most fundamental civic duty and we are only asking for people to do it every four years,” she said before entering her allocated voting station in Parkmore, north of Johannesburg.

‘Vote for dignity,’ urges EFF Joburg mayoral candidate Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng

November 4 2026, 18:21

Tumisho Masha under fire for posting marked ballot paper

Tumisho Masha has found himself in legal hot water.

As celebrities flooded the timeline to share images of their inked thumbs to show their participation in the 2026 local government election on Wednesday, Tumisho took to his social media, not only posting his thumb but also the alleged ballot paper revealing he voted for ActionSA.

Tumisho Masha under fire for posting marked ballot paper

November 4 2026, 18:12

Zuma casts vote, satisfied with voting process

MK Party president Jacob Zuma is confident his party will win the local government elections, saying he believes South Africans have recognised it as a party capable of taking over the country and governing it well.

Zuma was speaking after casting his vote on Wednesday at Ntolwane Primary School in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, where he arrived wearing an MK Party T-shirt bearing his image and sporting his trademark smile.

Zuma casts vote, satisfied with voting process

November 4 2026, 18:10

RECORDED| IEC briefs media on progress of local government elections

November 4 2026, 18:08

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November 4 2026, 17:23

Kingsol Chabalala confident DA will unseat ANC in Emfuleni

The DA’s mayoral candidate in Emfuleni municipality, Kingsol Chabalala, said his vote signals the beginning of the end of what he describes as years of chaos, poor governance and failing service delivery in Emfuleni.

Speaking after casting his vote on Wednesday, Chabalala said residents deserved a municipality that worked for all communities.

Kingsol Chabalala confident DA will unseat ANC in Emfuleni

November 4 2026, 17:23

KwaLanga residents want action on toilets, housing and unemployment

Unemployment, stalled housing projects and poor basic services remain among the concerns residents hope will be addressed by those elected to power.

Young people in KwaLanga in the Western Cape have raised concerns about voter apathy among their peers, saying many are failing to recognise the power of their vote despite living with unemployment and poor service delivery.

KwaLanga residents want action on toilets, housing and unemployment

November 4 2026, 17:17

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No water, no vote: some Bronkhorstspruit residents skip election

A 32-year-old man from Zithobeni, in Bronkhorstspruit, chose to collect water from a borehole at Dan Kutumela Secondary School rather than cast his vote on Wednesday.

Bronkhorstspruit recently made headlines after more than 800 people fell ill following water contamination linked to the lack of chlorine at a water treatment plant.

No water, no vote: some Bronkhorstspruit residents skip election

November 4 2026, 16:57

WATCH | What voters want from their local leaders

Service delivery, reliable infrastructure and accountable local government are among the issues facing South African voters.

Sunday Times journalist Yoliswa Sobuwa joins Business Day TV to discuss voter sentiment, the issues emerging from the ground and what communities want from their municipalities.

WATCH | What voters want from their local leaders

November 4 2026, 16:55

WATCH | What coalition talks could mean for South Africa’s metros

With several of South Africa’s major municipalities facing the prospect of hung councils, the local elections could usher in another round of coalition governments.

Jonathan Moakes, director at the SABI Strategy Group, joins Business Day TV to examine the political dynamics shaping these potential alliances and the challenges parties may face in reaching agreement.

WATCH | What coalition talks could mean for South Africa’s metros

November 4 2026, 16:49

Electoral Court dismisses Bongani Cibi’s bid to contest municipal elections

The Electoral Court has dismissed Bongani Wellington Cibi’s application challenging his exclusion from the local government elections, finding that he missed mandatory deadlines and failed to identify a reviewable decision by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC).

In a judgment handed down on Tuesday, judge Lebogang Modiba ruled that Cibi’s inability to contest the elections resulted from the operation of the law rather than unlawful conduct by the commission.

Electoral Court dismisses Bongani Cibi’s bid to contest municipal elections

November 4 2026, 16:48

November 4 2026, 16:34

WATCH | Limpopo voters boycott elections

While millions of South Africans made their way to different voting stations to cast their votes on Wednesday, residents of Ga-Chokoe outside Mokopane in Limpopo boycotted the elections over a dispute concerning municipal ward demarcation.

Mahlora Primary School, which was designated as a voting station, was empty for most of the day as residents refused to cast their ballots.

WATCH | Limpopo voters boycott elections

November 4 2026, 16:30

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‘Councillors must prioritise voters,’ says Mashatile

ANC deputy president Paul Mashatile has called on councillors who are victorious in the election to put voters first.

Speaking on the sidelines of his voting station in Kelvin, Johannesburg, he said the pleas of residents must be heard and acted upon after the election.

‘Councillors must prioritise voters,’ says Mashatile

November 4 2026, 16:25

WATCH | South Africans head to the polls

South Africans are making their voices heard in a pivotal municipal election. Business Day’s Luyolo Mkentane joins Business Day TV with the latest developments, the mood on the ground and the key stories emerging from voting stations.

WATCH | South Africans head to the polls

November 4 2026, 16:24

WATCH | What South Africa’s local elections mean for the political landscape

South Africa’s local elections could have implications well beyond municipal government, with the results set to shape the balance of power between political parties and the prospects for coalition governments.

Political analyst Sipho Seepe joins Business Day TV to unpack the political dynamics and what the results could signal for the country’s future.

WATCH | What South Africa’s local elections mean for the political landscape

November 4 2026, 16:21

WATCH | The big issues shaping South Africa’s municipal elections

From service delivery and unemployment to political accountability and local economic development, South Africans are voting against a backdrop of deep public frustration and rising expectations.

Sowetan’s deputy editor Thabiso Thakali joins Business Day TV to discuss the issues shaping the elections and what voters are demanding from their local leaders.

WATCH | The big issues shaping South Africa’s municipal elections

November 4 2026, 16:17

WATCH | What’s at stake in South Africa’s municipal elections?

South Africa’s municipal elections are a critical test for the country’s political parties.

Political analyst Daniel Silke unpacks the key issues driving the vote, the changing political landscape and what the outcome could mean for local government.

WATCH | What’s at stake in South Africa’s municipal elections?

November 4 2026, 15:55

WATCH LIVE | The Political Arena team is at the IEC results centre

Polling stations open, opinions open wider.

The Political Arena is live as SA heads to the ballot box for the 2026 Local Government Elections.

Expect real-time conversations, sharp analysis and the latest scoops from our political journalists.

November 4 2026, 15:26

Taxi drivers divided as some skip voting to make money on the road

For some taxi drivers, election day was another working day, with earning money to support their families taking priority over standing in queues to vote.

Mandla Madonsela, 41, said he had decided not to vote because he could not afford to spend time in queues when he could be making money on the road.

Taxi drivers divided as some skip voting to make money on the road

November 4 2026, 15:24

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November 4 2026, 14:50

Thumbs up! Langa Mavuso, Lady Du and other celebs cast their votes

From chart-topping singers to media personalities and comedians, Mzansi’s stars hit the polling stations on Wednesday to cast their votes in the 2026 local government elections.

Thumbs up! Langa Mavuso, Lady Du and other celebs cast their votes

November 4 2026, 14:48

Young and elderly voters queue at Wits amid water, electricity challenges

Young voters at a sports hall at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg on Wednesday raised concerns about the irregular supply of water and electricity.

Siam Tanda Mashekila, 25, said she was proud to see young people coming out in numbers to vote, but remained unsure whether political parties would deliver on their promises.

Young and elderly voters queue at Wits amid water, electricity challenges

November 4 2026, 14:46

Songezo Zibi frustrated by voting station distance

Rise Mzansi leader Songezo Zibi has raised concerns about his designated voting station and that of his son being located up to 5km away, despite a voting station situated right outside his home.

Millions of South Africans are heading to the polls on Wednesday for the 2026 local government elections. Voting stations opened at 7am and are set to close at 9pm.

Songezo Zibi frustrated by voting station distance

November 4 2026, 14:40

Universal ballot templates aid braille voters in 2026 election

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has reiterated measures to ensure visually impaired voters can cast their ballots independently and privately during the 2026 local government elections.

IEC deputy chief electoral officer Masego Sheburi said the commission uses universal ballot templates (UBTs) to assist braille-literate voters in marking their ballots.

Universal ballot templates aid braille voters in 2026 election

November 4 2026, 14:26

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IEC investigates theft of unused ballot papers at eThekwini voting station

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has opened a case of theft after unmarked and unused ballot papers were stolen from a voting station in KZN.

Speaking during a media briefing on Wednesday, IEC deputy chief electoral officer Masego Sheburi said the ballots were stolen from the Mnyameni Secondary School in Kwanyuswa, Botha’s Hill, outside Durban, where they were being kept for validation.

The commission said the station had sufficient materials to continue operating, apart from the voters’ roll.

IEC investigates theft of unused ballot papers at eThekwini voting station

November 4 2026, 14:13

Short queues, big demands: Kagiso voters want water, jobs and decent streets

Voters in Kagiso, ward 7, were in and out quickly today as voting started on time at the Mandisa Shiceka School of Specialisation.

For 18-year-old Keorapetse Thobani, it was his first time voting and he was nervous.

“But they helped me,” he said.

Short queues, big demands: Kagiso voters want water, jobs and decent streets

November 4 2026, 14:12

November 4 2026, 14:02

Thokoza voters doubt election will bring change

High crime levels, substance abuse and youth unemployment are among the many concerns weighing on Thokoza residents as they cast their votes.

Speaking to Sowetan, many said they hoped the next local government would deliver meaningful change rather than more promises.

Thokoza voters doubt election will bring change

November 4 2026, 13:54

3.5-million South Africans voted in first three hours, says IEC

More than 3.5-million South Africans had cast their ballots by 10am on Wednesday as voting got under way across the country for the 2026 local government elections.

Voting opened at 7am and is expected to close at 9pm with the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) reporting that 98% of the country’s 23,996 voting stations had opened by the regulated time.

3.5-million South Africans voted in first three hours, says IEC

November 4 2026, 13:50

November 4 2026, 13:48

Older voters in Ekurhuleni urge youth to make their mark for SA’s future

Elderly voters making their way to the polls at Etshanini Public Space in ward 112, Ekurhuleni, urged the younger generation to take an active role in shaping the country’s future.

Older voters in Ekurhuleni urge youth to make their mark for SA’s future

November 4 2026, 13:36

Don’t let service delivery issues stop you from voting: Limpopo premier Ramathuba

Limpopo premier Phophi Ramathuba says the government does not have to wait for elections to be over before addressing challenges affecting communities, pointing to interventions in several municipalities across the province.

Speaking to Sowetan after casting her ballot on Wednesday morning at Mokopane Primary School in the Mogalakwena local municipality, Ramathuba acknowledged that residents continued to face challenges, including unemployment, water shortages and poor roads.

Don’t let service delivery issues stop you from voting: Limpopo premier Ramathuba

November 4 2026, 13:35

No water, no voter: taps as dry as early turnout in Orlando East, Soweto

No water. Almost no voters. A double crisis defined the early part of election day in Orlando East as residents went to the polls with dry taps and empty voting stations.

At voting stations in Orlando East on Wednesday morning, the halls were almost empty. For many, the message in the dry water pipes matched the mood at the ballot box.

No water, no voter: taps as dry as early turnout in Orlando East, Soweto

November 4 2026, 13:17

Khayelitsha voters voice dismay over crime and poor service

For a month, Pamela Bheshula, 64, says she has been without water because of a leak in her yard.

She arrived at Sivuyiseni Primary School, a voting station in Mandela Park, Khayelitsha, accompanied by two friends.

Khayelitsha voters voice dismay over crime and poor service

November 4 2026, 13:16

Election day glitches: a cop with political posters, a drunken voter and a collision with a cow

A police officer was removed from a KwaZulu-Natal voting station on Wednesday morning after she arrived in a vehicle branded with posters from a political party, according to police spokesperson Col Robert Netshiunda.

The sergeant was removed from her Mphithini-area voting station post, in Donnybrook, with the possibility of internal disciplinary processes being instituted following her alleged unprofessional conduct.

Election day glitches: a cop with political posters, a drunken voter and a collision with a cow

November 4 2026, 13:01

WATCH LIVE | IEC briefs media on progress of local government elections

November 4 2026, 12:52

‘Voting changes situations’: Ekurhuleni voters seek jobs and better services

Unemployment was a key concern raised by Ekurhuleni residents as they cast their votes in Wednesday’s local government elections.

At Endulwini voting station in Thembisa, residents said they hoped their votes would bring better services, more job opportunities and improvements in their communities.

‘Voting changes situations’: Ekurhuleni voters seek jobs and better services

November 4 2026, 12:51

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‘My voice is finally getting heard’: First-time voters share hopes

Young voters have called for more job opportunities and safer communities, saying casting their ballots gave them a sense of hope and a chance to shape the future of their city.

A relieved 24-year-old Puseletso Mafuma said voting for the first time made her feel that her voice mattered.

‘My voice is finally getting heard’: First-time voters share hopes

November 4 2026, 12:32

November 4 2026, 12:26

Ramaphosa votes in DA stronghold of Hyde Park

President Cyril Ramaphosa voted in Hyde Park on Wednesday, casting his ballot in the Johannesburg suburb where he lives rather than in Soweto, where he grew up and usually voted.

Electoral Commission (IEC) rules require people to vote at the station where they are registered.

Ramaphosa votes in DA stronghold of Hyde Park

November 4 2026, 12:25

IN PICS | Political leaders cast their votes

Leaders from across the political spectrum joined millions of South Africans at polling stations on Wednesday as the country headed to the polls for the local government elections.

IN PICS | Political leaders cast their votes

November 4 2026, 12:23

November 4 2026, 12:11

Zille vows swift action on Joburg water crisis

Helen Zille said should she be elected mayor of Johannesburg, her immediate priority would be addressing the water challenges confronting South Africa’s economic and financial heartland.

Zille vows swift action on Joburg water crisis

November 4 2026, 12:08

November 4 2026, 12:05

Buffalo City mayor joins queue after residents refuse to let her skip voting line

Buffalo City metropolitan municipality mayor Princess Faku was forced to join the queue like other voters after residents at a voting station in Gonubie refused to allow her to skip the line.

Buffalo City mayor joins queue after residents refuse to let her skip voting line

November 4 2026, 12:05

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ANC T-shirt, broken ID keep these Nyanga voters from casting ballots

“I would rather go home and drink because now I am being sent from pillar to post.”

These were the words of Zuko Jada, 42, who was turned away from Mvula Primary School, a voting station in Nyanga, after arriving to cast his ballot wearing an ANC T-shirt.

ANC T-shirt, broken ID keep these Nyanga voters from casting ballots

November 4 2026, 11:53

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WATCH | ‘Fake’ ID disrupts voting at Rabie Ridge

Police had to be called at a Midrand voting station after a squabble broke out when a voter produced an alleged fake ID.

According to an eyewitness, the man walked in and produce the suspected ID. The security was called to ensure the voters are safe at Kanana Primary School in Midrand.

WATCH | ‘Fake’ ID disrupts voting at Rabie Ridge

November 4 2026, 11:21

November 4 2026, 11:14

Emfuleni residents jump over running sewage on way to polling station

Some residents of Emfuleni local municipality in the Vaal had to jump over sewage running down their streets as they made their way to polling stations on Wednesday.

The municipality has been plagued by service delivery challenges such as open sewage, pothole-riddled roads and uncollected rubbish.

Emfuleni residents jump over running sewage on way to polling station

November 4 2026, 11:11

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Pensioners turn out in numbers at Hammanskraal voting stations

Pensioners outnumbered younger voters at several polling stations in Hammanskraal, Tshwane, on Wednesday morning.

Many elderly residents went to voting stations very early to cast their ballots in the hope the next local government administration would address the area’s longstanding service delivery challenges.

Pensioners turn out in numbers at Hammanskraal voting stations

November 4 2026, 10:32

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IN PICS | South Africans head to the polls

Voters headed to the polls on Wednesday to elect municipal councillors across the country in a major test for the governing ANC after losing its national majority in 2024.

Water shortages, electricity failures, crime, unemployment and poor municipal services are central election issues.

The election could reshape local political alliances and influence the country’s political direction ahead of the 2029 national elections.

IN PICS | South Africans head to the polls

November 4 2026, 10:04

IEC outlines election day dos and don’ts

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has reminded political parties and municipal councillors of the legal regulations surrounding campaigning as the country heads to the polls today.

Voting stations opened nationwide at 7am and are scheduled to close at 9pm.

According to the IEC, voting has commenced smoothly across the country, with all stations successfully opening and no major glitches reported.

IEC outlines election day dos and don’ts

November 4 2026, 10:00

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ANC wants clear majority in Joburg, says mayoral candidate Loyiso Masuku

The ANC in Johannesburg has set terms for its coalition negotiations, saying that as much as they want an outright majority, should the council be split, they would want to work with political parties that are obsessed with service delivery.

This is according to ANC regional chair and mayoral candidate Loyiso Masuku, who said that her political party wanted Johannesburg residents to give them a clear majority.

ANC wants clear majority in Joburg, says mayoral candidate Loyiso Masuku

November 4 2026, 09:06

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Votes in local polls expected to further weaken ANC grip

South Africans vote in municipal elections on Wednesday, with anger over corruption, crime and failing public services threatening to deal another blow to the ANC.

The party dropped below 50% support for the first time in the 2021 municipal elections, and could plunge below 40% this time, according to polls.

With no other party large enough to take its place, many cities in South Africa are heading for unsteady coalition governments that have been partly blamed for failing to deliver basic services, including water and electricity.

Votes in local polls expected to further weaken ANC grip

November 4 2026 08:04

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November 4 2026 07:58

Hostel voter calls for action against gun crimes

The Saulsville hostel voting station near Atteridgeville, west of Pretoria, is a few metres away from the hostel block where there was a mass shooting in an illegal tavern late in 2025 in which 12 people were killed.

Long-time resident Pheyi Ngobese pleaded for action against crime in the area.

Hostel voter calls for action against gun crimes

November 4 2026 07:58

Cost of living is top concern for Saulsville voters

As local government elections kick off this morning, at the Motsweding combined school voting station in Saulsville, west of Pretoria, voters had begun lining up at 5am.

Madumetja Mothabele was eager to cast his vote.

“I woke up at 4am and arrived at 5am. I wanted to be here early and I became number one in line. We want service delivery and lights, and our rent is very expensive,” he said.

Cost of living is top concern for Saulsville voters

November 4 2026 07:51

November 4 2026 07:08

ELECTION DAY: Sowetan wants to hear from you!

Send us a voice note, videos and images on 071-556-4784.

November 4 2026 7:00

KZN parents urge voters to ‘behave’ at school stations

Vee Gani, head of the Parents Association of KwaZulu-Natal, has urged voters to “behave” peacefully at school voting stations and protect facilities children depend on.

Gani said voters should take disputes to Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) officials respectfully, warning violence could leave schools damaged and disrupt learning during matric exams.

KZN parents urge voters to ‘behave’ at school stations

November 4 2026 6:50

November 4 2026 6:46

‘Your vote, your voice’: South Africans urged to turn out for local government elections

The government has encouraged South Africans to exercise their right to vote in the local government elections on November 4.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) concluded its two-day special voting process on Tuesday, with a total of 1,425,942 special votes cast across Monday and Tuesday ahead of the main election day.

‘Your vote, your voice’: South Africans urged to turn out for local government elections

November 4 2026 6:00

Low turnout, coalition chaos looms as voters lose faith

The battle for control of SA’s municipalities is expected to end in another round of coalition horse-trading, with more hung councils projected and growing numbers of disillusioned voters potentially staying away from the polls.

There is a lot at stake as millions head to cast their ballots on Wednesday, experts say.

Political analyst Tessa Dooms warned that the elections were likely to produce more coalition governments than ever before, with smaller parties and independent candidates potentially holding the balance of power in municipalities across the country.

“In 2021, we ended up with about 70 hung municipalities where coalitions needed to be formed,” she said. “In 2026, it’s estimated that we will have many more hung municipalities that will have coalitions.”

Low turnout, coalition chaos looms as voters lose faith

November 4 2026 5:30

GHALEB CACHALIA | DA’s diversity faces test beyond the candidate bus

The DA has an appealing proposition for South Africa. It is the country’s most diverse political party with a substantial black following, united not by race but by shared values. The rainbow, it seems, has acquired a corporate colour scheme.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with political diversity. Nor is there anything inherently suspicious about a party organising transport to rallies, feeding its activists or training aspiring public representatives. Politics requires organisation and sandwiches do not, in themselves, constitute a constitutional crisis.

But there is a more interesting question than how many black faces a party can assemble for a photograph. That question is: does racial diversity in the ranks translate to diversity of thought, genuine participation in decision-making and an equitable distribution of political power?

GHALEB CACHALIA | DA’s diversity faces test beyond the candidate bus

November 4 2026 5:00

Agoa fallout exposes ANC-DA foreign policy rift

The US’s decision to withdraw South Africa’s Agoa benefits has exposed divisions between the ANC and DA over the country’s foreign policy, with the governing party alleging an attempt to influence voters as the ANC faces mounting electoral pressure.

The ANC, on the one hand, has questioned the timing of Washington’s decision to withdraw South Africa’s preferential trade benefits from January 2027, suggesting it could be an attempt to intimidate voters and pressure the government to abandon its transformation agenda.

Agoa fallout exposes ANC-DA foreign policy rift

November 3 2026 21:11

Tshwane residents hope their vote will bring clean water, electricity and roads

On Tuesday, it had been two weeks since Gritah Ntuli, 62, had seen a water tanker in the Maheights informal settlement in Bronkhorstspruit, Tshwane, where she lives.

Whenever she needed water to bath or do laundry, she would take her family’s clothes to the stream and wash them there, while also collecting bath water for the whole family.

For drinking and cooking water, she has to reach into her pocket and buy it.

Tshwane residents hope their vote will bring clean water, electricity and roads

November 3 2026 20:14

Political intolerance and protests among threats facing Western Cape elections

Political intolerance, intra- and inter-party conflict, criminal activity and protests have been identified as some of the threats facing voting stations in the Western Cape ahead of Wednesday’s local government elections.

Provincial police commissioner Lt-Gen Sizakhele Dyantyi said 33 of the province’s 1,633 voting stations had been classified as high-risk, while the remainder were categorised as medium- and low-risk.

Political intolerance and protests among threats facing Western Cape elections

November 3 2026 20:06

IEC warns political parties to stop campaigning at midnight ahead of polling day

Political parties, independent candidates and their supporters have until midnight on Tuesday to campaign ahead of the 2026 local government elections, with the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) warning that all campaigning must stop before voters head to the polls on Wednesday.

IEC chairperson Mosotho Moepya reminded political parties and candidates that the electoral timetable prohibits campaigning after midnight, including door-to-door canvassing, demonstrations and rallies.

IEC warns political parties to stop campaigning at midnight ahead of polling day

November 3 2026 20:04

IN PICS | Special voting continues for millions in local elections

More than 2.5-million voters were approved to cast special votes ahead of the local government elections, with the two-day voting process taking place on Monday and Tuesday.

The second day of special voting got off to a slow start at some voting centres in Johannesburg, where elderly voters were among those expected to cast their ballots.

IN PICS | Special voting continues for millions in local elections

November 3 2026 19:07

IEC concludes special voting as 1.4-million South Africans cast ballots ahead of election day

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has concluded its two-day special voting process with more than 1.4-million voters having cast their ballots ahead of the 2026 local government elections.

The special voting process, which took place on November 2 and 3, provided an opportunity for approved voters who would otherwise be unable to visit voting stations on election day to cast their ballots in advance.

IEC concludes special voting as 1.4-million South Africans cast ballots ahead of election day

November 3 2026 18:55

IEC assures South Africans of credible elections amid attempts to ‘impugn’ the polls

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has assured South Africans that it has done everything possible within its powers to deliver credible local government elections.

This comes as the electoral body says it has picked up attempts from some quarters to malign the integrity of the elections a day before millions of South Africans head to the polls.

November 3 2026 18:13

Five things you need to know from IEC’s election briefing

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has warned against the spread of unsubstantiated election-fraud claims, saying they are fuelling misinformation on social media.

It also reported incidents of intimidation, disruptions and attempted tampering with election materials.

Five things you need to know from IEC’s election briefing

November 3 2026, 18:07

IEC assures South Africans of credible elections amid attempts to ‘impugn’ the polls

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) says it can assure South Africans that it has done everything possible within its powers to deliver credible local government elections.

This comes as the electoral body says it has picked up attempts from some quarters to malign the integrity of the elections a day before millions of South Africans head to the polls.

More than 29-million potential voters will have an opportunity to make their preferred choice among the 136,790 candidates, representing a total of 546 political parties across the country.

November 3 2026, 16:30

“Sibagadile, we are watching them closely,” says MKP’s Bongani Baloyi on IEC

Umkhonto weSizwe’s Johannesburg mayoral candidate Bongani Baloyi has issued a stern warning, saying that his party is closely guarding the local elections.

“Sibagadile (We are watching them closely). Our position is to operate from a level of distrust and that’s why we’ve deployed all sorts of mechanisms to protect interest and to protect our vote.”

Baloyi’s party was among those that questioned the integrity of the electoral commission in the previous election, where MKP claimed to have been robbed of votes and their intended two thirds majority.

‘Sibagadile, we are watching them closely,’ says MKP’s Bongani Baloyi on IEC

November 3 2026, 16:25

KZN election officer fired for using party-branded car to carry ‘sensitive’ election material

A KwaZulu-Natal presiding officer was dismissed on Tuesday for transporting sensitive election material in a party political branded vehicle.

In an update on special votes on Tuesday, Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) provincial electoral officer Ntombfuthi Masinga said the presiding officer from Hammarsdale was seen boarding an e-hailing taxi branded in party colours.

“On investigation, it was established that the e-hailing taxi did belong to the presiding officer concerned and was driven by her son,” she said.

KZN election officer fired for using party-branded car to carry ‘sensitive’ election material

November 3 2026, 16:15

IEC cannot confirm reports of dress-code restrictions at KZN voting station

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) says it has no information to report on allegations of a strict dress code being enforced at the Dlamini Tribal Court voting station in eDumbe, northern KwaZulu-Natal, where women were reportedly turned away for wearing trousers.

The allegations emerged during the second day of special voting for the 2026 local government elections after reports by the SABC that women, including an SABC journalist, had been prevented from entering the voting station because they were wearing pants.

IEC cannot confirm reports of dress-code restrictions at KZN voting station

November 3 2026, 16:10

Mokonyane rejects ANC blame for Gauteng water crisis

ANC deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane has rejected attempts to blame the party for the water crisis gripping parts of Gauteng, arguing that the problem lies with an unreliable water supply system and the various entities responsible for its management.

Mokonyane said the crisis should not be placed at the ANC’s doorstep as residents head to the polls in the local government elections, insisting it was a national problem requiring interventions beyond individual municipalities.

Mokonyane rejects ANC blame for Gauteng water crisis

November 3 2026, 16:05

34 election misinformation complaints as candidates, supporters face arrests: IEC

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has warned political parties and their supporters against spreading unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, saying misleading social media posts are threatening the integrity of the local government elections.

Chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo said the commission’s information integrity hub had identified increasing attempts to undermine confidence in the electoral process, particularly through social media platforms.

November 3 2026 16:03

EXPLAINER | What voters can expect at polling stations

As South Africans head to the polls on Wednesday for the 2026 local government elections, voters can expect a series of steps before casting their ballots.

From presenting the correct identification document to ensuring ballot papers are valid, the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has outlined a process aimed at making voting easier while safeguarding the integrity and secrecy of the ballot.

IEC assistant manager Mmakgabo Ramatlhodi said voters will first encounter a queue walker who helps manage queues and direct voters at polling stations.

EXPLAINER | What voters can expect at polling stations

November 3 2026, 16:00

November 3 2026 15:25

Why Rustenburg is one of the most hotly contested municipalities

Rustenburg’s economic significance makes it one of the most important municipalities to watch in Wednesday’s local government elections, but attention is focused on major metros, says political analyst Prof André Duvenhage.

Duvenhage, from North-West University, warned that sluggish economic growth, poor service delivery and deteriorating infrastructure continue to undermine municipalities such as Rustenburg in the North West.

“We have major challenges. One of the biggest is the failure to create sustained economic growth and development. Statistics show that over the past decade growth has remained below 1%,” he said.

Why Rustenburg is one of the most hotly contested municipalities

November 3 2026 14:30

WATCH | Shortly after casting her vote in Mogale City, ANC’s Nomvula Mokonyane addressed key issues, including the water crisis in Johannesburg and across the country, as well as the decision by US President Donald Trump’s administration to remove South Africa from AGOA beneficiary status.

November 3 2026, 13:25

Police arrest Limpopo voter for taking photo of marked ballot

A 32-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly photographing his marked ballot paper at a voting station in Limpopo, with police searching for a second suspect accused of the same offence.

Limpopo police spokesperson Brig Hlulani Mashaba said the incidents occurred at Chuchekani Primary School voting station in the Humulani settlement in Lulekani on Monday.

Mashaba said the first incident was reported at about 10am when a 32-year-old voter allegedly photographed his ballot paper after voting. The presiding officer confronted him and informed him that photographing a marked ballot paper was against electoral rules.

Police arrest Limpopo voter for taking photo of marked ballot

November 3 2026, 12:30

‘People must vote or nothing will be done’

For some elderly voters at the Joubert Park Lapeng Child and Family Resource Centre in Johannesburg, voting is more than a right; it is a tradition and an opportunity to help secure a better future for the next generation.

Speaking to TimesLIVE, Sowetan’s sister publication, John Masuku, who lives in Hillbrow, said he was voting because he wanted to see improvements in his community, particularly the condition of the roads.

He said the roads and robots where he stays don’t work, and he finds it hard to cross a busy road. “I’m voting because I need the roads to be fixed. I’m old now, and sometimes I can’t cross the road alone because they are always busy, so I ask my grandchildren to help me cross,” he said.

‘People must vote or nothing will be done’

November 3 2026 12:11

MALAIKA MAHLATSI | Years of Joburg rot is now rubbish on our pavements

On Tuesday morning, one day before millions of South Africans head to the polls to cast their votes in the 2026 local government elections, I walked through the streets of my neighbourhood in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg.

Every street was lined with overflowing bins and half-open refuse bags. Flies and insects have congregated on driveways and entrances to complexes, estates and business premises.

The stench, including from the uncollected waste of numerous restaurants located in the neighbourhood, is paralysing. One day before elections, in the middle of a debilitating heatwave, the northern suburbs of Johannesburg resemble dystopian slums.

MALAIKA MAHLATSI | Years of Joburg rot is now rubbish on our pavements

November 3, 2026, 12:O8

Two arrested in Limpopo for allegedly removing election posters, burning political party T-shirt

Limpopo police have arrested two suspects in two separate cases involving election-related offences, including the alleged unlawful removal of election posters and intimidation.

Two arrested in Limpopo for allegedly removing election posters, burning political party T-shirt

November 3, 2026, 11:40

WATCH LIVE | IEC briefs media on first day of special voting

The Electoral Commission of South Africa is briefing the media on Tuesday about day two of special voting.

WATCH LIVE | IEC briefs media on first day of special voting

November 3 2026, 11:10

November 3 2026, 10:35

WATCH | The morning has been quiet at the Joubert Park, Lapeng child and family resource centre, where elderly voters are expected to cast their special votes, with no long queues.

November 3 2026 08:00

GCINA MTENGWANE | When democracy multiplies parties but not purpose

On Wednesday South Africans will face the most crowded local election ballots in the country’s democratic history.

About 546 political parties are contesting. That is about 60% higher than the 325 parties that took part in 2021. Nearly 137,000 candidates are competing for just over 10,500 council seats. These numbers express a constitutional right to form and join political parties.

They also reflect a citizenry that has grown restless with the established order.

GCINA MTENGWANE | When democracy multiplies parties but not purpose

November 2 2026 16:10

THE POLITICAL ARENA | Voter anger or apathy: Will South Africans turn out to demand change?

With South Africa’s November 4 local government elections just days away, voters face a critical choice: how to hold political parties accountable for failing services, and whether changing their vote can reshape the country’s metros.

In this episode of The Political Arena, Business Day political editor Hajra Omarjee is joined by Sowetan editor Sibongakonke Shoba, TimesLIVE and Sunday Times digital politics editor Lizeka Tandwa, and Sunday Times senior political reporter Kgothatso Madisa to examine voter apathy, shifting political loyalties and the battle for control of local government.

November 2 2026 15:40

IEC has over 700 cases of election-related disinformation

The spread of misinformation and disinformation has emerged as a growing concern ahead of South Africa’s local government elections, The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has received more than 700 complaints about election-related disinformation as voters prepare to go to the polls on Wednesday.

IEC chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo said some complaints involved content circulating on social media platform X, including photographs manipulated using AI. However, he said the incidents had not significantly disrupted the electoral environment.

IEC has over 700 cases of election-related disinformation

November 2 2026 15:19

Ballot boxes stolen as special voting begins in KZN

Ballot boxes and a training module were reported stolen from Amahlongwa Community Hall in Zambeni, the IEC said in its KwaZulu-Natal special voting update on Monday.

The IEC said replacement election material was delivered and the voting station was operational.

Ballot boxes stolen as special voting begins in KZN

November 2 2026 13:10

RECORDED | IEC briefs media on first day of special voting

The Electoral Commission of South Africa is briefing the media on Monday about day one of special voting.

November 1 2026, 18:02

Surprise! You’re an EFF candidate

The EFF has been dealt an embarrassing court blow after the Electoral Court found that the party nominated a man as its ward councillor candidate without his consent.

The court ruled that Sivuyile Jacquin Tshikila was not an EFF candidate in Ward 03 in the Raymond Mhlaba local municipality in the Eastern Cape. It ordered the IEC to ensure voters could not cast their ballots for him during the local government elections on Wednesday.

The judgment comes a few weeks after the ANC won a court fight for the inclusion of its 181 candidates whose names were not submitted by the party to the IEC for elections.

Surprise! You’re an EFF candidate

November 1 2026 17:50

‘The ANC is still mighty’ | Ramaphosa vows party will defy critics at polls

President Cyril Ramaphosa has dismissed suggestions that the ANC is on a downward spiral, telling supporters in Mdantsane in the Eastern Cape that the party is gaining momentum ahead of Wednesday’s local government elections.

Addressing supporters at the party’s final push to win over voters at the Siyanqoba rally at the Sisa Dukashe Stadium on Sunday, Ramaphosa said the ANC would use the November 4 elections to prove its critics wrong.

“We are three days away from a very important election. Many people are saying the ANC is on its downward spiral. What I am seeing here is that the ANC is going higher and higher, and on November 4 we are going to show those that say ANC is going to lose,” he said.

‘The ANC is still mighty’ | Ramaphosa vows party will defy critics at polls

November 1 2026, 17:45

‘We will take them out’ | Ramaphosa threatens to remove underperforming councillors and mayors

President Cyril Ramaphosa has warned that ANC councillors and mayors who fail to serve communities or misuse public funds will be removed from their positions, saying the party wants ethical, capable and accountable leaders in local government.

Addressing supporters at the ANC’s final rally ahead of elections at Sisa Dukashe Stadium in Mdantsane, Eastern Cape, Ramaphosa said the party expects its elected representatives to prioritise service delivery, responsible spending, and economic development rather than treating political office as a personal entitlement.

“We want to place emphasis on making sure that we get accountable and capable and ethical people who are going to be elected because we want municipalities that are properly run municipalities that use public money responsibly and municipalities that will also maintain infrastructure and support economic development,” he said.

‘We will take them out’ | Ramaphosa threatens to remove underperforming councillors and mayors

November 1 2026, 17:40

Zuma returns to stage, promises MK Party will ‘take back our country’

MK Party president Jacob Zuma told thousands of supporters who braved extreme heat at Princess Magogo Stadium in KwaMashu on Sunday that the MK Party will soon take over the land and lead many municipalities.

“In a few days we will be taking back our country,” Zuma said.

“In a few days we will be taking over our land. We will be in charge of many municipalities. No matter what other people can say and do, we are ready.”

Zuma, 84, was addressing the MK Party’s final Sithatha Omasipala rally ahead of Wednesday’s local government elections.

Zuma returns to stage, promises MK Party will ‘take back our country’

]]>YASANTHA NAIDOO<![CDATA[As COP31 comes to Turkey, satellites reveal a landfill methane problem]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/news/2026-11-07-as-cop31-comes-to-turkey-satellites-reveal-a-landfill-methane-problem/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/news/2026-11-07-as-cop31-comes-to-turkey-satellites-reveal-a-landfill-methane-problem/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 08:45:00 +0000By Ali Kucukgocmen

In the countryside west of Istanbul, trucks line up to empty mixed household waste from the city of 16-million people onto a vast landscape of decomposing rubbish, where landfill gas is captured to generate electricity at a nearby plant.

But far above the seagulls circling the waste, satellites detect what the plant has failed to capture: methane escaping at a rate that ranks it among the world’s largest recorded landfill emitters.

Turkey hosts COP31 in Antalya from November 9 to 20 and has made methane reduction a priority for the climate summit.

Methane is the biggest cause of climate change after carbon dioxide (CO2) and is over 80 times more potent than CO2 in its first 20 years in the air. Sharp cuts could therefore slow warming relatively quickly.

Turkey’s waste sector illustrates both the potential and the difficulty of achieving rapid cuts.

The country is the world’s fifth-biggest emitter of methane from solid waste behind China, the United States, Russia and Brazil, according to data from non-profit emissions tracker Climate TRACE.

Satellite observations analysed by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) identified 70 plumes from Turkey’s 10 highest-emitting waste sites, where average detected rates ranged from 841kg to 7.4- tonnes an hour. Three were around Istanbul, while others were near Ankara, Izmir and Antalya, where COP31 is being held.

Gas capture is widespread at Turkey’s larger municipal landfills, indicating that collection systems alone do not prevent large releases.

‘Huge potential’

Tia Scarpelli, waste sector lead for emissions-monitoring non-profit Carbon Mapper, said cutting landfill methane requires diverting organic material before it reaches dumps, while improving rates of capture.

Because Turkey’s largest detected emissions were concentrated at a few sites, addressing those landfills could deliver disproportionate gains, Scarpelli said.

“There is this huge mitigation potential by just addressing the largest landfills to reduce their national emissions,” she said, suggesting better-designed collection systems and repairs to cracked covers or faulty gas wells.

The UCLA analysis used public Carbon Mapper data from the Tanager-1 satellite between January 2025 and end-May 2026.

It showed an average detected rate of about 7.4-tonnes an hour from the landfill west of Istanbul near Seymen — just below the highest-emitting landfill on a global list from 2025.

“What stands out is how big its emissions are and how persistently large they are,” said Scarpelli.

In response to a request for comment, Turkey’s environment ministry said the data were not from continuous measurements and could not be used to measure annual emissions at the Seymen landfill.

It said Turkey’s Zero Waste Initiative, a government scheme to promote recycling, aims to reduce waste going to landfills, thereby lowering methane emissions, adding that the national “recovery rate” for waste had risen to 37.53% in 2025 from 13% in 2017.

At the Seymen landfill, municipal operator Istac collects gas produced as buried organic material decomposes, while an energy company burns the gas to generate electricity at a plant opened in 2020.

The facility produces about 22,000 megawatt-hours of electricity a month, according to a 2025 report by energy news website Enerji Gunlugu.

Istac benefits economically from efficient methane capture to produce electricity, the environment ministry said.

Istac official Aysen Erdincler disputed whether the satellite observations were representative of the landfill’s emissions, saying they typically ranged between 4 and 6 tons per hour, while a satellite reading of 12 tons per hour on one day had raised the average. Istac head Fatih Ugur said about 30 hectares of the landfill had been left uncovered on the day of that measurement while work was carried out on methane-collection pipes, and that low atmospheric pressure had also contributed to a higher concentration of methane.

The Seymen site takes some 8,500 tonnes of household waste daily, from Istanbul’s average total of 20,000 tonnes, according to Istac. It is unclear to researchers how much of the landfill’s methane the system captures, but Erdincler said methane leaks at the site were usually around 25%.

Turkey absent from methane pledge

Methane emissions from waste in Turkey rose nearly 25% in the decade to 2024, compared to a global rise of 6.5% over the same period, according to World Bank data based on the European Commission’s EDGAR emissions database. Turkey’s waste emissions have remained around 21-million tonnes of CO2 equivalent annually since 2020.

In 2021, the Global Methane Pledge (GMP) was launched at COP26, seeking a collective 30% cut in methane emissions from 2020 levels by 2030, with more than 30 countries later backing national targets. Turkey is not listed among the pledge’s participants.

Selim Yildirim, chief climate policy researcher at Ankara-based D84, a non-profit policy and media platform, said Turkey had more developed waste disposal than poorer countries but less effective management, recycling and value recovery than much of Europe.

Turkey could still join the GMP during COP31, he said, but that would not guarantee results.

“The issue is whether you can effectively turn it into action and implement it,” he said, adding that regulation was needed to push operators to capture and reuse methane.

In Seymen, about 5km from the landfill, residents have another concern — the smell. Methane itself is odourless, but the decomposing organic waste can also release pungent compounds.

In summer, it enters through windows left open against the heat, said Soner Duz, a 46-year-old barber.

“Around four or five in the morning, the smell suddenly comes,” he said. ”It wakes you up.”

Reuters

]]>Mehmet Caliskan<![CDATA[MK Party wants eThekwini election results frozen over alleged IEC system failures ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-07-mk-party-wants-ethekwini-election-results-frozen-over-alleged-iec-system-failures/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-07-mk-party-wants-ethekwini-election-results-frozen-over-alleged-iec-system-failures/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 07:58:29 +0000The MK Party has demanded that the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) immediately freeze the capturing of election results in disputed voting districts and wards in eThekwini, alleging systemic failures, discrepancies in results and irregularities in the counting and verification process.

In a formal objection submitted to the commission on Friday, the party accused the IEC of presiding over serious failures at its eThekwini results operations centre (ROC), claiming that a system breakdown during the live results-capturing and data transmission process had disrupted data streams and altered visible audit trails.

The objection, signed by MK Party acting secretary-general Lindiwe Makubu and addressed to IEC commissioner Titi Pitso, raises concerns about what the party describes as severe arithmetic and physical mismatches between results captured on the commission’s electronic leaderboards and certified physical results slips.

The party alleges that figures entered electronically at the ROC deviate systematically from the figures recorded on Form NP041 results slips, which it says were completed and counter-signed by its party agents at individual voting stations.

It wants the commission to place an immediate technical lock on all disputed system entries and results processing in affected voting districts and wards in the eThekwini metro until an open audit has been conducted.

The objection comes as the IEC continues with the verification and capturing of results after the November 4 local government elections, with the accuracy and credibility of the results process under scrutiny.

IEC spokesperson Kate Bopela said the matter was in the hands of the commissioners.

“What we do as an organisation is that commissioners directly respond to political parties,” she said.

The MK Party further alleges that failures occurred during the physical verification, reconciliation and sorting of ballots between November 2 and 4.

It also takes issue with public statements by the IEC accusing the party of failing to deploy agents at various voting stations, arguing that these allegations were used to mask localised system failures and breaks in the chain of custody.

The party says the alleged failures have undermined its constitutional right to effective oversight of the electoral process.

In its demands, the MK Party wants the IEC to provide a transparent forensic technical explanation of the network glitch experienced at the eThekwini ROC, including a verification log of all data packets allegedly altered during the downtime.

It is also demanding access for an independent forensic systems analyst, appointed by contesting parties, to examine the commission’s data processing backend, source code operations and physical ballot reconciliations.

The party has further called on the commission to publicly withdraw what it describes as defamatory remarks accusing it of failing to deploy election agents, arguing that the statements prejudiced its public standing while the electoral dispute remained active.

Its most consequential demand is that the IEC postpone the final announcement and gazetting of municipal election results until all the alleged discrepancies, quarantine requests and verification disputes raised in its objection have been resolved.

The objection was lodged in terms of section 65 of the Local Government: Municipal Electoral Act.

The MK Party also submitted an application for condonation should its objection be processed concurrently with or after the statutory 5pm deadline on Friday.

It argues that the alleged anomalies are ongoing and could not have been fully quantified before the deadline because the verification process at the ROC was still under way.

The party warned that refusing to consider its objection before the official declaration would cause what it described as irreparable constitutional injury to the electorate.

However, the four-page objection does not identify the specific voting districts or wards affected, quantify the alleged discrepancies or attach the results slips and technical evidence needed to independently establish the claims.

The allegations have not been independently verified.

TimesLIVE

]]>Sandile Ndlovu<![CDATA[IVOR CHIPKIN | ANC voters showed up; they just voted for someone else]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-07-ivor-chipkin-anc-voters-showed-up-they-just-voted-for-someone-else/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-07-ivor-chipkin-anc-voters-showed-up-they-just-voted-for-someone-else/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 07:51:32 +0000Now that the count is almost over, what sort of coalitions should we hope for? They should be stable. More importantly, they must professionalise city government. This is especially true in Johannesburg and the other metros.

To see which coalition could do that in Johannesburg, let us start with what voters did.

Before the election, most pollsters and commentators said turnout would decide the result. The picture has turned out to be more complex. I looked at 12 Johannesburg wards, where most of the count was complete by Friday morning. There was a surge in the suburbs. In the ward that includes Constantia Kloof, Little Falls and Florida Park, turnout was almost 72%. In the northern suburban wards it was above 60%.

Turnout in historic township areas was lower, though, and here is the surprise: it has been robust. It ranged from 45% to 59% and averaged about 51%. Turnout across the whole city in 2021 was 42%.

So, the ANC’s weakness is not that people in its strongholds stayed home. They voted, but many did not vote for the ANC. In the Soweto wards I examined, the ANC took between 28% and 41% of the vote. In 2021 it took between 45% and 61% in the same areas.

Where did those votes go? In several of these wards, ActionSA came second with more than 20%. The MK Party and the IFP did well in others. The DA took between 11% and 21%, and in most of these wards it finished ahead of the EFF. The DA’s own projection is that it won about 15% of the vote in Gauteng townships. That figure has not yet been confirmed by the IEC.

So, the ANC’s weakness is not that people in its strongholds stayed home. They voted, but many did not vote for the ANC

This explains an unusual feature of the count. Normally the mood in the ANC lifts as counting goes on. Large township stations report later, and the ANC’s share rises as they do. That did not happen in Johannesburg. At 10am on Thursday, with 9% of districts counted, the DA had 41% and the ANC had 17%. The DA dipped to 37% in the late afternoon. By 10pm it was back at 41%. The ANC was still at about 17%, even as Soweto ballots were counted.

The pattern differs from city to city. In Johannesburg the DA itself grew strongly. In Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, ActionSA profited from the shift. In eThekwini it was the MK Party. What the cities share is that the ANC’s base is fragmenting. Large numbers of former ANC voters are now available to other parties.

What does this mean for Johannesburg?

There is no prospect of a nationalist alliance of the ANC, EFF and MK Party. Together they have about 30% of the vote. The Patriotic Alliance, at about 1%, would make no difference.

The DA is the largest party by far, with about 40% on the current count, but it is short of a majority. It needs roughly 10 more points. ActionSA, with 16% to 17%, could supply them. The ANC could too.

It is no secret that there is no love lost between Herman Mashaba and the DA. He ruled out a partnership during the campaign and has softened since. His alternative is an alliance with the ANC, the EFF, the MK Party and several smaller parties. On the current count, that grouping is still short of a majority. Even if it got there, it would be a coalition of five or more parties, which is the sort of arrangement that has made Johannesburg ungovernable since 2016. More importantly, it would be dangerous for the ANC. ActionSA is growing at its expense.

Tshwane shows where such an arrangement could lead. In October 2024 the ANC helped install an ActionSA mayor there. Two years later, ActionSA has gone from 8% of the vote to 24%. The ANC has fallen from 34% to 21% and now sits in third place, behind the party it put in office.

The question, though, is not simply which parties can form a majority. It is which coalition would produce a capable government?

The DA is the largest party by far, with about 40% on the current count, but it is short of a majority

Recent research by the New South Institute shows that the crisis in Johannesburg and other municipalities comes largely from a weakness in how local government is structured. The law does not protect the administration from politicians. The municipal manager is the head of the administration but acts subject to the council’s direction. The council appoints the municipal manager and the senior managers. It may also instruct any councillor or official to perform municipal duties.

Unless the governing parties deliberately protect the administrative space, councillors and parties take it over. They hire their own people and award tenders to friends and benefactors. This is how Johannesburg’s utilities came to be run as party fiefdoms, used for extracting rents.

Which combination of parties would professionalise the city’s administration?

One option is a DA and ActionSA coalition. The two would have to settle who is mayor, since Helen Zille and Mashaba are candidates. Whatever they decide, the agreement must limit the mayor’s power over the administration. It must also provide for a capable city manager with real authority.

Another option, perhaps a better one, is a DA and ANC coalition. At national level the ANC has shown itself sympathetic to professionalisation and to politicians giving up administrative powers. The provincial and local ANC may find it hard to accept a junior role in the city. Yet with its base drifting to other parties, a spell of humility in a capable urban government might save it from oblivion.

The DA is in a powerful position. On current counts it is the largest party in six of the eight metros. It can reach different agreements in each city, but it should set one common condition. Whoever is mayor, the council must appoint a professional city manager with the powers and authority to run the administration.

  • Chipkin is director at the New South Institute

TimesLIVE

]]>SANDILE NDLOVU<![CDATA[Beauty News: Midsummer Dream ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/fashion-and-beauty/2026-11-07-beauty-news-midsummer-dream/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/fashion-and-beauty/2026-11-07-beauty-news-midsummer-dream/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000Olfactory Buzz: Solar Mists

Solar Mists
Solar Mists

OLFACTORY BUZZ: Solar mists

Channel the spirit of playful whimsy this season as a renewed affinity for hair and body mists makes a comeback. From Sol De Janeiro, Marc Jacobs to Calvin Klein, these are not your high school, cherry-scented body mists but elevated, nuanced olfactory compositions that bottle the feeling of summer. A perfect handbag addition for balmy days, it’s a light misting of ripe pineapple, orange blossom and vanilla notes from Sol De Janeiro’s Cheirosa 74 Intense, inspired by a Brazilian sunset. Try the whipped vanilla cream and blackcurrant fruity-floral profile from Calvin Klein or the juicy pineapple, jasmine sambac and macadamia accord from Marc Jacobs’s Tropical Glow. TRY: Marc Jacobs Daisy Mist Tropical Glow Hair & Body Mist 150ml R495; Calvin Klein Satin Cream Hair & Body Perfume Mist 236ml R495; Sol De Janeiro Cheirosa 74 Intense Perfume Mist 90ml R800

Juicy Fruits

Revlon is giving the girls what they want this summer – the ultimate 2-in-1 product that does some serious heavy lifting when it comes to lip care. Revlon’s Glimmer Lip Treat Balm + Masks do just that, acting as an everyday gloss with a punchy colour pay-off in the day and a nourishing overnight lip mask while you sleep. These peptide-rich tiny helpers are also packed with hydrating shea and jojoba butters and squalane to keep lips moisturised, smooth and replenished. With seven scented formulas from Sugar Cookie, Blackberry Chip to Rum Raisin; pop into your bag for glazed, nourished lips all day. Revlon Glimmer Lip Treat Balm + Mask R190 each

The Revlon Glimmer Lip Treat Balm + Mask in Blackberry Chip
The Revlon Glimmer Lip Treat Balm + Mask in Blackberry Chip
Revlon Glimmer Lip Treat Balm + Masks
Revlon Glimmer Lip Treat Balm + Masks

Splurge On: I Want Choo

The smell of summer decadence comes in the form of Jimmy Choo’s latest olfactory offering – I Want Choo With Love. The fourth addition to the I Want Choo fragrance wardrobe, this floral-fruity ambery scent profile comes clad in a curvaceous, pink metallic dress-like flacon. With notes of raspberry, orange blossom, rose, hibiscus, pink musk and vanilla, the scent is delightfully elegant, sweet and floral with a raspberry tartness in the opening and soft, hibiscus and musky notes that give it a powdery, warm finish. Jimmy Choo I Want Choo With Love EDP 100ml R2,299

Jimmy Choo I Want Choo With Love EDP
Jimmy Choo I Want Choo With Love EDP

Add to Cart: Ultra Serums

Anyone who claims to be serious about their skincare has at least one Avène product in their arsenal. If you’re looking to join the club – look no further than Avène’s Ultra Serums SPF50+. Infused with the power of thermal spring water from the Sainte‑Odile Spring in Avène, France, these serum SPFs are antioxidant-rich with an ultra-lightweight, melting, hybrid serum texture. With three variants that plump with Hyaluronic Acid and Niacinamide, hydrate with Panthenol and impart glow with Vitamin Cg Complex, all while providing SPF50+ protection – we won’t blame you if you grab all three. Avène Ultra Serums SPF50+ Plump, Hydrate and Glow 30ml R716 each

The Avène Ultra Serums SPF50+ in Plump, Hydrate and Glow
The Avène Ultra Serums SPF50+ in Plump, Hydrate and Glow

Insatiable Flush

If you ever needed an excuse to catch a case of blush blindness, then these NARS liquid blushes are the perfect scapegoat. Creamy, saturated and blendable, feed your insatiable desire for a generous flush with the NARS Insatiable Liquid Blushes featuring 16 punchy shades with a long-wearing, second skin finish that imparts a lit-from-within glow. Come for shade names such as Exhibit A, Girl Happy and Lose Control and stay for the oversized doe-foot applicator that allows for precise placement. Wear one shade for a soft-focus flush or layer two or three shades together for a seamless gradient. NARS Insatiable Liquid Blush R880 each

The NARS Insatiable Liquid Blush collection
The NARS Insatiable Liquid Blush collection
]]>Isabel Infantes<![CDATA[Sappi calls for state protection from cheap imports]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-07-sappi-calls-for-state-protection-from-cheap-imports/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-07-sappi-calls-for-state-protection-from-cheap-imports/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000

Story audio is generated using AI

Recent tariff measures are an encouraging sign that the government is taking the plight of South African manufacturers more seriously, Steve Binnie, CEO of paper and packaging giant Sappi, says. But he warns that trade protection alone will not be enough to restore competitiveness.

Instead, Sappi wants policymakers to tackle deeper structural problems, including inefficient ports, failing rail infrastructure, rising electricity costs and regulatory delays.

His comments come after the International Trade Administration Commission (Itac) introduced measures aimed at protecting domestic paper producers from a surge in imports.

Presenting Sappi’s annual results, Binnie welcomed the government’s response but said the benefits of tariffs would be limited unless broader industrial reforms followed.

“We have been pleasantly surprised at the speed of the response,” he said.

The latest intervention includes a provisional 21% safeguard duty on imported A3 and A4 office paper, following an application by Mondi South Africa supported by Sappi. The company has also sought protection for newsprint imports, arguing that foreign producers are increasingly targeting the South African market.

Binnie said some overseas manufacturers sell paper in South Africa at lower prices than in their home markets, making it difficult for local producers to compete.

The tariffs will not materially change Sappi’s group earnings but the company believes they send an important signal that the government recognises the challenges facing domestic manufacturers.

“It’s important because it goes to underpinning and supporting the whole value chain, whether that is on copy paper, containerboard or tissue products,” said a Sappi manager during the briefing.

The company is not calling for permanent protection.

“We’re not asking for forever protection, but we need time to respond to these shocks and changes to the system,” Binnie said.

Asked what government could do beyond tariffs, Binnie pointed to logistics: “The first, and probably the most immediate one, is the port.”

The issue is more than theoretical for Sappi. Congestion at the Port of Durban delayed about 38,000 tonnes of dissolving wood pulp shipments during the fourth quarter, pushing sales into the new financial year and weighing on earnings.

“I know there are plans to invest in more equipment at the port, as a lot has become old and inefficient,” Binnie said.

Rail infrastructure is another concern: “The rails are a mess and we have to transport everything by road, adding to our costs.”

The company wants the government to speed up approvals in the forestry sector and create a more predictable operating environment for long-term investment.

Energy is another key challenge. Although Sappi generates about 65% of its own power, it relies on Eskom for about a third of its electricity.

“We need to reduce that because Eskom costs have just continued to rise,” Binnie said.

Sappi’s South African operations face mixed conditions. Demand for containerboard used in packaging remained robust during the quarter, supported largely by agricultural exports, particularly citrus. However, volumes were affected by low inventories and production disruptions at the company’s Ngodwana mill.

Binnie said the longer-term outlook for packaging is positive despite pressure on local consumers.

“The big opportunity for us is in export markets,” he said.

South African citrus exports, one of the key drivers of packaging demand, have been growing 6%-8% annually and are expected to continue expanding in the next few years.

Most of that growth is linked to exports to Asia, China and Europe rather than the US. As a result, uncertainty around the US’s African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) is unlikely to have a significant impact on Sappi.

“I think it’s about 5% that is exposed to the US market,” Binnie said. “There could be a small impact but it’s not that material in the bigger picture for us.”

Demand for dissolving wood pulp, one of Sappi’s most important export products, remains strong, supported by global textile markets. Pulp prices improved by $22 a tonne during the quarter to about $920.

Yet profitability in South Africa is under pressure from factors largely outside the company’s control. The stronger rand has reduced export competitiveness, while elevated oil prices and geopolitical tensions continue to increase fuel, chemical and logistics costs.

“It’s difficult for South African manufacturers who export their products,” Binnie said. “When the rand strengthens the way it has, it effectively increases your cost base relative to your global competitors.”

Business Times

]]>Supplied<![CDATA[Price cuts on the cards as TFG adapts to tough times ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-07-price-cuts-on-the-cards-as-tfg-adapts-to-tough-times/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-07-price-cuts-on-the-cards-as-tfg-adapts-to-tough-times/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000

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TFG is reviewing its menswear prices to attract cash-strapped shoppers while accelerating store closures and expanding its Bash online platform as it prepares for another difficult trading period amid mounting pressure on household finances.

The owner of Foschini, Markham, Jet, Sportscene and Totalsports is lowering entry-level prices after spotting signs that consumers are trading down to cheaper clothing, particularly in menswear, where it holds a leading market position.

CEO Anthony Thunström said the group was not banking on an imminent recovery in consumer spending and would instead focus on cutting costs, improving store profitability and growing online sales.

“We are seeing evidence of buying down in the segment, and as a result, we will be sharpening our opening price points and pricing architecture,” Thunström said at the group’s interim results presentation.

Menswear turnover fell 1.5% in the six months to September, while gross profit dropped 4%. The division was also hit by shipping delays and congestion at Durban port because of its heavier reliance on imported merchandise.

The pricing review underscores growing pressure on clothing retailers as rising fuel costs and weak consumer confidence force households to become more selective about spending. “To be honest, we don’t know when the cycle will bottom out and turn,” said Thunström.

TFG’s outlook has been further clouded by a weak start to the second half. African sales declined 0.7% in October after a volatile first six months. Thunström said trading in the first week was in line with expectations, with momentum expected to build towards Black Friday.

However, delayed shipments through Durban port remain a concern. TFG expects the backlog to clear only around February, potentially affecting stock availability during the festive season.

While cancelling some late orders to avoid excess inventory, the retailer is also rebuilding stock buffers to protect availability during peak trading periods.

Alongside tighter inventory management, TFG is shrinking its physical store footprint.

The group closed 120 stores in the first half and plans to shut another 60-80 before year-end, taking total closures to between 180 and 200 stores.

We’re using the combined capabilities of both channels to acquire customers, increase engagement ... and improve the productivity of the retail infrastructure that we already own

CEO Anthony Thunström

Almost half of those already closed were in distressed central business districts, where consumer traffic has shifted towards malls and convenience retail formats. The closures released R190m in working capital, and TFG estimates about 20% of sales from closed outlets will migrate to nearby stores or Bash.

More than 95% of employees affected by the closures were moved elsewhere in the business.

The group removed R257m in costs during the first half and targets a further R222m in the second half. The programme is expected to generate annualised cost savings of about R854m and an annualised profit benefit of roughly R540m.

A key beneficiary of this strategy is Bash, which is becoming one of TFG’s most important growth engines. Online sales surged 53.3% to R2.2bn in the first half, bucking weakness in traditional retail.

The growth comes as buy now, pay later (BNPL) gains traction among shoppers, particularly online. CFO Ralph Buddle said demand for TFG Money remains strong at about 4-million applications a year, but applications fell 10% in the first half, partly as more consumers turned to BNPL options.

The number of accounts on TFG’s books declined 1.9%, while credit sales fell 2.4%, representing 25.8% of TFG Africa sales. Buddle said BNPL was absorbing some of that activity and helping drive online sales, particularly among younger consumers who use the product as a budgeting tool. Thunström said the payment option has proved especially popular on Bash.

TFG attracted 449,000 first-time online customers during the period, with more than 40% placing their first digital orders through Bash Store while visiting a physical outlet. The platform now operates across more than 3,200 stores.

“We’re not building an e-commerce business to sit alongside a traditional store network,” Thunström said. “We’re using the combined capabilities of both channels to acquire customers, increase engagement ... and improve the productivity of the retail infrastructure that we already own.”

Despite weak consumer demand, TFG Africa grew turnover 3.8% to R19.7bn, supported by market-share gains and stronger sportswear sales.

Internationally, however, conditions remain challenging.

Operating profit fell 26.5% in the UK and 28.3% in Australia as weak consumer confidence and promotional trading weighed on performance. The UK business is also recovering from an October cyberattack that disrupted online trading, while TFG is restructuring underperforming brands in both markets.

Thunström said acquisitions were off the table for now, with surplus cash likely to be directed towards further debt reduction or enhanced shareholder returns through dividends and share buybacks.

Business Times

]]>Supplied <![CDATA[EU brings tide of help for local ports ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-07-eu-brings-tide-of-help-for-local-ports/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-07-eu-brings-tide-of-help-for-local-ports/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000

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Ambassadors from EU members and the head of the union’s investment bank will meet Transnet executives this month to discuss the possibility of a range of agreements aimed at improving port efficiency and enabling the logistics SOE to participate in the nascent regional blue economy, says the EU ambassador to South Africa, Kristian Schmidt.

Schmidt told Business Times that the president of the European Investment Bank (EIB), Nadia Calviño, would be in South Africa to sign the accord with Transnet.

“So there will be significant loans and agreements signed that speak to this logistical dimension. So the EU is certainly interested in working with South Africa on port management. Specific ports in Europe can come in and give capacity-building [assistance] on port management.”

Schmidt was speaking on the sidelines of this week’s BlueInvest Africa Summit in Cape Town, where delegates sought to explore investment opportunities and funding for start-ups in the blue economy.

The EU, which is re-evaluating trade relations with Africa in the face of growing trade protectionism and fragmentation globally, estimates that the blue economy represents €900bn (R16.6-trillion) in annual turnover for it, a figure that could double in the coming years. The AU puts turnover for the continent from the maritime economy at close to $300bn (R5-trillion).

Schmidt said he would lead a delegation of EU ambassadors to Durban in the coming weeks to discuss the crime risks that come with increased maritime traffic.

“Ports are opportunities, but they’re also challenges. So whether you talk of smuggling, drug trafficking, globally, European ports as well, we have huge challenges here. So port management is a big issue. And we have experience that we are willing to share. And we have already agreed with your government that we should share cooperation on maritime security.

“Because that increased traffic is going to bring risks: the Mexican cartels and other things that will follow. More than that, Durban is not just the port of South Africa; it is the port of Southern Africa.”

The director-general of the EU Commission for maritime affairs & fisheries, Charlina Vitcheva, told Business Times that Transnet had made great strides in addressing logistics bottlenecks at its ports and the EU could partner with the entity to accelerate the process.

Vitcheva said she was encouraged by remarks by the deputy minister of trade, industry & competition, John Steenhuisen, at the BlueInvest conference about developing smaller ports to create a network of ports that can serve different purposes in the region.

Ports are opportunities, but they’re also challenges. So whether you talk of smuggling, drug trafficking, globally, European ports as well, we have huge challenges here

Kristian Schmidt

“We are there to help you and not only for increasing the capacity. What is even more important is that there are new technologies, new logistics modalities that will become the standard very quickly. And the ones that will be able to operate under this new standard will be the front runners.”

Transnet told Business Times that it has been approached by the EIB regarding a possible visit, the details of which are still being finalised.

“At this stage, there are no agreements between Transnet and the EIB scheduled for signature. Transnet and the EIB have an established partnership, including a €350m loan facility and €16m grant support announced earlier this year.

“Any announcements regarding future cooperation initiatives or engagements will be communicated through the appropriate channels once confirmed.”

Steenhuisen said much had yet to be done to improve port efficiency, but the Durban Pier 2 public-private pilot project was “very exciting”.

“I would say that we have a huge opportunity now with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, but also a long-term security opportunity to be able to provide that. But I don’t believe that our ports have put their best foot forward.

“I think we’re still suffering incredibly with constraints, and the harnessing effects they’ve had on our economic growth. The stone fruit industry lost almost R1bn in the last season just from port inefficiency.

“The blue economy is a fundamental opportunity for South Africa and Africa generally, both from an economic growth and jobs potential, but to be able to drill down into these opportunities, it’s going to require partnerships. The EU is a very important partner with us, but it’s also about attracting investment that we need to unlock that opportunity.”

Prof Zane Simpson, a director at the Stellenbosch logistics consultancy Gain Group, said in a recent report that South Africa had reason to be concerned about the cost of moving goods through its economy as its geography and economic structure made freight transport expensive even under favourable conditions.

“There is the expense South Africa has learned to live with: the additional cost of a logistics system that fails to perform as it should, so thoroughly absorbed into the ordinary business of moving goods that it is easy to lose sight of how much the economy is paying for it.”

Business Times

]]>Supplied<![CDATA[Redefine bets on office recovery, industrial demand ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-07-redefine-bets-on-office-recovery-industrial-demand/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-07-redefine-bets-on-office-recovery-industrial-demand/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000

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Redefine Properties expects South Africa’s office market recovery to gather momentum over the next two years, while demand for industrial space and opportunities to repurpose ageing commercial properties are set to drive the next phase of growth.

The JSE-listed real estate investment trust (Reit) says the 2026 financial year marked a turning point, with its South African portfolio showing its strongest operating metrics in five years and management increasingly confident the office sector has moved beyond its post-pandemic slump.

“Earnings growth momentum is there, our balance sheet is materially stronger, and operating fundamentals are improving across the board,” said CEO Andrew König.

The optimism follows years of pressure on the office sector as hybrid working, weak economic growth and excess supply pushed vacancies higher and forced landlords to offer rental discounts to retain tenants.

Signs of recovery are now becoming more evident. Redefine reduced office vacancies to 9.5% from 13% a year earlier, outperforming the national average vacancy rate of 11.8%.

COO Leon Kok believes the improvement reflects both stronger demand and the quality of the portfolio. “All of our operating metrics are the best they have been since 2022, across occupancy, renewal reversions, retention rates and renewal success rates. The outcomes show that we have turned the corner and things are looking up.”

The recovery is particularly visible in Sandton, where Redefine’s office vacancies have fallen to about 4.5%, suggesting demand is returning to Johannesburg’s premier business district. However, management acknowledges that older and less competitive buildings continue to face challenges.

For Redefine, the immediate target is to reduce office vacancies further to about 7%, though rental growth is only expected to improve meaningfully from 2028 as excess space is gradually absorbed.

National office vacancies have declined from a peak of about 17% in mid-2022 to 11.8% in the third quarter of 2026, according to the South African Property Owners Association.

Independent property analyst Keillen Ndlovu said several structural factors are supporting the recovery. “Yes, it looks like the office sector has bottomed out,” he said.

The absence of major new office developments, the conversion of obsolete buildings into residential accommodation and greater certainty around hybrid working arrangements are helping rebalance the market, he added. “After several years of negative rental reversions, we’re probably seeing the last phase of major negative rental reversions.”

The decline in overall office vacancies has also been helped by older B and C grade buildings being taken off the market and converted to residential, Ndlovu said.

Markets like Cape Town and Durban were also boosted by increased demand for call centres (BPOs), and some of this is starting to spill over to Johannesburg.

Ndlovu said Redefine had positioned itself well by disposing of weaker office buildings before the Covid pandemic and continuing to improve the quality of its portfolio.

The company’s investment in greener and more energy-efficient properties has also helped to attract tenants increasingly concerned about operating costs.

While offices are recovering, industrial property remains Redefine’s strongest-performing segment and is likely to attract a growing share of capital allocation. The group’s industrial portfolio vacancy rate stands at just 2.8%, with positive rental reversions reflecting strong tenant demand and limited supply of modern logistics and warehousing facilities.

“Industrial continues to be the cornerstone of the South African portfolio’s performance, and it will continue to be the area we look to expand from a capital allocation point of view,” said Kok.

The growth of e-commerce, logistics networks and distribution infrastructure continues to support demand for industrial property, he said.

Beyond South Africa, Poland is expected to remain an important contributor to Redefine’s growth, particularly in retail and industrial properties. The country now contributes almost 29% of the group’s distributable income, strengthening its exposure to an economy expected to outperform much of Europe.

Ndlovu said Poland remained attractive because of its stronger economic growth, low unemployment and relatively liquid property market.

König said the war in Ukraine has had little impact on the Polish economy, other than bringing more skilled people into economic activity through consumer spending. “It is a handbrake on institutional investment activity, but from an operating point of view it hasn’t impacted us at all,” he said.

“The EPP portfolio is basically fully let, the property fundamentals are very positive, and we are probably more affected by the fuel price than by the situation in Ukraine.”

Business Times

]]>,Suppli<![CDATA[Just Share presses Sasol on climate transition plan]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/news/2026-11-07-just-share-presses-sasol-on-climate-transition-plan/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/news/2026-11-07-just-share-presses-sasol-on-climate-transition-plan/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000

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Shareholder activist organisation Just Share is stepping up pressure for petrochemicals giant Sasol to take its transition “seriously” ahead of its annual general meeting on Friday, November 13.

In its report, Driving a credible and just transition at Sasol, released last week, Just Share has raised questions about the pace and credibility of the company’s plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

However, Sasol has maintained its commitment to climate change, saying it is leading a “deliberately pragmatic and value-led” approach.

Just Share’s report argued that Sasol has ambitious targets without yet demonstrating that it has a sufficiently detailed, funded, deliverable plan to achieve them. It highlighted Sasol’s 2021 plan of a 30% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030 using a 2017 baseline. However, the report noted that by 2025 Sasol switched its direction towards saving cash, minimising capital expenditure, and ramping-up coal to liquids (CTL) production rates.

“Delivering the targets now requires accelerated emission abatement within the next four years. The company must achieve this at a time when Sasol appears to be placing less reliance on measures previously identified as important to its pathway, including boiler turndown and a shift from coal to gas,” says the report.

The report also argues that Sasol does not provide sufficient process-level detail, annual milestones or quantified contributions from individual abatement measures to demonstrate how this reduction will be achieved.

“The shift from the original 2021 emission reduction roadmap towards a lower-capital-intensity strategy, greater reliance on renewable energy and market mechanisms, and continued high utilisation of coal-based assets raises a fundamental question for investors: Is Sasol committed to structural decarbonisation of the underlying business?”

In its response to Business Times, Sasol insisted it stood firm on its 2030 commitments, saying it is making “measurable” progress, pointing to a net 15% reduction in group scope 1 and scope 2 emissions by the end of the 2026 financial year against the 2017 baseline.

The group also said locally it acquired 1.37GW in renewable energy, with 510MW already operational, while also eyeing having 2GW of renewable energy operational by 2030. “Our focus remains on delivering our 2030 target of reducing Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 30%, while ensuring that the actions we take are practical, sustainable and support the long-term competitiveness of the business,” it said.

Sasol said it understands the concern about the pace of the energy transition, but it believed progress should ultimately be assessed against measurable delivery rather than ambition alone.

“Our approach is deliberately pragmatic and value-led. We have to balance the need to reduce emissions with energy security, affordability, the competitiveness of our operations and South Africa’s broader socio-economic circumstances. This is particularly important given Sasol’s role in South Africa’s energy and industrial value chains,” the group said.

It said it was bolstering the financial and operational foundation of the business while progressing its transition. It pointed to the 2026 financial year in which Secunda achieved its highest annual production in five years, with adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) increasing by 17% to R61bn and net debt, excluding leases, declining to $3.3bn.

Sasol is a significant employer, supporting 500,000 jobs throughout the value chain and is one of South Africa’s largest taxpayers. It supplies some 30% of South Africa’s liquid fuel requirements, however, it is a massive polluter and is one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters after Eskom.

Speaking during a panel discussion on the report, director of climate change engagement at Just Share Robyn Hugo said last week that a credible transition at Sasol matters.

This is because of Sasol’s footprint as the country’s largest private greenhouse gas emitter, while its operations are a major source of toxic air pollution, meaning that its decisions affect climate change, public health, industrial development, communities, and public finances. “We say that Sasol’s economic importance is a reason to take its transition more seriously. It’s not a reason to excuse any of the risks associated with its current business model,” said Hugo.

“In fact, the greater the consequences of a poorly managed transition, the more important it is to address those risks early. So its large economic footprint is actually a measure of the systemic value that’s at risk if the transition is delayed.”

She noted that a company can make a substantial economic contribution while also imposing costs that don’t appear anywhere on its income statement.

Sasol said that, as part of its commitment, it continues bringing renewable energy online and making progress on sustainable fuels and other lower-carbon opportunities.

“Our transition is not premised on pursuing projects at any cost. Capital is allocated selectively, with consideration given to project value, readiness and the enabling policy and market environment. This approach is intended to ensure that we reduce emissions while preserving the resilience and long-term sustainability of the business,” it said.

A report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) released in September estimated that Sasol costs 1,000 deaths per year through pollution linked to Sasol’s Secunda Operations, which accounts for 83.7% of Scope 1 and 2 emissions, followed by Sasolburg at 8.4%.

CREA also said industrial emissions from Secunda were responsible for a rotten egg smell for residents and, at times, travel as far as Johannesburg and Pretoria — 150km away — due to the transboundary nature of air pollution.

Business Times

]]>Siphiwe Sibeko<![CDATA[LAST WORD | Taking a wander through the end times]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2026-11-07-last-word-taking-a-wander-through-the-end-times/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2026-11-07-last-word-taking-a-wander-through-the-end-times/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000

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I walked into the fossil museum in Graaff-Reinet in the Karoo last Thursday morning expecting to find dusty cases of obscure bones clogging up the Victorian building, complete with small, faded, handwritten taxonomical notes which induced a flare-up of sneezing. Instead, I received a remarkably contemporary education in epoch-defining, planet-scale catastrophes. The material was presented in easy-to-digest displays with some old-school taxonomy thrown in for good measure. Every now and again, the collection demonstrated previous display methodologies as a nod to a more innocent past, including crude, hand-painted eyes moulded into the now expertly curated 255-million-year-old fossils.

Behind a glass window, a decidedly real palaeontologist was diligently working in a lab adjacent to the museum as a kind of live demonstration of the painstaking work it takes to reveal the surprising creatures that populated the Karoo in that far distant era — a time called the Permian, even before the dinosaurs. I now know there were five dramatic extinction events, and the collection in Graaff-Reinet, officially renamed Robert Sobukwe Town, has the world’s most significant examples of the therapsids (and the events that occurred 255-million years ago), which also happens to be the biggest catastrophe the planet has endured. Almost 90% of all living things were annihilated by the vicious cataclysmic conditions, extreme volcanic eruptions and toxic emissions that followed. It was a greenhouse effect dialled up to “full Trump”, and the deadly side effect was almost total obliteration of the Earth’s life forms.

I pity the chaps caught up in the chaos of the end times — the sad, tail end of life when oxygen levels are depleted and all things struggle to eke out a living.

I pity the chaps caught up in the chaos of the end times — the sad, tail end of life when oxygen levels are depleted and all things struggle to eke out a living. Some alpha types obviously managed to hold on longer than others but the writing was on the wall for most creatures. The scattered outliers scraped together a life in scorching temperatures, in the decimated landscape of the early Triassic — gradually evolving into reptiles and mammals. Eventually they took over the new, unrecognisable planet. And the story started again.

I wonder, is there an existential dread that catches hold — a conscious understanding that this particular show is over, paradise is lost and your kin and acquaintances done for? Is it preferable to have the end come in one fell strike like Hiroshima? Whoosh and your time’s up. Game over.

The therapsids looked a bit like crocodiles vaguely tending to hippopotami — neither reptiles nor mammals — but they once ruled the world. I feel a kind of vertigo gazing at these huge eye sockets and big, familiar looking teeth. Do all creatures on this Earth, despite the vastly different ecological circumstances and incredible passage of time that separate them, have a propensity to grow eyeballs and teeth?

Are we doomed to live forever through these Sisyphean nightmares, rolling our rocks up hills for all time in empty displays of species continuity until one day the rock falls and squashes our foolish pretensions at survival?

Maybe the youthful therapsids, sensing the impending collapse, demonstrated their discontent on the banks of each local watering hole in their territory. Sensing the end of the runway, the young ones may have railed against the indifferent older generation like our own youth, who appear to be reading the writing on the wall. Things are looking dire for this generation — every university graduate applying hopelessly for months on end to hundreds of faceless AIs for the rapidly diminishing return on entry-level jobs that haven’t been automated by AI anyway. The AI’s have a bias for applications written by AIs which doesn’t surprise me. Like tends to like. Human youth are already practically obsolete, crowded out from the watering hole as they get sucked dry by the incredibly thirsty AI data centres now rapidly accelerating the greenhouse gas apocalypse 6.0 of the Anthropocene.

I don’t want to be around for the dying throes. Who wants to fend off hungry hordes or navigate the last-ditch strongmen fighting for the terminal scraps of our time? I can picture a virtual museum of the future stored in the cloud. The AI’s will file us with the therapsids along with quaint taxonomies and the wry observation that once the planet contained successions of antique creatures ranked low on the evolutionary scale. And they all shared fascinating anatomical features, like eye sockets and teeth.

]]>Graaff-Reinet Tourism/Facebook<![CDATA[PARTING SHOT | A picture is worth a thousand questions]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2026-11-07-parting-shot-a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-questions/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2026-11-07-parting-shot-a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-questions/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000Anyone who’s ever been photographed at an unflattering angle knows the camera is perfectly capable of lying. And in the age of AI, filters and digital manipulation, photographic truth has become a slippery concept. Southern Guild’s debut at Paris Photo makes photography’s relationship with truth even more compelling.

The Cape Town-founded gallery, which opened a permanent space in New York earlier this year, is taking four extraordinary women artists to the prestigious international photography fair to be held at the Grand Palais from November 12 to 15 with a VIP event on the 11th.

Lebohang Kganye: 'Night's Unwavering Resolve' (2025).
Lebohang Kganye: 'Night's Unwavering Resolve' (2025).

South Africans Zanele Muholi and Lebohang Kganye join Canadian-Guyanese artist Sandra Brewster and Italian-Togolese photographer Silvia Rosi in a presentation that challenges the notion that a photograph must faithfully reproduce what was apparent in front of the lens.

What unites these artists is their refusal to take photography as a passive act of observation.

The exhibition forms part of Voices, a curated section exploring the theme La Disparition (Disappearance) at Paris Photo. It’s a delicious paradox: photography was invented to preserve moments that would otherwise vanish, yet these artists are deliberately dismantling the photographic image to reveal deeper truths.

Lebohang Kganye; 'Ke tsamaya masiu II' (2013).
Lebohang Kganye; 'Ke tsamaya masiu II' (2013).

Kganye, whose work has earned international acclaim, uses family photographs as a starting point for her own notion of reconstruction. Following her mother’s death, she photographed herself wearing her mother’s clothes, inserting herself into old family portraits — a moving attempt to bridge the distance between generations, making her mother’s absence almost tangible. In other works, she transforms family photographs into life-sized textile portraits, rescuing ancestors from the anonymity of forgotten albums.

Lebohang Kganye: 'Mothuthi Philemon and Alice Nomoya Khanye' (2026).
Lebohang Kganye: 'Mothuthi Philemon and Alice Nomoya Khanye' (2026).

Muholi, another extremely prominent name in South African art, has spent more than two decades documenting and celebrating Black LGBTQIA+ lives. The recipient of the 2026 Hasselblad Award, one of photography’s most prestigious honours, brings two striking self-portraits from the celebrated Somnyama Ngonyama series. Everyday objects become elaborate headpieces, while the artist’s gaze confronts the viewer with questions about race, identity and representation.

Zanele Muholi: 'Khanyilanga III, Koreatown, Los Angeles' (2024). Courtesy of Southern Guild
Zanele Muholi: 'Khanyilanga III, Koreatown, Los Angeles' (2024). Courtesy of Southern Guild
A visitor views 'Khanyilanga III, Koreatown, Los Angeles' — Aluminium Panel (2024). Courtesy of Southern Guild.
A visitor views 'Khanyilanga III, Koreatown, Los Angeles' — Aluminium Panel (2024). Courtesy of Southern Guild.

Brewster takes a different approach. Her haunting black-and-white portraits are deliberately blurred, their surfaces creased, torn and disrupted. Faces become almost unrecognisable, suggesting that identity, particularly within migrant communities, isn’t ever as fixed as a photograph would imply.

Sandra Brewster: 'Blur'.
Sandra Brewster: 'Blur'.

Rosi explores similar territory through carefully staged self-portraits in which she assumes the identities of family members, reconstructing stories inherited across generations and continents.

Silvia Rosi: Studio Portrait (2016).
Silvia Rosi: Studio Portrait (2016).

What unites these artists is their refusal to take photography as a passive act of observation. Their images are manipulated, embroidered, performed and reconstructed. Memory, they suggest, isn’t a filing cabinet of reliable facts but something far more complicated, creative and human. It’s a particularly female approach.

Zanele Muholi: 'Mlingani II, District Six, Cape Town (Lightbox)' (2025). Courtesy Lea Crafford/Southern Guild
Zanele Muholi: 'Mlingani II, District Six, Cape Town (Lightbox)' (2025). Courtesy Lea Crafford/Southern Guild

For Southern Guild, the Paris debut represents another significant step in its international expansion, following its participation for the second consecutive year in Frieze London.

Lebohang Kganye: 'Draped in Shadow' (2025). Courtesy of Lebohang Kganye
Lebohang Kganye: 'Draped in Shadow' (2025). Courtesy of Lebohang Kganye

And for South African photography, it’s another reminder that some of our most compelling artistic voices are out there showing the world to look at it differently, and perhaps see a version of reality through someone else’s eyes.

]]>Silvia Rosi<![CDATA[Push for local languages hopes to shape climate policy debates]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/news/2026-11-07-push-for-local-languages-hopes-to-shape-climate-policy-debates/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/news/2026-11-07-push-for-local-languages-hopes-to-shape-climate-policy-debates/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000

Story audio is generated using AI

Thandile Zonke, a climate and energy campaigner and commissioner at the presidential climate change commission, is pushing to decode climate change terminology into vernacular languages to empower communities and influence policy.

Zonke told Business Times this week decoding climate change is important to the government’s plan to advance economic growth, industrial development, and employment creation.

“I think the challenge is that many people who are engaging around the climate crisis are doing so in what is their second or third language in South Africa. Many of the time, even your fourth language, and yet the majority of our communications around climate is happening in English. The majority of the policy documents that are being released are in English, and there’s no translation provided or even summaries for communities,” she said.

According to Stats SA, English was the fifth most spoken language in South Africa in 2022, accounting for 9% of the population. Zulu was the most widely spoken language at 24.4%, followed by Xhosa at 16.3%, Afrikaans at 10.6% and Sepedi at 10%.

Zonke said new terminology is emerging around climate change as investors increasingly monitor companies’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards.

“You’ll see terminology like carbon bombs and carbon budgets. So how do you articulate that in vernacular, that’s going to actually resonate with communities in that same way?”

Terms may not necessarily find a direct translation, she said, and there is a need to engage with communities about what terminology they are already using in their daily expressions that would denote the urgency and violence associated with these.

Zonke contends that while not everything can be directly translated, it can be easy to miss the nuances and feelings that language can convey; hence a buy-in from the community is important.

Decoding terminology is crucial to ensure no-one is left behind in the energy transition. Using indigenous language to ensure people can participate in policy consultations advances the transition, she said.

“The objective is to try to make climate language legible or climate policy legible to people in the language that they use so they can get into these spaces where they can potentially interact with or make submissions to decision makers,” she said

There has always been a need to make climate change understandable to communities, and particularly in vernacular languages, given the difficulty people, and particularly campaigners, have in expressing themselves in English.

This is because the terms are technical and feel inaccessible, and Zonke’s vision is for communities to reach a point where they understand what the terms are and how they translate into their lives.

“The objective would be to see the terminology that communities create reflected back in decision makers, how they are expressing themselves in policy. I think that would be an indication that we’re moving in a direction where communities are actually able to influence the climate conversation.”

The plan is to host a series of imbizos across the country to get buy-in from communities to not only translate what’s happening in the climate crisis into vernacular but also integrate it into language. This will ensure a collective project where communities can own the language around climate change.

Zonke also plans to rope in language experts to the decoding process and secure the funding that can make a project like this possible.

“The just transition is happening. We don’t really have much of a say about how it happens, but our entry point into this is how just it is,” she said.

It is important that communities are at the table to define that language because they need to be able to communicate their needs and aspirations at the end of the day.

Zonke, as an activist, was one of the campaigners in the Wild Coast case against Shell’s seismic testing in the Wild Coast as part of Greenpeace Africa.

She described the case as precedent-setting because it not only affirmed the rights of communities to have to give prior and informed consent, but also affirmed that spiritual and cultural rights need to be considered in these types of exploration activities.

Business Times

]]>Rawpixel.com/Magnific<![CDATA[Africa’s capital markets fall short of needs]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-07-africas-capital-markets-fall-short-of-needs/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-07-africas-capital-markets-fall-short-of-needs/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000Africa’s corporate debt markets are far too small to match the continent’s economic weight and growing financing needs, the OECD said on Friday, with outstanding market-based debt totalling only $211bn (about R3.5-trillion) at the end of 2025.

The shortfall could undermine both economic growth and leaders’ efforts to expand local financing to protect companies and countries on the continent during periods of global market stress, when foreign lenders often pull ​back from markets perceived as risky, the OECD warned.

“Overall, capital markets remain underutilised as a source ​of long‑term finance — particularly when compared to other emerging-market economies — limiting their contribution to ⁠economic growth and resilience,” the OECD said in its Africa Capital Markets Report 2026.

The report’s estimates ​are based on bond and loan transaction records from the London Stock Exchange Group and private credit fund ​data from Preqin, covering all 54 African countries.

The corporate bond market, estimated at $35bn, is 44% smaller in inflation-adjusted terms than its 2015 peak, largely due to reduced activity in South Africa.

Companies across the continent issued no more than 20 bonds ​in 2025, 17 of them by financial firms. Six countries — Egypt, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria and South ​Africa — accounted for 80% of outstanding corporate debt.

Only 17% of corporate debt issued in 2025 was in local currency, limiting ‌borrowers’ ⁠ability to secure long-term financing without exposure to exchange-rate swings.

Economic and institutional hurdles are the main obstacles to developing bond markets in countries without them, the OECD said, adding that policymakers must take “a broad, whole-of-government approach”.

Regulatory quality, rule of law, exchange-rate stability and well-developed pension funds are among the factors most closely linked ​to deeper bond markets, the ​report said.

A more ⁠than 25% drop in aid provided by OECD donor countries to Sub-Saharan Africa underscored the need for deeper domestic capital markets, the OECD said.

African ​equity market capitalisation surged 49% in 2025, more than twice the gain in ​broader emerging ⁠markets. Four countries — South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and Morocco — accounted for 88% of the total.

At a round table on Friday, OECD director for financial and enterprise affairs Carmine Di Noia said Ethio Telecom’s listing on Ethiopia’s new ⁠securities exchange ​in May and the Kenya Pipeline Company’s recent IPO underscored the ​rise in investable assets beyond the traditional hubs.

He also said that three-quarters of large non-financial state-owned African enterprises remain unlisted, representing ​a large potential pool of assets.

The report found that market depth and liquidity remain highly concentrated. South Africa had significantly greater market depth, with a score of 98, compared with 61 for Morocco and Mauritius, and 51 for Nigeria. Scores were much lower in many other markets.

“The market-depth score provides an indication of the size and liquidity of a country’s capital markets relative to the size of its economy, with higher scores indicating greater market depth.”

The report said South Africa continued to show deeper capital market development, pointing to the listing of Optasia on the JSE.

In terms of sustainable finance, the report said South Africa remained the continent’s most advanced sustainable finance market, highlighting its progressive climate finance ecosystem, institutional investor base and regulatory framework. — Reuters

]]>Malwande Ndzimande<![CDATA[The unbearable lightness of being John Malkovich]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2026-11-07-the-unbearable-lightness-of-being-john-malkovich/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2026-11-07-the-unbearable-lightness-of-being-john-malkovich/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000As locations go, Easter Island isn’t a bad one if you’re looking to confront your mortality, and, as it turns out, your morality. The scenery is spectacular, the sunsets are magnificent and the locals have been staring silently into the middle distance for centuries. They are, admittedly, made of stone, but in the circumstances that may be an advantage. Particularly if you’ve spent your professional life doing things that aren’t strictly legal, and that you’d rather not discuss.

Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich on Easter Island in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.
Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich on Easter Island in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.

Welcome to Wild Horse Nine, the latest film from the gloriously perverse imagination of Martin McDonagh, a filmmaker who’s made something of a speciality of placing morally compromised men, in unusually dramatic relationships, in exceptionally beautiful locations and watching them unravel.

“Where’s the cheese?” ... Director and filmmaker Martin McDonagh

In a previous McDonagh movie, In Bruges (2008), Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson were two hitmen marooned in a picturesque Belgian city, contemplating guilt, punishment and the architectural merits of medieval Europe. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) gave us grief, vengeance and a particularly combustible Sam Rockwell, while The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) turned a fallout between two friends on an isolated Irish island into a magnificent study of masculine stubbornness and self-destruction.

Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich in 'Wild Horse Nine'. © 2026 Searchlight Pictures.
Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich in 'Wild Horse Nine'. © 2026 Searchlight Pictures.

Now McDonagh has taken his fascination with difficult men, difficult friendships and impossible moral choices to Rapa Nui, better known as Easter Island, that strange speck of volcanic land in the Pacific Ocean, 3,500km west of mainland Chile.

“These two characters have done heinous things. But, exploring that without judgement is the most important thing.” ... Director and filmmaker Martin McDonagh

The year is 1973. Chile’s democratically elected socialist president, Salvador Allende, is living on borrowed time. The United States, deeply uncomfortable with the prospect of a successful socialist government in its geopolitical backyard, has been working to undermine him. On September 11, a military coup will overthrow Allende and usher in Augusto Pinochet’s brutal dictatorship. American involvement in destabilising Chile is well documented, although the film’s particular operatives and their exploits are fictional.

Mariana di Girolamo and Ailín Salas in 'Wild Horse Nine'. © 2026 Searchlight Pictures.
Mariana di Girolamo and Ailín Salas in 'Wild Horse Nine'. © 2026 Searchlight Pictures.

Against this distinctly unpromising political backdrop, two veteran CIA agents, Chris (John Malkovich) and Lee (Sam Rockwell), are dispatched from Santiago to Easter Island by their boss, MJ (Steve Buscemi). Chris is terminally ill, increasingly preoccupied with his past and entertaining some alarming ideas about how his future should unfold. Lee, his longtime partner, is expected to accommodate an extraordinary request. Meanwhile, Chris’s unexpected friendship with two rebellious young women threatens to complicate things further.

Mariana di Girolamo and John Malkovich in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.
Mariana di Girolamo and John Malkovich in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.

It’s a political thriller, a black comedy, a meditation on death and a love story of sorts between two men whose principal shared accomplishment has been taking people out, in the most literal of ways.

At the film’s centre is Malkovich, an actor who’s spent five decades making the peculiar seem perfectly reasonable.

John Malkovich in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.
John Malkovich in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.

At 72, Malkovich remains one of cinema’s most fascinating presences. That unmistakable voice, simultaneously languid and threatening; the measured delivery that suggests he’s already considered every possible outcome of a conversation and found most of them disappointing; the ability to make a raised eyebrow feel like a declaration of war.

John Malkovich armed and dangerous in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán,
John Malkovich armed and dangerous in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán,

In Dangerous Liaisons, he made seduction look like a sophisticated form of cruelty, and it was. In Being John Malkovich, he gamely surrendered his own identity to one of cinema’s most absurd premises in a film about the human yearning to escape oneself, inhabit another person’s skin and gaze into the inner lives of celebrities. In Wild Horse Nine, he plays a man who’s spent a lifetime exercising power over other people’s destinies, only to discover that he has little control over his own.

When I join Malkovich, Rockwell, McDonagh and their fellow cast members for a conversation about the film, it becomes apparent that the relationship between Chris and Lee is less a conventional Hollywood partnership than a long, dysfunctional marriage.

“They’re two people who know each other well,” Malkovich explains. “And are capable of visiting violence on people clinically and dispassionately. They’re two people who love each other but drive each other apesh*t.”

John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.
John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.

The complication, Malkovich continues, is that one man has asked the other to do “about the biggest ask you can ask of a friend”. The tension is not merely whether that request will be honoured, but when, where and what it will cost them both.

The film’s moral terrain is consequently far more complicated than the traditional business of separating heroes from villains. These men have committed appalling acts, as their jobs, without considering themselves appalling people. They are loyal, affectionate, funny and sometimes touching. They are also professional instruments of political violence.

Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich as CIA agents up to no good on Easter Island. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.
Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich as CIA agents up to no good on Easter Island. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.

McDonagh is interested in that contradiction. “These two characters have done heinous things,” he says. “But, exploring that without judgement is the most important thing.”

His objective, he says, was to discover their humanity without pretending that their humanity excuses their actions. It’s an important distinction. Being charming doesn’t absolve a person of being monstrous. History is littered with charming monsters.

Steve Buscemi and Sam Rockwell ride together in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.
Steve Buscemi and Sam Rockwell ride together in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.

For Malkovich, the quality of McDonagh’s writing was what made the project irresistible. “I’m not much for spontaneous improvisation,” he says dryly, adding that, as someone who also writes scripts, he likes to hear his own dialogue performed as written, if only to satisfy his curiosity. He says he’s rewritten enormous portions of other films when they needed it. But he approved of McDonagh’s screenplay. “I read it, I understood it, I knew it was good.”

Director Martin McDonagh works with John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell on the set of 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.
Director Martin McDonagh works with John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell on the set of 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.

Malkovich’s reverence for writers goes back to his theatrical beginnings with Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard and Arthur Miller. He remembers once suggesting to Miller that Death of a Salesman could be improved by removing a particular bedroom scene. Miller disagreed. The scene survived. “Call me arrogant,” he remarks.

Rockwell, who previously worked with McDonagh on Seven Psychopaths and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, is equally effusive about the director. “He’s an anomaly,” he says. “One of the great talents who sees things with the kind of X-ray vision that most of us don’t have.”

Tom Waits in a scene from 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Justin Lubin.
Tom Waits in a scene from 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Justin Lubin.

He places McDonagh alongside playwrights Paddy Chayefsky and Pinter. Asked how he and Malkovich established their extraordinary on-screen chemistry, Rockwell offers a succinct explanation: “It was acting.”

Malkovich, considerably more expansive, describes the endless preparation involved in finding the precise emotional temperature of a scene. Actors might explore a dozen different possibilities in rehearsal, he explains, but filmmaking demands decisions. There simply isn’t time to spend 12 hours discussing a scene over a martini. “A 12-hour martini sounds pretty good,” Rockwell interjects.

John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.
John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.

Malkovich has an intriguing philosophy about the relationship between actor and director. “When you’re in a movie, you’re a figure in someone else’s dream. It’s not your dream.” The actor’s responsibility, he says, is to understand the role he occupies in that dream, rather than attempt to commandeer it. “McDonagh is the perfect guide.”

Parker Posey as Marge in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Justin Lubin.
Parker Posey as Marge in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Justin Lubin.

The dream in question began some 15 years ago, when McDonagh first visited Rapa Nui and recognised its cinematic potential. He experimented with various stories involving two men, initially imagining a father-and-son relationship. Nothing worked until he connected the island to Chile’s political history. Once he began thinking about the CIA’s involvement in undermining Allende’s government, everything fell into place.

It’s a history with uncomfortable contemporary echoes. Declassified American documents reveal the extent of Washington’s covert campaign against Allende, including the Nixon administration’s efforts to encourage his overthrow.

Director Martin McDonagh with Tom Waits on the set of 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Justin Lubin.
Director Martin McDonagh with Tom Waits on the set of 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Justin Lubin.

But McDonagh insists that he didn’t want to deliver a political sermon. “I don’t like films that are didactic or polemical or a lecture,” he says. “But comedy can lure an audience into confronting subjects they might otherwise avoid.”

It’s an effective strategy. People who wouldn’t voluntarily attend a two-hour lecture on American interventionism might happily spend the same time watching Malkovich and Rockwell insult each other against a beautiful Pacific backdrop. Then, without noticing, they find themselves contemplating the moral consequences of imperial power.

John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell share a laugh. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.
John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell share a laugh. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.
Steve Buscemi, Sam Rockwell, and John Malkovich in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.
Steve Buscemi, Sam Rockwell, and John Malkovich in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.

The island itself becomes a character. Its enormous moai statues, created by the Indigenous Rapa Nui people, have watched generations come and go. Against their ancient, impassive presence, the self-importance of two American intelligence agents seems a bit ridiculous.

McDonagh says he sees the location as an extension of Chris’s predicament. “He’s at the end of the world and at the end of his life,” he says, with the moai observing his guilt. The physical isolation also intensifies the relationship between the men. There is nowhere to hide, geographically or emotionally.

Steve Buscemi and Sam Rockwell. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.
Steve Buscemi and Sam Rockwell. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.

For Chilean actress Mariana di Girolamo, who plays one of the rebellious students the hitmen encounter, the island was unlike anywhere she had experienced. “We were in this tropical island full of wild horses. Volcanoes, strong energy,” she recalls. She was particularly moved by the Rapa Nui people’s attachment to their language, culture and land.

John Malkovich and Mariana di Girolamo. Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.
John Malkovich and Mariana di Girolamo. Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

Filming there was a big undertaking. McDonagh’s production team had to transport everything from mainland Chile, including cameras, equipment and period cars. Some vehicles arrived late, forcing adjustments to the shooting schedule. But the isolation brought unexpected benefits. Cast and crew stayed together, rehearsed in restaurants and bars, and encountered their filming locations on their daily walks.

Malkovich loved it. “I thought it was a perfect place to shoot a movie because it really lent itself to work and concentration.” For an actor whose career has taken him across continents, theatrical traditions and a variety of roles, the opportunity to immerse himself in a character was clearly appealing.

Sam Rockwell as Lee in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.
Sam Rockwell as Lee in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

There is something particularly affecting about watching Malkovich, an actor whose performances so often suggest intellectual superiority and control, inhabit a man whose memory and body are letting him down. Chris has spent his life believing that history is something powerful men manufacture. Now he must confront the possibility that history will remember him rather differently from how he thinks of himself.

Wild Horse Nine finds its most interesting tension here: between the desire for redemption and the inconvenient fact that redemption can’t simply be ordered like room service.

The younger Chilean characters offer a different perspective on the past. For them, the political upheaval isn’t a collection of classified operations or geopolitical calculations. It’s their future. Di Girolamo hopes the film will encourage audiences to investigate that history, including the fate of Chilean singer and activist Víctor Jara, murdered in the aftermath of the coup.

Sam Rockwell in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.
Sam Rockwell in 'Wild Horse Nine'. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán.

The contrast between youthful idealism and ageing cynicism is central to McDonagh’s story. His American agents have spent their careers interfering in other people’s futures. Now one of them is running out of his own.

Buscemi, meanwhile, provides another variety of moral discomfort as the agents’ superior, MJ, a man attempting to maintain authority over two subordinates who have little respect for their superior. “I don’t get to play a boss often,” he says, “especially the boss of two guys who really don’t want you to be their boss.”

Ultimately, Wild Horse Nine is concerned with being human: our capacity for affection and cruelty, loyalty and betrayal, regret and self-deception. It asks whether a lifetime of terrible decisions can be redeemed by a final act of decency and whether friendship can survive the burden of knowing precisely who someone is.

John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell. Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.
John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell. Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

Malkovich’s answer to what makes such complicated characters possible is characteristically simple. “It’s everything,” he says about the veracity of McDonagh’s writing. “You can’t bring something that isn’t there, that isn’t in the cupboard.”

Rockwell adds,“You can’t open and close the cupboard doors, hoping something worthwhile will miraculously appear.”

At which point McDonagh interrupts. “Where’s the cheese?”

“Where’s the cheese?” Malkovich repeats, delighted.

And there, perhaps, is the entire McDonagh philosophy in an absurd comment. Life is cruel, history is bloody, death is inevitable and mankind’s moral cupboard is frequently bare. But thankfully there’s always someone like McDonagh who’s looking for the cheese.

]]>Searchlight Pictures<![CDATA[STAYING IN | Things to stream]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2026-11-07-staying-in-things-to-stream/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2026-11-07-staying-in-things-to-stream/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000If you have 1 hour

STICK SEASON 2 — Apple TV+

Owen Wilson returns as Pryce Cahill, the lovable, self-sabotaging, lost-it-all golf pro turned coach, in a second season of this hard-to-dislike, charming sports dramedy that sets its sights on the PGA Tour and the ultimate US Open showdown between mentor and protégé Santi Wheeler (Peter Dager).

If you have 90 minutes

MAKING MARIE ANTOINETTE — Mubi.com

A surprisingly quiet and tender film about the behind-the-scenes bustle and excitement during the making of Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film Marie Antoinette — directed with love, pride and concern by her mother, Eleanor, who died in 2024 at the age of 87.

If you have 4 hours

AWKWAFINA: THE UNLIKELY COOK — Apple TV+

Comedian and actress Nora Lum, known to the world as Awkwafina, takes a deeply personal culinary journey through her family’s past in this bright, inspiring show about food, cooking and heritage.

If you have 8 hours

UNDER SIEGE — Netflix

The dramatic events of the 1985 storming of Colombia’s Palace of Justice by M-19 guerrillas are brought to life in a twisty, engaging historical thriller series.

If you have 8 hours

THE GREATEST — Prime Video

The much-written-about life and times of Muhammad Ali are vividly dramatised for old and new fans of a man who remains larger than life in this biopic series starring Jaalen Best as the G.O.A.T. boxer and Giovanni Ribisi as trainer Angelo Dundee.

]]>Courtesy of Apple TV+<![CDATA[Q&A with Popina Khumanda on her book ‘The Smallest Ones’, shortlisted for the 2026 Sunday Times Literary Awards (non-fiction)]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2026-11-07-qa-with-popina-khumanda-on-her-book-the-smallest-ones-shortlisted-for-the-2026-sunday-times-literary-awards-non-fiction/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2026-11-07-qa-with-popina-khumanda-on-her-book-the-smallest-ones-shortlisted-for-the-2026-sunday-times-literary-awards-non-fiction/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000The Smallest Ones (Penguin Books) is a harrowing and powerful story of the survival of you, Popina, and your sister, YaZiana, who were captured by rebel soldiers in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and after five years of being held captive, how you fled to South Africa via an epic journey. It must have been painful to recall those memories. Why did you decide to write this book? And how difficult was it to write it as a small child in the first person?

There were many reasons why I decided to write The Smallest Ones, but I think, at the heart of it, I felt that there were stories that needed to be told and lives that deserved to be remembered.

I often think about something my older sister told me during our journey to South Africa. She said, “In this journey, we all have to make sacrifices.” Those words have stayed with me throughout my life. As I grew older and began to reflect on everything that had happened, I realised that many lives had been sacrificed along the way for me to have the opportunity to be here today and tell this story. I felt a responsibility to remember them, to honour them and to give a voice to those whose stories may otherwise never be heard.

A child born in a war zone should not have to justify their right to dream.

Writing in the first person, particularly from the perspective of the little girl I once was, was one of the most difficult parts of the process. In many ways, I was having to return to a version of myself that I had spent years trying to move beyond. What made it particularly difficult was realising that, as children, we do not always understand the severity of what we are experiencing. When hardship becomes your everyday reality, you learn to normalise it. You adapt. You find ways to survive. It is only when you grow older, with a different understanding of the world, that you begin to recognise just how much you endured.

2026 Sunday Times Literary Awards
2026 Sunday Times Literary Awards

In your preface, you write that you originally called the book “Building Freedom”. Can you elaborate on why?

When I look back at my life, and at the lives of so many others, I often think about where we begin. Some of us begin at zero and from that point, we are confronted with a choice: do we remain defined by the circumstances into which we were born, or do we begin building a life that is meaningful, purposeful and worth remembering?

That is how I came to understand my story, and the stories of so many others whose journeys, unfortunately, were cut short.

But the idea of building freedom also extends beyond my personal experience. I have always been fascinated by African history, particularly the ways in which our past continues to shape our present. The history of this continent is marked by colonialism, exploitation, political upheaval, the struggle for independence and generations of people who have had to rebuild in the aftermath of conflict. Even after political independence, the work of building truly free societies continued.

I began to see freedom not simply as the absence of oppression, but as something that requires deliberate effort. It is built through education, opportunity, self-determination, the preservation of our histories and the courage to imagine a different future.

In many ways, that is what I believe my sister and I were doing. We were building a life beyond the circumstances that had been imposed upon us. We were building freedom, one decision, one sacrifice and one opportunity at a time.

And perhaps the most important thing is that freedom is not always something we get to experience fully ourselves. Sometimes, we build it for the generations who come after us. Some people plant trees under whose shade they will never sit.

That, for me, is what Building Freedom represented. It was never just about escaping a war or reaching another country. It was about reclaiming the right to imagine, construct, and live a life beyond the limitations of our beginnings.

'The Smallest Ones' by Popina Khumanda.
'The Smallest Ones' by Popina Khumanda.

How did you research your book? Did you rely solely on memory, or did you look at archives and interview other people?

I did not rely solely on memory. In fact, one of the things I became increasingly aware of while writing this book was that my personal story did not exist in isolation. It was part of a much larger historical and political context, and I felt a responsibility to understand that context properly.

I spent a considerable amount of time researching the history of the DRC, as well as the broader history of the African continent.

I also spoke to other refugees and listened to their stories. Their experiences helped me understand that, although our circumstances and journeys may have differed, there were shared experiences of displacement, loss, survival and the search for freedom. I also fact-checked aspects of my own background to ensure that the historical context surrounding my memories was as accurate as possible.

But there was one particular photograph I encountered during my research that has stayed with me.

It was a photograph of a little girl walking barefoot, with her two brothers following behind her, carrying their belongings. Their mother was walking ahead of them, carrying a load on her back. In the background was a military truck, with soldiers carrying guns on their shoulders. The little girl was looking down as she walked.

Something about that image struck me deeply. I saw something of myself in that little girl, but I also realised that this story was much bigger than me. It was not simply about my survival, my sister or my journey to South Africa. It was about the thousands of children whose lives are interrupted by conflict, whose childhoods are taken away, and whose stories often go undocumented.

That was the moment I understood that The Smallest Ones was not just a book about my past. It was about giving visibility to children who are so often overlooked in conversations about war, conflict and history.

In your village when you were young, you write that you believed in the river god Nisodin — “mother of fertility, love, beauty and all creatures. We believed that Mama Nisodin had sacrificed herself so that the world could get a second chance to live, love and grow.” How does the mythology of Nisodin fold into your own story?

I think my connection to Mama Nisodin has become much deeper as I have grown older. When I look at her mythology, I see the sacrifice she made and the spiritual journey she undertook, and in many ways, I find myself resonating with that journey.

In order for me to become the person I am today, I have had to witness parts of myself die, other parts awaken, and some parts remain hidden because their time had not yet come. Growth, for me, has never been a straightforward journey. It has involved loss, transformation, sacrifice and the difficult process of discovering who I am beyond the circumstances that shaped my childhood.

I think that is where the mythology of Nisodin becomes particularly significant in my story. Her sacrifice was understood as something that allowed the world another opportunity to live, love and grow. I see a parallel in the sacrifices made across generations, particularly by women and mothers, who often endure extraordinary circumstances so that the next generation might have an opportunity to live differently.

There is also something deeply important to me about preserving this part of our African cultural heritage. Before we understood the world through textbooks, institutions and formal histories, our communities had their own ways of explaining life, nature, spirituality, love and sacrifice. These stories carried meaning, identity and knowledge. They deserve to be remembered and passed on. I think we sometimes underestimate how much of our identity is rooted in the stories we inherit.

There is, however, an interesting tension in my own life between the traditional beliefs I grew up with and the Christian faith I was introduced to later. In many ways, I find myself standing between two spiritual worlds, trying to understand where I belong and how these different belief systems have shaped the person I am. I don’t think that tension is easily resolved. There are parts of my cultural upbringing that remain deeply embedded in my understanding of the world, even as my Christian faith has become an important part of my life.

What impression do you want readers to take away after reading the book?

More than anything, I want readers to walk away with a deeper understanding of our shared humanity and a renewed appreciation of the lives they have been given. We live in a world where war and conflict continue to shape the lives of millions of people, particularly children and women. Across different parts of the world, children are being displaced, families are being separated, mothers are burying their children, and entire communities are being forced to abandon everything they know. While some of us are occupied with planning our futures, pursuing our dreams and navigating the ordinary challenges of life, others are fighting for the most basic human necessities: food, clean water, shelter, safety and simply the opportunity to wake up the following morning.

I don’t want readers to look at children affected by war and see only victims. I want them to see children with imaginations, ambitions, talents and futures that are just as valid as those of children growing up in peaceful and privileged environments. A child born in a war zone should not have to justify their right to dream.

I also hope the book challenges the way we look at refugees and displaced people. Behind every refugee is a history, a family, a home, a set of dreams and often a life that was interrupted by circumstances beyond their control. People should not have to lose their humanity in the eyes of others simply because they have been forced to cross a border in search of safety.

But perhaps, most importantly, I want readers to reflect on what it means to be human to one another. What responsibilities do we have when another person’s life is falling apart? What does our humanity mean if we can witness the suffering of others and remain indifferent?

]]>Supplied<![CDATA[YOUR WEEKLY STARS | 9 November - 15 November ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2026-11-07-your-weekly-stars-9-november-15-november/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2026-11-07-your-weekly-stars-9-november-15-november/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000

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The week begins with a new moon in Scorpio, bringing an opportunity to start afresh. Scorpio favours honesty, emotional housekeeping and confronting the things that have been conveniently ignored. Mercury and Venus are still retrograde at the beginning of the week — but both turn direct on Friday, promising a gradual improvement in communication, relationships and general decision-making. Don’t expect instant miracles. Planetary traffic jams, like those on the M1, take time to clear. Mars and Jupiter in Leo encourage confidence and creativity, while the weekend brings an adventurous mood. It’s a week for reconsidering what matters, letting go of what doesn’t, and resisting the urge to announce every personal revelation on social media.

BIG THEMES

Love & relationships

Old misunderstandings finally unravel as Venus turns direct on Friday. A relationship deserves another chance if something’s genuinely changed.

Work & money

Mercury’s change of direction encourages progress on stalled projects and delayed decisions. Revisit your priorities before making fresh commitments. Not every opportunity deserves an enthusiastic yes.

Energy & wellbeing

Monday’s new moon invites emotional decluttering. Think, rest and establish healthier boundaries. By the weekend, getting out into the world feels more appealing.

The week in one line

Clear the emotional clutter, trust what you’ve learnt and give the future a little breathing room.

Lucky/Unlucky/Don’t even try

Lucky: Fresh perspectives, honest conversations and overdue decisions.

Unlucky: Emotional ultimatums and romanticising the past.

Don’t even try: Calling it a fresh start while repeating precisely the same mistakes.

SCORPIO

(Oct 23 — Nov 21)

A new moon in Scorpio on Monday creates a moment of renewal. You’re ready to abandon an old habit, change direction or acknowledge something you’ve known for months. No need for a dramatic announcement. Quiet decisions are more powerful. Mercury turns direct in your sign on Friday, helping you articulate what’s been difficult to explain. Ambition is running high, but don’t confuse recognition with personal worth. The weekend offers a chance to reconnect with what makes you happy. You’re allowed to enjoy the person you already are.

SAGITTARIUS

(Nov 22 — Dec 21)

The universe is suggesting you do less rather than more. Monday’s new moon falls in the private part of your chart, encouraging reflection and rest. Friday brings a welcome shift as Mercury and Venus turn direct, easing complications involving friendships or plans that have been repeatedly postponed. By the weekend, your adventurous spirit is back in charge. A spontaneous outing could be the tonic.

CAPRICORN

(Dec 22 — Jan 19)

The people around you are becoming increasingly important, particularly those who share your interests and ambitions. Monday’s new moon encourages fresh connections and a reconsideration of an old friendship. Someone you haven’t heard from in ages could reappear with an interesting proposition. Meanwhile, domestic responsibilities compete with your desire to get out and enjoy yourself. Try not to treat leisure as a task requiring results. The weekend favours conversation, good company and a change of perspective. Doing nothing can be remarkably productive.

AQUARIUS

(Jan 20 — Feb 18)

Something is shifting in the way you see your future. Monday’s new moon highlights your ambitions and public life, making this a useful moment to reconsider where you’re heading and why. Mercury turning direct on Friday could revive a delayed opportunity or resolve an awkward professional conversation. Relationships are lively throughout the week, although somebody may expect more attention than you want to provide. Resist the temptation to disappear when feelings become complicated. By Sunday, you’ll be ready for a meaningful exchange. Independence is wonderful, Aquarius, but companionship doesn’t constitute a hostile takeover.

PISCES

(Feb 19 — Mar 20)

There’s a wider world calling, and you’ve been spending too much time attending to the small inconveniences of life. Monday’s new moon encourages you to think about travel and learning. An idea that seemed unrealistic deserves another look. Friday brings movement to plans that have stalled. At home, someone may need reassurance rather than advice. The weekend is perfect for exploring somewhere unfamiliar. A change of scenery can sometimes be achieved without leaving the sofa.

ARIES

(Mar 21 — Apr 19)

You’re not known for your patience, which makes this week’s emphasis on slowing down particularly inconvenient. Monday’s new moon asks you to consider trust and intimacy. A frank conversation is overdue. Fortunately, Friday’s planetary shifts make it easier to resolve lingering complications without turning the discussion into a competitive sport. Your ruler, Mars continues to energise your creative and romantic life, so there’s plenty of excitement available. The weekend favours pleasure over obligation. Not every challenge needs conquering.

TAURUS

(Apr 20 — May 20)

Relationships take centre stage as Monday’s new moon falls in your partnership sector. Whether you’re romantically involved, negotiating a collaboration or simply trying to understand a difficult relative, a fresh approach makes all the difference. Your ruler Venus turns direct on Friday, bringing some welcome relief to everyday arrangements that have become complicated. You may find yourself craving greater comfort at home. Indulge that instinct, but remember that rearranging the furniture won’t resolve an emotional disagreement. The weekend is good for heartfelt conversations. A delicious meal with someone who makes you laugh would be an excellent beginning.

GEMINI

(May 21 — Jun 20)

At last, progress. Mercury, your ruler, turns direct on Friday, helping restore order to a schedule resembling a badly organised airport departure board. Monday’s new moon encourages you to reconsider your routines and the habits that consume your time. You need fewer commitments, more sleep or a better system for remembering where you’ve put your keys. A creative project regains momentum. The weekend promises opportunities to explore. Try listening as enthusiastically as you speak, Gemini.

CANCER

(Jun 21 — Jul 22)

Monday’s new moon brings an emphasis on romance, creativity and things that make life worth celebrating. If you’ve been putting your own happiness at the bottom of the list, reconsider your priorities. A neglected hobby deserves a chance. Friday’s planetary changes help untangle an old romantic misunderstanding, but don’t feel obliged to reopen closed doors. Family life remains busy. By the weekend, you’ll benefit from time to yourself. Caring for everyone is admirable. Remember to include yourself in the arrangements.

LEO

(Jul 23 — Aug 22)

Mars and Jupiter bring energy and enthusiasm to your sign, and you’re in no mood to sit quietly while life happens elsewhere. Nevertheless, Monday’s new moon turns your attention towards home. Something in your private life needs more care. Friday brings clarity to an old conversation or domestic decision. A creative opportunity could reappear, reminding you of a talent you’ve neglected. By the weekend, you’re ready for fun, attention and romance. Enjoy the spotlight, Leo. But make sure the people you love get some of its warmth too.

VIRGO

(Aug 23 — Sep 22)

Your ruler Mercury turns direct on Friday, which should come as a relief if recent conversations have felt like elaborate exercises in misunderstanding. Monday’s new moon encourages a different approach to communication. A family matter or domestic arrangement requires attention as the week progresses, but you don’t need to solve everything personally. By the weekend, an invitation or unexpected encounter offers a welcome change of scene. You don’t always have to be the responsible one. Sometimes, someone else can remember to bring the corkscrew.

LIBRA

(Sep 23 — Oct 22)

Friday brings welcome news as Venus, your ruling planet, turns direct. If you’ve been questioning a relationship, clarity is on its way. Monday’s new moon encourages you to examine what you value. Not everything worth having comes with an impressive price tag. A conversation with a friend could offer an unexpectedly useful perspective. As the weekend approaches, your social confidence returns. Accept an interesting invitation, but leave yourself an escape route.

]]>vchalup<![CDATA[Policy consistency crucial to unleash Africa’s promise]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-07-policy-consistency-crucial-to-unleash-africas-promise/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-07-policy-consistency-crucial-to-unleash-africas-promise/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000

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While Africa has the people and resources to become a global economic powerhouse, it needs to prioritise policy consistency and the rule of law if its potential is to be realised, says a top economist.

Standard Bank’s chief economist and head of research, Goolam Ballim, told the One Young World Summit in Cape Town this week that Africa was now relevant to the global economy amid political ructions, geopolitical tensions and trade fragmentation.

“In today’s world of re-shoring, on-shoring, or ally-shoring, or put differently, when nations are looking for paths to establish trade and supply chains on trust and predictability, Africa is slightly more relevant.

“In terms of commodities, Africa has abundant cobalt, platinum, lithium and a variety of other critical and rare earth minerals that are going to be essential for this century’s energy and advanced manufacturing.”

Amid questions over the debt sustainability of the US, the implications of China’s ageing population and the slowdown of development capital in Europe, analysts are assessing Africa’s young population as a key strategic advantage in the long term for growth.

According to the UN’s world population prospects report, nearly 60% of global youths are concentrated in just 10 countries: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Mexico and the US.

Ballim said Africa needed to put in place the basic building blocks for growing economies and prosperous societies, such as infrastructure for basic services and the rule of law, with policy consistency as the backbone. “In terms of food security, 60% of the world’s still-available arable land is on the continent. In so many respects, Africa has an enormous amount of relevance.

“That relevance can remain theoretical. Theoretical in the sense that, for all of these things, this potential to translate into prosperity and meaning, Africa is devoid of the substructures that are necessary to monetise, to translate this potential into reality. This potential needs electricity. It needs skills. It needs technology. Regulation. The rule of law. Policymaking to make this all into a true transformation.”

Also at the summit, the chair of Anglo American South Africa, Nolitha Fakude, said Africa faced various challenges in its economic development strategy and ambition, but opportunities still abounded.

Fakude said geopolitics needed to be considered. “In some countries, one particular mineral is for economic development, when you say technology and digitisation. Others look at it for decarbonisation purposes because they want to make sure that we transition to a low-carbon economy by using some of these metals that are mined.”

She said as geopolitical tensions intensified around the world, Africa’s role in the global political community would become more pronounced as the region had the resources that feed the defence industry.

Rohitesh Dhawan, president and CEO of the International Council on Mining and Metals, said South Africa had been growing as an economy because the mining sector, supported by banks, legal companies and manufacturers, needed multi-pronged support to create jobs that secured people’s dignity and rights.

“One thing that’s very hard for companies in general, but for my industry to say, is that I really feel we need help. We don’t have the answers in the mining industry for how to build an industry that can protect rights, protect the planet and grow at the pace it’s going to need. We need help. We need your help.”

He said mining companies know the value of every commodity but understand that the most precious thing they have is people.

Business Times

]]><![CDATA[Battle over prostate drug patent goes to Constitutional Court ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/news/2026-11-07-battle-over-prostate-drug-patent-goes-to-constitutional-court/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/news/2026-11-07-battle-over-prostate-drug-patent-goes-to-constitutional-court/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000

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Japanese pharma giant Astellas and the University of California (UC) are going to the Constitutional Court to try to block local pharma group Eurolab and Dis-Chem from manufacturing and distributing Enzutix, a generic of the prostate cancer drug Xtandi.

In January 2023, Eurolab obtained approval from the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority for the registration of Enzutix. When this came to the knowledge of the university — whose scientists developed the drug — it joined its commercial partner Astellas in trying to get an undertaking from Eurolab not to proceed for the life of the patent.

Eurolab rejected the request and went to the Commission of Patents, arguing on a legal technicality that UC had not been entitled to apply for a patent for Xtandi in South Africa in the first place. The commission agreed with Eurolab, and UC and Astellas appealed this decision to the Supreme Court of Appeal.

In March the SCA ruled in favour of UC and Astellas (which has a market capitalisation of about $40bn or R666bn) — but declined their application to interdict the sale of Enzutix pending the conclusion of the patent litigation.

The SCA said an interdict would not be appropriate because Enzutrix is a cheaper option than Xtandi, which, like many branded cancer medications, is financially out of reach for the average South African. According to Eurolab, one year’s supply of Xtandi costs nearly R361,000, while Enzutrix comes in at R299,407 — a difference of about R60,000.

In their papers in the Constitutional Court application, due to be heard this month, UC — which is also pursuing a multimillion-rand damages claim against Eurolab for patent infringement — and Astellas said about $1.5bn was spent developing Xtandi and Eurolab should not be allowed to use legal niceties to profit from their invention.

“Simply put, Xtandi is a groundbreaking drug, the development of which has significantly improved the lives of prostate cancer patients globally. It is in the public interest that research of this sort be incentivised through the grant of patents,” UC and Astellas argue.

“It is equally in the public interest that patents are not made vulnerable to attack on highly technical grounds that have nothing to do with the merits of the invention; in respect of which there is no dispute between the interested parties; and which are advanced by firms for the sole purpose of trying to justify having stolen a march on other generics companies (that were waiting for the patent to expire) by distributing a generic of Xtandi while the patent was still in force.”

It is equally in the public interest that patents are not made vulnerable to attack on highly technical grounds that have nothing to do with the merits of the invention

Affidavit by UC and Astellas

Xtandi was developed at UC with grant support from the National Institutes of Health and the US Army.

Eight UC academics, including Michael Jung and Charles Sawyers, are the brains behind Xtandi, which raked in ¥750bn (R93bn) in sales for Astellas in financial 2023. The drug, which Astellas describes as a medication used to treat men with prostate cancer that no longer responds to hormone therapy or surgical treatment, lowers testosterone levels, among other things.

Eurolab, citing the financial blow that a successful damages action by UC would deal it, plans to ask the Constitutional Court to rule that it did not infringe a Xanti patent.

“UC has instituted action for damages against Eurolab for patent infringement,” Eurolab says in an affidavit, which Business Times has seen. “The validity of the patent is determinative of that claim. If the SCA judgment stands, Eurolab faces potential substantial monetary liability based on a patent that the Commissioner [of Patents] and the minority found to have been improperly obtained.

“This is not an academic question. Eurolab’s commercial interests, i.e. their right to sell a generic oncology drug, are directly at stake.”

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men worldwide; prominent South Africans who had it include Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. Prostate cancer affects one in 4 black Africans in South Africa and one in eight whites. According to a study published in the Health Journal, the disease accounts for 13% of male deaths in South Africa, with the total cost of treating 11,000 new cases in 2022 estimated at R2.1bn.

UC and Astellas warned that offshore inventors might shy away from South Africa if the country’s patent laws allow Eurolab to emerge victorious in the dispute.

“Most patents filed in South Africa do not originate from research carried out in this country. Merely to give the court some perspective in this regard, in 2025, 11,173 patents were filed in South Africa. Of those 11,173 patents, 8,910 (80%) were filed by foreign corporations.

“A very high percentage of patents owned by foreign corporations enter South Africa as PCT [patent co-operation treaty] national phase filings. The patent-in-suit followed that route.”

Business Times

]]><![CDATA[Gold Fields initiative aims to bridge skills and jobs gap]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-07-gold-fields-initiative-aims-to-bridge-skills-and-jobs-gap/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-07-gold-fields-initiative-aims-to-bridge-skills-and-jobs-gap/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000

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With millions of young people searching for work and employers struggling to recruit candidates with the right expertise, mining giant Gold Fields has initiated a programme to bridge the gap between skills development and work.

The initiative, dubbed Siyakha Sonke (we are building together), is a 10-year programme to train young people to be work-ready, not only for the mining industry but throughout the mining value chain.

Launched 10 months ago, it comes as the official unemployment rate has increased by 0.9 percentage points to 33.6% in the second quarter from 32.7% in the first quarter of the year.

Benford Mokoatle, Gold Fields’ executive vice-president for South Africa, told Business Times that Siyakha Sonke aims to get young people ready to take up opportunities in sectors including manufacturing, renewable energy and agro-processing.

It is designed to take account of new skills that will be needed as technology develops and goes beyond mining to provide young people with training and connections to opportunities that will grow the economy.

Mokoatle said one of its focuses was making sure women, people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups could play a meaningful role in the economy.

“We are trying to shift the focus from training for the sake of training to creating practical pathways from learning to employment,” he said. “That means bringing together employers, educational institutions and the government so we can build skills that are aligned with demand.”

Gold Fields operates South Deep, the mechanised gold mine near Westonaria, and initially Siyakha Sonke will be trialled in the West Rand. From there it will be scaled up and rolled out to the rest of the country.

In the first phase of the rollout in the next decade, governance structures and finalise priority training programmes will be set up. This will be followed by the launch of training and skills development programmes and partnerships with universities and colleges to ensure their courses are aligned with the skills required today and in the future.

Mokoatle said the plan is to expand the partnerships into key economic sectors.

“Technology and automation are changing the labour demand and are reshaping the required skills. Siyakha Sonke is therefore also aimed at strengthening the pathways between education and the practical experience employers need, while at the same time preparing people for the skills that are required in different industries and sectors.”

South Deep mine in October penned memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with Sibanye-Stillwater, AngloGold Ashanti, Mienara, Phahama School of Specialisation and Westcol TVET College to support Siyakha Sonke. Additional partnerships are being explored and developed.

Asked how many jobs would be created, Mokoatle said it was too early to say. “I’d rather talk about the intent than the number of jobs that we want to create. We want to also create new, future jobs. We want this to go beyond the numbers.”

Business Times

]]>Picture: PHILIP MOSTERT<![CDATA[Don’t hold your breath for US shift towards SA]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-07-dont-hold-your-breath-for-us-shift-towards-sa/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-07-dont-hold-your-breath-for-us-shift-towards-sa/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000

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The results of the US midterm elections this week, where the Democratic Party flipped the House of Representatives and the Senate, are unlikely to immediately translate into the largest economy softening its hostile approach to South Africa, analysts say.

The midterm results were a blow to US President Donald Trump and his Republican Party and are expected to frustrate remaining items in Trump’s second-term agenda.

Dawie Roodt, economist at Efficient Group, told Business Times that Trump’s power will be frustrated but not sterilised. “I don’t think it’s going to affect South Africa for some time; maybe eventually.”

The midterm results presented historic milestones, including the election of the first Democratic senator from Texas since 1988, James Talarico, the first Muslim senator Abdul Al-Sayed, and the first black female governor Keisha Lance-Bottoms.

While the results represent a setback for the Republicans, Trump still has more than two years in power. His second administration has presented domestic and international shocks, including the US-Iran war, trade tariffs, rising living costs and accelerated deportations of migrants.

Roodt said the Democrats will be confronted with a laundry list of urgent priorities on the domestic front and global challenges before mending fences with South Africa can be considered a priority. “They’ve got too many domestic issues to deal with. I don’t think South Africa is likely to be on the agenda for now. And in any event, remember, Trump still has a veto. So for now, no changes can be expected.”

The Trump administration’s decision to exclude South Africa from Agoa was a culmination of hostile positions it has taken against the country, including tough unilateral tariffs. Last year, the Republicans introduced the US-South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Act, proposing sanctions for ANC leaders.

Roodt acknowledged that the Democrats were likely to have more cordial dealings with South Africa and the ANC. “The Democrats in the US are probably going to be a little bit [friendlier] to the ANC government in South Africa. So from that point of view, it could be slightly good news for South Africa. But like I’ve said, I think there’s still a lot that can happen.

“For the next two years, Trump is still going to be president. And always remember that he’s still got a veto on all sorts of decisions. For now, don’t expect much.”

Azar Jammine, director and chief economist at Economatrix, told Business Times that the markets were responding positively to the midterm elections as the results were being associated with a possible end to the US-Iran war, falling oil prices and cooling inflation and interest rates.

There was a high likelihood that the US would elect a Democrat as president in the 2028 elections, he said, which was positive for South Africa in the long term. “Theoretically, it can only help South Africa that Trump’s power has been somewhat diminished, but he still holds some executive power.

He said it was unlikely that issues such as Trump’s termination of aid funding “will be foremost in the minds of members of Congress at the moment. As time goes by, attention will shift to restoring aid to South Africa and the region in the fight against Aids. But Trump will still have veto power”.

Redge Nkosi, founder and executive director at Firstsource Money, said the Democratic victory would benefit South Africa in a mid- to long-term basis, but an immediate change was not likely, especially with Trump’s veto power taken into consideration.

“Firstly, the American regime is essentially controlled by Trump with his executive orders. It seems to me that those will not come to an end. In fact, it will likely get worse.”

Business Times

]]>Umit Bektas<![CDATA[MY BRILLIANT CAREER | Write, play, learn - and embrace irony ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/careers/2026-11-07-my-brilliant-career-write-play-learn-and-embrace-irony/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/careers/2026-11-07-my-brilliant-career-write-play-learn-and-embrace-irony/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000

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What do you do for work?

I make pretty pictures for a living. It’s almost like a real job.

Many artists and other creative people are wary of AI and how it could disrupt their ability to make a living; are they right to be concerned?

Artists should be concerned, but not for the reason most of them think. AI will not replace the person with something to say. It will flood the market with competent work that has nothing to say, cheaply, and that hollows out the middle of the industry.

Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov is the useful example. He lost to Deep Blue, then built centaur chess, where a decent player with a laptop beat a grandmaster playing alone. That is the model. A good creative with AI is dangerous. What gets replaced is the person who was only ever executing someone else’s taste.

What did you want to be when you were a child?

An advocate, because it sounded impressive. I had no idea what they actually did.

Learn to write. Not copywriting, writing. It is the cheapest unfair advantage left in this country

What makes you good at what you do?

I ask better questions than most people, and I am not precious about being wrong in public. Half of design is noticing the brief is asking for the wrong thing.

What qualities do you look for when recruiting for your team?

Curiosity first, then the willingness to throw away a day of work without sulking. I would rather have someone who notices things than someone with a perfect portfolio.

What career advice do you have for young South Africans?

Learn to write. Not copywriting, writing. It is the cheapest unfair advantage left in this country. Then do the work in front of you properly, because nobody is coming to give you permission.

What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?

The best advice I ever got came from a creative director who told me to stop trying to be the most talented person in the room and start being the most useful one. Talent is common, but being the person others cannot get through the week without is not. It changed how I work.

My own version of it is this. You never stop playing, because to play is to learn. So never stop learning, and don’t be afraid of the new — embrace it.

Business Times

]]>Supplied<![CDATA[WHAT’S ON | Going Out]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2026-11-07-whats-on-going-out/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2026-11-07-whats-on-going-out/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000

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INTO THE WOODS

WHERE: Theatre on the Bay, Link St, Camps Bay, Cape Town

WHEN: November 10-14

Following the award-winning success of Spring Awakening, The Luitingh Alexander Musical Theatre Academy, through special arrangement with Music Theatre International, returns to Theatre on the Bay with Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s beloved musical Into the Woods. Directed by acclaimed theatre-maker Sylvaine Strike, with musical direction by Amy Campbell, choreography by Naoline Quinzin, and set and costume design by Marcel Meyer, this enchanting production brings together classic fairy tales including Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Rapunzel in a magical and thought-provoking adventure. Tickets are available from R250 via Webtickets.

'RED' is directed by Chris Vorster and Thys Heydenrych and stars Norman Doubell (as Ken) and Thys Heydenrych (as Mark Rothko).
'RED' is directed by Chris Vorster and Thys Heydenrych and stars Norman Doubell (as Ken) and Thys Heydenrych (as Mark Rothko).

RED

WHERE: Wynand Mouton Theatre, Nelson Mandela Drive, Park West, Bloemfontein

WHEN: November 12-13

John Logan’s RED is a compelling exploration of mentorship, artistic identity and the courage to find your own voice. In the studio of celebrated painter Mark Rothko, a young artist enters as an assistant and gradually becomes something more: student, challenger and equal. As ideas about art, legacy and ambition collide, both men are forced to confront what it means to learn from those who came before, and when the time comes to break away. At its heart, RED asks a vital question: how do we honour the past while finding the courage to create something new? Tickets are available from R25 via Webtickets.

Explore seawater not just as something we harvest from the ocean, but as a living ingredient — a way of preserving, seasoning, fermenting and creating flavour.
Explore seawater not just as something we harvest from the ocean, but as a living ingredient — a way of preserving, seasoning, fermenting and creating flavour.

FERMENTING WITH THE SEA

WHERE: Veld and Sea HQ, Plateau Rd, Cape Point

WHEN: November 14

A day immersed in the ocean: harvesting seawater, making salt, exploring fermentation, tasting, cooking and learning how to bring the sea into your pantry. Join Zayaan Khan and Veld & Sea for a hands-on exploration of seawater as the original brine and one of our most ancient pantry ingredients. You’ll explore where salt comes from, why we are all sea creatures, how to responsibly harvest from the ocean, and the many ways seawater can be used in food and drink. The focus of the workshop is fermentation, exploring the relationship between salt, seawater, time and microorganisms, with plenty of tasting and hands-on making along the way. Tickets are available from R950 via Quicket.

Organist Christopher Cockburn at St Thomas' Church.
Organist Christopher Cockburn at St Thomas' Church.

ORGANIST CHRISTOPHER COCKBURN IN CONCERT

WHERE: St Thomas’ Church, 190 Saint Thomaslaan, Musgrave, Durban

WHEN: November 15, 22

Acclaimed organist Dr Christopher Cockburn returns to Durban to play two different organ recitals at St Thomas’ Church, both featuring works of German composer Josef Rheinberger. Each of these two programmes by Dr Cockburn contains one of the Rheinberger sonatas, along with a selection of other music by a variety of composers who are in some way related either to the particular sonata or to Rheinberger himself. They range from the solemn Passacaglia in D minor by the German Baroque composer Dietrich Buxtehude (the same form used in the final movement of Rheinberger’s Sonata 8), through the quirky Scherzino by Horatio Parker (one of Rheinberger’s American students), to the virtuosic Toccata by Seth Bingham (himself a student of Parker). Tickets are available from R100 via Quicket.

]]>Image: Webtickets<![CDATA[SA faces higher US trade costs after Agoa exit ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-07-sa-faces-higher-us-trade-costs-after-agoa-exit/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-07-sa-faces-higher-us-trade-costs-after-agoa-exit/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000

Story audio is generated using AI

Losing access to the US African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) will raise the cost of doing business with the world’s largest economy, despite alternative systems governing trade between the two countries.

US President Donald Trump wrote to President Cyril Ramaphosa this week, informing him that South Africa would be excluded from Agoa provisions starting next year.

The country’s exports to the US are now expected to be administered through the remaining trade provisions, namely the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) and the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO’s) most favoured nation (MFN) provisions.

Saul Levin, executive director of Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies, told Business Times that while exclusion from Agoa does not terminate all trade between South Africa and the US, the act gave helpful provisions to exporters in strategic sectors.

“The removal of Agoa benefits is small compared to the earlier Trump tariffs. While the MFN rate, which we are now subject to, is not significantly higher, not being in Agoa does, however, raise the cost of doing business with the US and the cost of some South African goods in the US.”

The quantum of value in South African exports to the US that enjoy Agoa preferences amounts to about $1.6bn (R26.4bn) to $1.7bn. GSP benefits have largely been integrated into, or run alongside, Agoa. Bilateral trade reached $28.8bn in 2025.

SA's exports to the US
SA's exports to the US

Between 74% and 90% of total South African goods exported to the US are administered under MFN rules, making up the balance of South Africa’s roughly $16.5bn in annual US-bound exports.

Levin said it was clear from these and other actions that Trump did not consider South Africa a strategic partner, and it was unlikely that the country would be back in Agoa during his term.

“Since democracy, the US has worked closely with the South African government on many important issues — we don’t always agree, but there has been a strategic co-operation. The removal of South Africa from Agoa further contributes to that declining relationship and undermines the importance of the US working with one of the largest economies in Africa.”

Critical minerals aside, there is also less ambition in the current US administration towards Africa in general, and there are now 19 African countries excluded from Agoa, which undermines the overall usefulness of the measure, Levin said.

“Critical minerals are, however, an important consideration in US trade with South Africa and the region. Trade in these commodities, which is robust and considerable, is, however, largely by private companies and at this stage not impacted by bilateral relations or threats of retaliatory trade action.

The direct economic impact of removal from Agoa is limited, and our removal is not a surprise

Saul Levin, executive director of Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies

“The direct economic impact of removal from Agoa is limited, and our removal is not a surprise. Even prior to Trump, the concern had been that South Africa — as an upper-middle-income country — would graduate out of Agoa; previously, keeping South Africa in Agoa was therefore a strategic move on the part of the US.”

He said there would be some companies and products negatively impacted, and as of last year, the messaging from government and industry associations had been to encourage and assist exporters to diversify and find new markets.

A comprehensive bilateral trade agreement between the US and South Africa would be a good thing, but these agreements, if done properly, take time to negotiate and agree, he said.

In a statement responding to Trump’s announced intention to remove South Africa from Agoa, trade, industry & competition minister Parks Tau, said that while important, Agoa did not constitute the totality of the economic relationship between the two countries.

“In 2025, about 89% of South African exports to the US entered under ordinary WTO most favoured nation terms, while about 10% entered under Agoa, down from 28% in 2024. Agoa exports were valued at about $1.7bn in 2025, down from $4bn in 2024. Agoa exports represented about 1% of South Africa’s total global exports.”

Terry Gale, chair of Exporters Western Cape, said the outcome of the midterm elections in the US, where the Democratic Party won control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate from Trump’s Republican Party, has opened a fresh opportunity for South Africa to avert its exclusion from Agoa.

“The stunning Republican defeat in the US midterm elections has changed the political landscape in Washington. For South Africa, it creates an opportunity to mount an urgent diplomatic effort to avert its exclusion from Agoa.”

Gale proposed that a mission to the US should carry a clear presidential mandate and be supported by credible representatives of business, organised labour and the government. “That mission must arrive with practical proposals. Washington has cited trade and investment barriers, corruption and national security and foreign policy concerns. South Africa should seek precise, measurable requirements for continued eligibility, address substantiated concerns within its constitutional framework and demonstrate how preserving the relationship serves American as well as South African interests.”

Business Times

]]>SUPPLIED<![CDATA[How to be a real leader at work ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/careers/2026-11-07-how-to-be-a-real-leader-at-work/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/careers/2026-11-07-how-to-be-a-real-leader-at-work/Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:00:00 +0000

Story audio is generated using AI

Good leaders can be the difference between a successful business and one that limps towards failure.

“South Africa doesn’t need more bosses,” says Kevin Dixon, chief growth officer at The Unlimited, a financial services, insurance and rewards company. “It needs more leaders. There’s a big difference between telling people what to do and helping them discover what they’re capable of. One creates followers. The other creates people who can go on to lead.” Dixon advises:

  • Start with yourself; develop self-awareness and take responsibility for your attitude, decisions, behaviour and reactions;
  • Stop confusing providing support with being indispensable; you cannot develop leaders if you solve all their problems. Let people learn and grow and, crucially, make mistakes;
  • Don’t be afraid of getting your hands dirty — you need to be willing and able to do the hard work alongside your team, not watch from the safety of the sidelines; and
  • Measure your own success as a leader by the quality of leaders you help to grow and not by how many people report to you.

Business Times

]]>123RF/Aleksandr Davydov<![CDATA[Sara-Jayne Makwala King on dodgy hotels, wild nights and travelling with kids]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/travel/2026-11-08-sara-jayne-makwala-king-on-dodgy-hotels-wild-nights-and-travelling-with-kids/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/travel/2026-11-08-sara-jayne-makwala-king-on-dodgy-hotels-wild-nights-and-travelling-with-kids/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 22:00:00 +0000

Story audio is generated using AI

I was born in Johannesburg but grew up in Surrey, England. For our holidays, we would often go to the British coast (places like Folkestone, Camber Sands, the Isle of Wight) and freeze our asses off for a week during the blink-and-you-miss-it British summer, or we’d take the ferry to France to explore and eat our bodyweight in moules marinières.

The thing I remember most about my childhood holidays is how the strictly enforced “at home” rule of not being allowed to play with my older and much cooler brother Adam didn’t seem to apply when we were on holiday. Either I was less irritating or he was more tolerant of his little sister when we were away. Happy memories.

My first trip abroad was to Portugal. We (Mum, Dad and Adam) went with my mum’s parents, my Granny and Grandpa, whom I adored. Every morning my granny and I would walk along the beach just after the fishermen had come in with their morning catch. We would count the dead fish along the shoreline, those that had “slipped through the net”, as it were. Not so much the “ones that got away”, but the “ones who nearly made it”.

New York’s Times Square, where Sara-Jayne Makwala King once stayed in a decidedly dodgy hotel.
New York’s Times Square, where Sara-Jayne Makwala King once stayed in a decidedly dodgy hotel.

A funny travel memory: When I was 18, I travelled to upstate New York to work as a camp counsellor for the summer. Afterwards, a few of us girls went backpacking. In New York City, we ended up staying in a hotel just off Times Square. It almost felt like an abandoned building, save for a few dorm-style rooms. My fellow travellers and I used to barricade the door with a bunk bed at night. It was dodgy! Our fellow guests were several very friendly, very scantily clad women who seemed to sleep a lot in the day, since they were always in their rooms. The good thing about the hotel was it was really easy to find at night thanks to all the red lights it had in the windows.

A bizarre thing that’s happened on my holidays: my best friend Ben and I were staying with his parents at their condo in Sarasota, Florida. We were in our late teens. We went clubbing one night and were having a great time, dancing and enjoying the vibe, until, at midnight on the dot, all the main lights in the club were turned off, the DJ started playing some aggressive house and everyone started stripping – literally tearing off all their clothes. For two teens from Surrey, it was all a bit much, so with our clothes still very much on, we left and got a cab back to the condo.

A memorable restaurant I ate in overseas was the Skyview Lounge at the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, where I lived for a while in my 20s. It was my birthday and my mum had come out from the UK to celebrate and suggested we go, since we’d never been. At the time, it was such an iconic hotel and boasted about being the only seven-star hotel in the world. What was it like? Like much of Dubai, garish and overrated. Funnily enough, my favourite place to eat when I lived there was a South African restaurant called The Meat Co. Best ribs I’ve ever eaten.

Dubai’s iconic Burj Al Arab, where Sara-Jayne Makwala King celebrated a birthday.
Dubai’s iconic Burj Al Arab, where Sara-Jayne Makwala King celebrated a birthday.
The Skyview Lounge at Dubai’s Burj Al Arab.
The Skyview Lounge at Dubai’s Burj Al Arab.

I can’t single out one favourite international city, but a place I really enjoyed and would love to go back to is Singapore. I visited when I was living in Joburg and the contrast was extraordinary. Don’t get me wrong, I love Johannesburg, but having the freedom to travel and walk around as a woman alone, even late at night was so freeing. It reminded me of living in Dubai – only, nicer. Also, the food is incredible. Getting around on public transport is super easy and inexpensive.

My three must-sees/dos in Singapore:

  1. Cocktails (mocktails in my case) at Marina Bay Sands.
  2. Put your takkies on, buy an MRT (rail) ticket and explore the city on foot and by train. It’s cheap, clean and reliable.
  3. Night Safari, a nocturnal wildlife park next to Singapore Zoo, within Mandai Wildlife Reserve.

The best place in the world for a night out is Bangkok. I visited Thailand several times when I was younger. It was a halfway meeting point for me and an Australian girlfriend. I remember feeling intimidated by the city on my first visit. I grew up on a farm in England, so was not always a lover of big cities – the noise, the pace, the pollution. But every time I returned to Bangkok, I loved it more and more. And nights in Bangkok are something else. Wandering down Khao San Road, eating street food and buying knock-off Gucci sunglasses at 11pm cannot be beat.

Neon lights, street food and late-night shopping on Bangkok’s Khao San Road, Sara-Jayne Makwala King’s favourite place for a night out.
Neon lights, street food and late-night shopping on Bangkok’s Khao San Road, Sara-Jayne Makwala King’s favourite place for a night out.

When travelling, I am a sucker for a well-appointed gym in a hotel. At the beginning of 2025, I started a health journey, which has seen me lose 45kg and become a bit of a gym fanatic. I’m sure I’ve become a bit of a bore about it, but training has been an absolute game changer for my physical and mental health.

My perfect holiday involves something for me and for my two small, unemployed besties who live with me (I am a mom of two small children, aged 3 and 6). These days, while my adventurous spirit remains, the raging wanderlust is forced to take something of a back seat and I’m leaning more towards resort holidays. Last year, the three of us went on our first overseas family holiday to Club Med La Plantation d’Albion in Mauritius and it was absolutely perfect. The smallies had a blast in the kids’ club; I was able to work out in the gym and relax by the (adults only – hurrah!) zen pool in the morning, and we’d meet up for lunch and hit the beach or family pool in the afternoon.

Sara-Jayne Makwala King enjoying some downtime at Club Med La Plantation d’Albion in Mauritius, 2025.
Sara-Jayne Makwala King enjoying some downtime at Club Med La Plantation d’Albion in Mauritius, 2025.
Sara-Jayne Makwala King with her children at the pool at Club Med La Plantation d’Albion in Mauritius.
Sara-Jayne Makwala King with her children at the pool at Club Med La Plantation d’Albion in Mauritius.

One tourist attraction that surprised me was the Mona Lisa. A lot smaller than I thought she’d be.

Something surprising I do when I travel is go to a meeting. I celebrated 19 years clean and sober in August and a large part of my recovery has been thanks to anonymous 12-step fellowship groups. Luckily, there are hundreds of thousands of them all over the world, which is a godsend for recovering addicts like me who love to travel. In my 19 years of sobriety, I have been to meetings in the UK, the US, the UAE, Thailand, Colombia and Jamaica. I’ve even done meetings on a cruise ship and in an airport library. Recovery doesn’t stop just because you’re not at home.

Sara-Jayne Makwala King with San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge in the background, 2018.
Sara-Jayne Makwala King with San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge in the background, 2018.

My favourite hotel in South Africa is the InterContinental Table Bay at the V&A in Cape Town. I stayed there last month following the recent renovation, and it’s really an icon in the Mother City. The attention to detail is remarkable. I had the best lamb chops I’ve ever tasted at Flint & Fennel and enjoyed the best hotel buffet breakfast I’ve ever had. I even ordered something called “Tiramisu French Toast”. I mean, have you ever!? The spa was next level, and my room overlooking Table Mountain really made me feel like a tourist in my own city.

The Botanist’s Table, the lobby lounge and bar at the InterContinental Table Bay Cape Town, with Table Mountain in the background.
The Botanist’s Table, the lobby lounge and bar at the InterContinental Table Bay Cape Town, with Table Mountain in the background.

The last place I went to was Caledon in the Western Cape. I took the kids for a few days in the school holidays. I found a wonderful little gem there called the Caledon Grace Guesthouse. It’s beautiful and peaceful and about 90 minutes from Cape Town. I’m in talks with them to host some writing retreats there next year, which is really exciting, so watch this space.

The elegant, garden-facing veranda at Caledon Grace Guesthouse.
The elegant, garden-facing veranda at Caledon Grace Guesthouse.
Caledon Grace Guesthouse, a peaceful country retreat in the Overberg.
Caledon Grace Guesthouse, a peaceful country retreat in the Overberg.

Bucket-list? I was watching the movie City Slickers recently and thought that, one day, I’d love to take my kids to a ranch somewhere like Montana or Colorado. I grew up with horses and to me there’s nothing like being on horseback, in the great outdoors.

A ranch holiday on horseback in Montana or Colorado is on Sara-Jayne Makwala King’s bucket list.
A ranch holiday on horseback in Montana or Colorado is on Sara-Jayne Makwala King’s bucket list.

• Sara-Jayne Makwala King is a bestselling author and host of the Weekend Breakfast show and podcast on CapeTalk.

]]>Supplied<![CDATA[WATCH | The Political Arena team talks to political leaders about LGE results ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-06-watch-live-the-political-arena-team-talks-to-political-leaders-about-lge-results/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-06-watch-live-the-political-arena-team-talks-to-political-leaders-about-lge-results/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 15:00:57 +0000

With vote-counting in full swing, Arena Holdings’ senior political reporters are speaking to political leaders about what they think of the numbers they are seeing on the leaderboard.

TimesLIVE

]]>MASI LOSI<![CDATA[WATCH | The Political Arena speaks to Helen Zille ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-06-watch-live-the-political-arena-speaks-to-helen-zille/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-06-watch-live-the-political-arena-speaks-to-helen-zille/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 10:56:05 +0000

Arena Holdings’ journalists are coming to you live from the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) results centre at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, Johannesburg, to unpack the election results as they come in and discuss what they mean for municipalities.

TimesLIVE

]]>Freddy Mavunda<![CDATA[UDM shakes up Eastern Cape politics in historic vote as ANC loses majority]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-06-udm-shakes-up-eastern-cape-politics-in-historic-vote-as-anc-loses-majority/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-06-udm-shakes-up-eastern-cape-politics-in-historic-vote-as-anc-loses-majority/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 14:23:36 +0000

Story audio is generated using AI

For the first time since 1995, the ANC has lost majority power in the second-largest metro in the Eastern Cape, Buffalo City municipality, after the UDM made inroads in a historic local municipality election result.

The local government results from the metro show a threat to the ANC’s long-standing dominance in the province ahead of the 2029 national and provincial elections.

The ANC, led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, held its last election campaign rally in the metro at Sisa Dukashe Stadium in Mdantsane, two days before this week’s elections. As the party would have it — the rally was the last it had as the majority party in KuGompo City (formerly East London).

With 100% of the votes counted by Friday midday, the ANC stands at 41%, a fall from grace from the 59% vote in the 2021 elections.

When considering the party’s power in the metro in 2006, which was a dominating 81%, the ANC support base has been on a downward trajectory but had always won the majority vote.

The 2026 election have proven to be different, the municipality, for the first time, has joined the list of hung municipalities with no party winning an outright majority.

The ANC’s GNU partner, the UDM, did the most damage to it, going from 3,466 votes in 2021 to garnering 90,121 votes in the 2026 local government elections.

Buffalo City metro election results. Photo: IEC/Screenshot
Buffalo City metro election results. Photo: IEC/Screenshot

The figures reflect a historic election result for the UDM because since 2000, the party, led by Bantu Holomisa, had never attained more than 1% of the vote in the metro.

The trajectory drastically changed in this election, led by MP Nqabayomzi Kwankwa as mayoral candidate, getting 18% of the votes and beating the DA to the tag of a party with the second most votes.

One of the wards taken by the UDM was Scenery Park (ward 5), the township where the tragic Enyobeni Tavern incident in 2022 resulted in the devastating loss of 21 lives.

The UDM obtained 49.17% (4,794) there, with candidate Mbeko Nobatyi winning under the slogan “remove the ANC”. The ANC lagged with 32.56% (3,174).

Residents from the ward expressed discontent with the ANC’s candidate, Monica Goci, returning for another term as a councillor, and opted for Nobatyi, who had more favour with residents seeking change.

The township, situated metres away from the manufacturing zone, Wilsonia, has been experiencing power outages. Electricity troubles reached a boiling point in 2025, in which there were growing tensions over illegal electricity connections between RDP homeowners and informal shack dwellers.

As you enter the township, the roads are riddled with potholes — similar terrain to the drive into the city. Scenery Park, unlike some townships, has a police station and is only a few kilometres from eMpilweni clinic.

This is different from its neighbouring township, Reeston, which has no police station, struggles with water cuts and hardly has any tarred roads. Reeston remains under ANC control after the party obtained 52% of the vote there.

These elections have demonstrated that no political party can say it owns people

UDM leader Bantu Holomisa

Speaking to Business Day, UDM leader Bantu Holomisa said the party benefited from ANC voters’ “protest vote” in the metro and that such discontent will lead to the UDM treading carefully in coalition talks.

“The voters this time around have made it clear that they are fed up with the ANC. I cannot take those people back to the ANC unless there is something we cannot solve; there are other parties,” he said.

He said UDM deputy Kwankwa will lead any coalition talks if the UDM were to enter such arrangements.

Holomisa said selecting a ward candidate endorsed by the community helped the UDM take over former ANC wards.

“Those who wanted to contest elections, we said, ‘let us consult your communities’. And the communities said, ‘this is the person we want’. These elections have demonstrated that no political party can say it owns people.”

Holomisa gave credit to the youth in the party and his deputy, Kwankwa, who led the election campaign, for the results.

“Kwankwa was a choice of the BCM structures. It’s true our [ANC] comrades have messed up BCM. Deploying him there was to say, ‘go and save East London.’ East London is the economic hub of the Eastern Cape,” he said.

KuGompo is home to the Mercedes-Benz South Africa car manufacturer, which has been a focal employment point for the metro’s townships, including Pefferville near the city.

The Eastern Cape is known as an ANC stronghold and since the 1994 democratic elections had been a loyal support base for the party

Political commentator Dumisani Mthethwa, from Walter Sisulu University, said the Buffalo City metro results were a threat to the ANC’s provincial dominance for the 2029 national and provincial elections.

“The national government sets the baseline for the national government elections; whatever we see happening can actually hint how the 2029 election will go. We might see the Eastern Cape being a mixture of political parties,” he said.

“If the BCM, which is the second largest metro, is also gone from them [ANC], it is telling us exactly that the ANC is under threat leading to the national elections. I do not see them continuing to enjoy dominance.”

The Eastern Cape is known as an ANC stronghold and since the 1994 democratic elections had been a loyal support base for the party.

Mthethwa said the UDM in the metro has established itself as an alternative for people who did not want the ANC. “Kwankwa might be more appealing to the younger people; that could have worked for them.”

He said the main cause of the ANC’s fall in the metro was service delivery. “Poor service delivery is the main factor; people started questioning the capabilities of the ANC. That is the biggest issue. The ANC has forgotten to listen to what the people are saying on the ground.”

Earlier this year, KuGompo City witnessed protests on illegal migration, something that has not been a significant factor in the past. Mthethwa said the immigration protests and ANC “silence” on the debate could have had an influence in the local government elections.

Business Day

]]>SUPPLIED<![CDATA[WATCH | Jacob Zuma says MK Party open to coalition talks]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-06-watch-jacob-zuma-says-mk-party-open-to-coalition-talks/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-06-watch-jacob-zuma-says-mk-party-open-to-coalition-talks/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 10:30:40 +0000Former president Jacob Zuma says the MK Party is open to coalition talks.

Speaking at the Durban high court on Friday — where he came to support his daughter, former MK Party MP Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla — Zuma gave his trademark laugh as he answered questions about the party’s performance in Wednesday’s elections.

He was in a jovial mood as he replied to reporters, “What is your problem?” when asked about interim results which show the MK Party tipped to take eThekwini at about 40%.

“We told you, we were going to take that place [KwaZulu-Natal], and we have taken it,” he said.

Asked whether the MK Party would be open to coalition talks if necessary, Zuma, 84, replied: “We are, we are. We are open.”

“That is what we do because we want to rule the country, and we want the country to be run properly by the citizens who feel that this country needs to be what we all want it to be.”

Zuma, however, wouldn’t disclose his preferred mayoral candidate when questioned about the party’s local government plans.

“I can’t disclose that.”

Zuma told thousands of supporters at Princess Magogo Stadium in KwaMashu on Sunday that the MK Party will soon take over the country and lead many municipalities.

He was addressing the MK Party’s final Sithatha Omasipala rally before Wednesday’s local government elections.

It was his first in-person appearance since he collapsed in Umsinga and was admitted to Netcare St Anne’s Hospital in Pietermaritzburg on October 6, where he spent 11 days.

He was in court to support Zuma-Sambudla, whose application for terrorism charges linked to the July 2021 civil unrest under section 174 of the Criminal Procedures Act, to be dropped, was unsuccessful.

The case against Zuma-Sambudla will continue in May.

TimesLIVE

]]>SANDILE NDLOVU<![CDATA[LIVE RESULTS UPDATE | Track the 2026 local government election results here]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-05-live-results-update-track-the-2026-local-government-election-results-here/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-05-live-results-update-track-the-2026-local-government-election-results-here/Thu, 05 Nov 2026 10:36:04 +0000The local government election results are trickling in at the results operation centre at Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand, Gauteng.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) says the 2026 local government election results are being processed faster than during the previous municipal elections, with 18 municipalities having completed the results process by 9am on Thursday.

Click here to follow the results in real time.

]]>Thapelo Morebudi<![CDATA[SUPRA MAHUMAPELO | The UN has failed on its promise: the case for meaningful reform]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/opinion-and-analysis/opinion/2026-11-06-supra-mahumapelo-the-un-has-failed-on-its-promise-the-case-for-meaningful-reform/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/opinion-and-analysis/opinion/2026-11-06-supra-mahumapelo-the-un-has-failed-on-its-promise-the-case-for-meaningful-reform/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 12:09:00 +0000Many in the Global South increasingly question whether the UN is fulfilling the purpose for which it was established.

Concerns about the organisation’s effectiveness have grown as conflicts persist, humanitarian crises deepen, and multilateral institutions struggle to respond decisively to complex global challenges. While the UN continues to play an important humanitarian and developmental role, its ability to maintain international peace and security is increasingly being called into question.

The UN was founded in the aftermath of World War 2, partly in response to the shortcomings of the League of Nations. Its founding vision was to promote collective security, international co-operation, accountability and peaceful resolution of disputes. Yet many observers argue that the international system today continues to face challenges remarkably similar to those that confronted the league decades ago.

The organisation increasingly finds itself constrained by geopolitical divisions among major powers

The organisation increasingly finds itself constrained by geopolitical divisions among major powers. As a result, consensus on matters of war, peace and security often proves elusive, raising concerns about the effectiveness of multilateral decision-making at a time when global co-operation is most needed.

For many developing nations, meetings of the General Assembly frequently highlight important global concerns but often fall short of producing decisive action on pressing international crises. Ongoing conflicts, violations of international law, insecurity in vulnerable regions and the marginalisation of smaller states continue to test the credibility of the multilateral system.

A recurrent criticism of the UN concerns the structure of the Security Council, particularly the veto power held by its permanent members. Critics contend that this arrangement often prevents the organisation from acting decisively in situations where urgent intervention or collective action may be required. Calls for Security Council reform have therefore become increasingly prominent, especially from developing countries seeking a more representative and equitable international order.

Questions have also been raised regarding the consistent application of international law. Perceptions of selective accountability have contributed to growing scepticism about the fairness of global governance institutions and their ability to uphold universal principles without favour or prejudice.

South Africa’s decision to approach the International Court of Justice regarding the conflict in Gaza highlighted the extent to which some member states feel compelled to seek accountability through international legal mechanisms when political processes appear unable to resolve disputes. More broadly, prolonged instability in regions such as the Middle East and the Democratic Republic of the Congo continues to underscore the limitations of existing international responses to conflict.

The humanitarian consequences of war remain devastating. Civilians, particularly women and children, continue to bear the heaviest burden of armed conflict. In many instances, the international community appears unable to prevent suffering or secure timely and lasting solutions.

The central question is therefore not whether multilateralism remains necessary. Rather, it is whether the UN, in its current form, is adequately equipped to fulfil its mandate in a rapidly changing world

Similar concerns arise in relation to climate change. While the Conference of the Parties process remains an important platform for global engagement, progress is often shaped by competing national interests and differing development priorities. The gap between commitments and implementation continues to generate frustration among those seeking more urgent collective action.

The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine further illustrates the difficulties facing the contemporary multilateral system. Despite sustained international engagement, a durable resolution remains elusive, reflecting the broader challenges confronting global governance institutions.

Taken together, these developments raise important questions about the future relevance, legitimacy and effectiveness of the UN. Increasingly, states are turning to smaller multilateral formations, regional alliances and issue-based partnerships to advance their interests and address common challenges.

The central question is therefore not whether multilateralism remains necessary. Rather, it is whether the UN, in its current form, is adequately equipped to fulfil its mandate in a rapidly changing world. If confidence in the institution is to be restored, meaningful reform will be required. Such reform should include renewed consideration of Security Council representation, decision-making processes and mechanisms that strengthen accountability and responsiveness.

Meaningful reform should also include the establishment of a world parliamentary forum to exercise oversight of the UN General Assembly, strengthening transparency and the accountability of heads of state participating in its proceedings. Such a forum should provide a platform for parliamentary scrutiny of commitments made by national leaders and the steps taken to implement them. Its composition, powers and relationship with the General Assembly would need to be clearly defined and agreed upon by member states so that parliamentary oversight strengthens rather than merely duplicates existing multilateral processes.

The UN remains an important symbol of international co-operation. However, unless it adapts to contemporary geopolitical realities and responds more effectively to the concerns of developed and developing nations, its credibility may continue to diminish. The case for reform is therefore not a case against the UN itself, but rather an argument for ensuring that it remains fit for purpose in the 21st century.

  • Supra Mahumapelo is the chairperson of the portfolio committee on international relations and co-operation in the National Assembly.

TimesLIVE

]]> Branday McDermid/Reuters<![CDATA[WATCH | Terrorism charges to go ahead against Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/news/2026-11-06-watch-terrorism-charges-to-go-ahead-against-duduzile-zuma-sambudla/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/news/2026-11-06-watch-terrorism-charges-to-go-ahead-against-duduzile-zuma-sambudla/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 09:20:25 +0000A Durban high court judge on Friday denied a bid by former MK Party MP Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla to have terrorism charges related to the July 2021 riots dropped.

Last week, judge Mbuzeni Mathenjwa heard argument from her defence counsel advocate Dali Mpofu, who claimed that the state is targeting her because she is the daughter of former president Jacob Zuma.

Zuma-Sambudla was accused of incitement to commit terrorism and public violence linked to the July unrest in 2021, which resulted in 354 deaths and an estimated R50bn in economic and infrastructure damage.

The charges are related to her infamous “We See You” tweets she posted during the unrest.

On Friday Mathenjwa denied her application to have the charges dropped, and the case will proceed.

During his argument to discharge the case, Mpofu said many people had retweeted Zuma-Sambudla’s posts but were not charged.

He questioned why the state had only charged his client.

Mpofu argued that the tweets made by his client could not be proved to be incitement.

He described the state’s evidence on the “We See You” tweets as “laughable”.

Mpofu challenged the state to prove that someone broke the law because of Zuma-Sambudla’s social media posts.

Without that link, the state did not have a case, he said.

Senior prosecutor Mahendra Naidu said the state presented a strong case against Zuma-Sambudla, especially on count one.

The state had called witnesses who gave strong testimony against Zuma-Sambudla.

The former president, who was ill for several weeks and made a public appearance at the MK Party’s rally at the weekend, was in court to support his daughter.

TimesLIVE

]]>SANDILE NDLOVU<![CDATA[The Marabi Club returns for an encore]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/food/2026-11-06-the-marabi-club-reopens-at-steyn-city-with-live-jazz-and-a-new-menu/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/food/2026-11-06-the-marabi-club-reopens-at-steyn-city-with-live-jazz-and-a-new-menu/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 07:37:24 +0000For eight years, The Marabi Club was one of those Joburg haunts where you could arrive for dinner and find yourself still there hours later, ordering another glass of wine and studiously avoiding looking at your watch.

Tucked away in the basement of Hallmark House in New Doornfontein, the jazz club built a loyal following for its combination of live music, good food and nights that had a habit of running rather longer than planned.

So, when it closed in May 2025, Johannesburg lost a much-loved part of its nightlife. Fortunately, that wasn’t the end of the story.

The Marabi Club is back, having officially reopened in October 2026 in the basement of Steyn City’s City Centre. It’s a change of scenery from its original Maboneng home, but the team behind the club has made a point of preserving much of the character, music and history that made the first venue so special.

The new Marabi Club incorporates familiar pieces from its original home, including old waskoms repurposed as pendant lights. Picture: Supplied
The new Marabi Club incorporates familiar pieces from its original home, including old waskoms repurposed as pendant lights. Picture: Supplied

The name itself has deep roots in Johannesburg’s musical past. Marabi was a style of dance music that emerged from the city’s shebeens in the 1920s and 1930s, built around repeating chord progressions that gave musicians room to improvise, sometimes for hours at a time. It was music made for dancing, and its influence would go on to shape much of South African jazz.

The original club took that idea and ran with it. Dinner might be the reason you booked a table, but there was always a good chance you’d end up on your feet before the evening was over.

Now, with the move to Steyn City, Marabi is closer to many of the regulars who previously made the trip from Johannesburg’s northern suburbs to Maboneng. And although the surroundings are certainly different, the new space has been designed to feel just as welcoming and full of character.

Exposed brickwork, vintage furniture and salvaged architectural details give The Marabi Club its distinctive character. Picture: Supplied
Exposed brickwork, vintage furniture and salvaged architectural details give The Marabi Club its distinctive character. Picture: Supplied

Architect Dean Simon, who also designed the first club, has once again put his love of salvaged materials and objects with a past to good use.

An old shopfront, complete with its door and stained glass, has found a new home in the private dining area. Wood panelling salvaged from Johannesburg’s old shoe-shine stands adds another little piece of the city’s history, while vintage radios line the walls. A few familiar pieces have made the journey from Maboneng, too, including old waskoms given a second life as pendant lights. Exposed brickwork and an eclectic assortment of wooden furniture complete the picture. It’s a little like stumbling upon a secret jazz club in your slightly eccentric relative’s living room.

Photographs and prints of South African jazz greats pay tribute to Johannesburg's musical heritage throughout the club. Picture: Supplied
Photographs and prints of South African jazz greats pay tribute to Johannesburg's musical heritage throughout the club. Picture: Supplied

There’s also a lovely nod to the musicians who helped shape Johannesburg’s jazz tradition. Photographs and prints of South African music greats are scattered throughout the space, including Peter Rezant of the Merry Blackbirds, while a large portrait of pianist Emily Motsieloa keeps watch over the bar.

One noticeable difference is the daylight. Large windows overlook a piazza and water feature, giving the restaurant a more open feel during the day and making a leisurely Sunday lunch, with live jazz included, a tempting prospect.

Come evening, though, the focus shifts back to the music.

A rotating line-up of musicians and vocalists keeps the live music offering fresh. Picture: Supplied
A rotating line-up of musicians and vocalists keeps the live music offering fresh. Picture: Supplied

The resident Marabi Jazz Band, affectionately known as Marabi Radio, performs alongside a rotating cast of musicians and vocalists throughout the week. Rather than publishing a fixed monthly line-up, the club encourages guests to turn up and enjoy whoever happens to be playing.

And there’s no need to rush off once dinner is finished. Some nights, a DJ takes over after midnight, while the cigar lounge offers somewhere to retreat for a quieter conversation when you’ve had your fill of dancing.

And then, of course, there’s the food.

The Marabi Club’s new menu brings together Mediterranean flavours, Japanese techniques and classical French cooking. Picture: Supplied
The Marabi Club’s new menu brings together Mediterranean flavours, Japanese techniques and classical French cooking. Picture: Supplied

The kitchen is now in the hands of chef Patricio Nzinga, previously of Mhondoro Safari Lodge, whose à la carte menu brings together Mediterranean flavours, Japanese techniques and classical French cooking.

There are smaller plates for those who like to order a few things for the table, alongside more substantial mains, with options for meat eaters, vegetarians and vegans. If you’re wondering where to start, Nzinga recommends the sea bass, served on a mussel velouté with a fricassee of leeks, peas and pickled mussels.

And do leave room for dessert. There’s a playfully named Not a Tiramisu, with coffee and liqueur folded through mascarpone, or a lychee pavlova that sounds deliciously appealing on a warm Johannesburg afternoon.

The menu at The Marabi Club offers everything from sharing plates to more substantial main courses. Picture: Supplied
The menu at The Marabi Club offers everything from sharing plates to more substantial main courses. Picture: Supplied

With a new chef in the kitchen and familiar faces behind the instruments, there’s plenty for Marabi’s old regulars to look forward to. And for those who never made it to the original, it’s a chance to find out why people were willing to drive across Johannesburg for dinner in a basement.

The Marabi Club

  • Where: Basement level, City Centre, Steyn City, Riverglen, Midrand
  • Opening hours: Thursday to Saturday, 6pm–2am; Sunday, 12pm–5pm
  • Dress code: Smart casual
  • Bookings: Essential, via marabiclub.com
  • Additional information: Visitors must bring identification for everyone in their vehicle to enter the Steyn City estate.

Wanted

]]>Supplied<![CDATA[Ntuli casts doubt on ANC-DA deal for Johannesburg mayoralty, takes swipe at Zille ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-06-ntuli-casts-doubt-on-anc-da-deal-for-johannesburg-mayoralty-takes-swipe-at-zille/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-06-ntuli-casts-doubt-on-anc-da-deal-for-johannesburg-mayoralty-takes-swipe-at-zille/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 02:30:00 +0000

Story audio is generated using AI

ANC head of elections Mdumiseni Ntuli has cast doubt on a possible deal between the ANC and the DA that could see Helen Zille elected as Johannesburg mayor, suggesting her campaign rhetoric had left a sour taste among ANC leaders.

In an interview with The Political Arena at the IEC Results Centre on Thursday, Ntuli, who is also the ANC’s chief whip in parliament, said some within the party would be uncomfortable working with the DA following what he described as Zille’s arrogance during the campaign.

“A number of us will be very uncomfortable with the display of arrogance of Helen Zille. I’m talking about Johannesburg. This thing that she is the messiah, she is going to travel all the way from Cape Town to fix Johannesburg.

“I would imagine that quite a number of us in the ANC might take issue with that kind of position in the DA. Whether that influences whether we will work with them or work with anyone else, I’m not sure. Time will tell,” he said.

Ntuli suggested the ANC should consider taking up the opposition benches in some municipalities, rather than entering coalitions at all costs.

He pointed to the party’s working relationship with ActionSA in Tshwane, suggesting a similar arrangement could be considered elsewhere, including Johannesburg.

“We work very well with ActionSA in Tshwane. There were no major issues there. I don’t know whether the same kind of outfit will be explored anywhere else outside Tshwane. We will see what happens when discussions are taking place,” he said.

The assessment we are going to have to make is whether these coalitions, including the GNU, have actually provided any advantage to the ANC

Mdumiseni Ntuli, ANC head of elections

The ANC is facing a bruising electoral defeat, with results pointing to the party potentially failing to reclaim any of the country’s eight metropolitan municipalities, as well as losing ground in several strategic municipalities.

ActionSA is poised to strengthen its position in Johannesburg and Tshwane, giving it greater leverage in coalition negotiations.

Ntuli said it would be “dishonest” to suggest the ANC was feeling anything other than unhappy with its electoral performance.

While counting was still under way on Thursday evening, he said the results already pointed to serious cause for concern.

“We are used to a situation where, even with a number of votes counted, the ANC would have been hovering around 50% and above. Given the fact that we are where we are today is a cause for concern for the ANC,” he said.

The ANC leader also acknowledged the difficulties of working with the DA in the national government of unity, though he stopped short of blaming the relationship for the party’s poor electoral showing.

“As a member of parliament, I can tell you that to manage that relationship has been very complex, difficult and dynamic. The extent to which it has impacted the ANC on the ground, I may not be in a position to confirm that.

“There are too many contradictions, and some of them are deliberately created, in my own view. I suppose that is part of their strategy when they entered the GNU, that they are going to create some landmines.”

Ntuli said the ANC would have to assess whether its participation in coalitions, including the GNU, had ultimately benefited the party.

“The assessment we are going to have to make is whether these coalitions, including the GNU, have actually provided any advantage to the ANC.

“It may very well be that it provided national stability, but to what extent has that stability allowed us to make necessary changes, whether in the economy or in other areas of life, in a manner that is going to make the ANC endear itself again to the population of South Africa?”

]]>Freddy Mavunda<![CDATA[Frustration and action shift power in KZN ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-06-frustration-and-action-shift-power-in-kzn/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-06-frustration-and-action-shift-power-in-kzn/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 02:30:00 +0000KwaZulu-Natal has shifted.

In its first local government election, the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK Party) has emerged as the province’s leading party in early counting.

The ANC has fallen to second place in a province it once dominated.

By Thursday, with 30% counted, the IEC put the MK Party on 33%-34%, the ANC on 25%, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) on 22% and the DA on 10%-12%.

No council had been formally declared except Richmond, where the MK Party took 56% and 10 of 17 seats.

The final outcome of who will control eThekwini will only emerge from Friday.

In 2024 the MK Party won KwaZulu-Natal with 45.35%, while in 2021 the ANC still won eThekwini with 42%. Those baselines have moved.

The party formed by former president Jacob Zuma was celebrating on Thursday, with one candidate doing a victory lap with supporters parading a make-shift ANC coffin in Durban.

Prof Zakhele Ndlovu, independent political analyst with the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said what happened on Wednesday was not a surprise, but a reckoning.

“This election proves that the ANC has become unpopular in the province, especially in eThekwini,” he said. “In the township and peri-urban areas, people don’t have water, which is the biggest worry for many people. There are potholes. On rates, water and electricity, they are estimating. There is a lot of crime. And people are blaming the ANC for all these things.”

In the townships around Durban and Pietermaritzburg, that frustration turned into turnout.

Voters who had stayed home in 2021 queued early, many saying they wanted a council that fixed water and roads, not one that explained why it could not. That mood, more than any rally, carried the MK Party through wards it had never contested before.

KwaZulu-Natal IEC electoral officer Ntombifuthi Masinga and national strategic liaison officer Mawethu Mosery at the results operation centre in Durban.
KwaZulu-Natal IEC electoral officer Ntombifuthi Masinga and national strategic liaison officer Mawethu Mosery at the results operation centre in Durban.

While the election outcome is the responsibility of the IEC Results Centre, where every result must be audited before it is published, supporters have been posting ward lists and victory posts on social media long before the IEC has checked them.

The MK Party coordinators claimed 25 of Msunduzi’s 41 wards, a clean sweep in Impendle, 11 of 14 in uMshwathi, and in one unofficial graphic, 65% in eThekwini, all online.

MK Party provincial spokesperson Mkhuseli Mlengane said the party had performed well in eThekwini despite predictions it would struggle there. That claim had not been verified by the IEC.

Even the DA was claiming its own victories. It declared uMngeni won, and it claimed wards 16, 17, 20 and 26 in KwaDukuza, and wards 26, 30, 31, 33 and 34 in eThekwini.

Against that, what the IEC had confirmed was this: in uMngeni, the partial count put the DA on 62.5% with Chris Pappas retaining his hold, and the MK Party had conceded 11 wards there.

“Today we can confidently proclaim that we will lead the municipality with a majority of more than 60% from the 48% we attained five years ago and continue with our plans to deliver for all residents of uMngeni,” the party said.

“In the four, 100% black township wards in the municipality, the DA won every single one of them with a commanding majority. We will continue with our mission to deliver for all residents in townships, rural and suburban areas. uMngeni will continue to be a beacon of hope in KZN.”

ANC KwaZulu-Natal convenor Mike Mabuyakhulu said it was too early to draw conclusions and the party would accept the outcome. The IEC picture was giving him reason for that caution. The ANC lost wards in Msunduzi, KwaDukuza and Newcastle, and in Inkosi Langalibalele it won none of the 24 wards.

In Dundee, Freedom Front Plus MP Philip van Staden told Sunday Times his party had won a proportional representation seat in the Endumeni municipality, its first entry there since 1994.

Don’t focus on the maths; this is a political exercise

Mawethu Mosery, IEC national strategic liaison officer

“It’s the first time that we entered the elections in that municipality since 1994. We got massive support from the local people who came to vote for us. And it’s not only whites who voted for us, many black people did,” Van Staden said.

The party is contesting 25 municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal, compared with 10 to 11 previously.

Msunduzi, Pietermaritzburg, is where the ANC’s collapse may be most complete.

IEC uMgungundlovu district manager Khulekani Mdadane said Msunduzi might only be finished counting on Friday evening because of recounts demanded by parties. In Ward 35, Sobantu, historically an ANC stronghold, the MK Party was declared the winner, prompting the ANC to demand a recount.

In uMhlathuze, Richards Bay, the MK Party was leading on 45.1%, followed by the IFP on 34.5% and the ANC on 12.63%. On the later IEC board the MK Party was still ahead on around 40.2%, with only 34 of 145 voting districts in.

Newcastle is a three-way contest. With eight of its 36 wards declared, the MK Party had won five, the DA two and the ANC one. The MK Party won Ward 6 by just one vote over the IFP.

The IEC said outstanding objections in KZN could affect final municipal election results and council seat allocation, which is expected to proceed after the objections process is completed.

Summing up the process at the KZN results operation centre on Thursday IEC national strategic liaison officer Mawethu Mosery said: “Don’t focus on the maths; this is a political exercise.”

He said they had completed an almost two-hour long session with political party representatives to discuss seat allocation.

“We will wait until tomorrow. We have spent time with political parties explaining that process with them and we have a very good understanding,” Mosery said.

He said that municipal council seats are allocated in line with the country’s proportional representation electoral system, which ensures that political parties receive representation according to their share of the vote.

A party’s percentage of support in a municipality determines the number of seats it qualifies for, with both ward seats and proportional representation (PR) seats counting towards its overall entitlement.

“For example, as a party you got 10% voter support yesterday and the special vote days, therefore you qualify for 10% seats. That 10% includes both your PR seats and your ward seats.”

Mosery said the allocation process was difficult to explain without working through the actual figures.

Final results are expected on Sunday and then coalition talks will start before the final declaration.

]]>SANDILE NDLOVU<![CDATA[WATCH | The Political Arena team unpacks trends on the election results]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-06-watch-live-the-political-arena-team-unpacks-trends-on-the-election-results/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-06-watch-live-the-political-arena-team-unpacks-trends-on-the-election-results/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 07:39:15 +0000

Arena Holdings’ journalists are coming to you live from the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) results centre at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, Johannesburg, to unpack the election results as they come in and discuss what they mean for municipalities.

Sowetan

]]>MASI LOSI<![CDATA[Under-pressure Da Cruz puts on a brave face as Chiefs eye Knockout to take the heat off]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/sport/2026-11-06-under-pressure-da-cruz-puts-on-a-brave-face-as-chiefs-eye-knockout-to-take-the-heat-off/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/sport/2026-11-06-under-pressure-da-cruz-puts-on-a-brave-face-as-chiefs-eye-knockout-to-take-the-heat-off/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 02:30:00 +0000Pressure is mounting on Kaizer Chiefs coach Fernando Da Cruz after a recent run of mixed results, but on Thursday he put on a brave face ahead of their Carling Knockout Cup quarterfinal against Siwelele FC on Sunday.

Amakhosi recorded just one win from their last seven matches in all competitions and can’t afford to slip up at Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane.

Chiefs’ only win during that seven-match period came in the Carling Knockout last 32 round against TS Galaxy last week, where striker Wandile Duba scored a hat-trick.

That midweek clash preceded a 2-1 defeat to Orlando Pirates in Saturday’s Betway Premiership clash. Now not only are Chiefs wallowing in fifth place, but Soweto derby defeats are notorious for ramping up strain on under-pressure coaches.

The PSL has moved the match between Chiefs and Siwelele FC to 6pm on Sunday to accommodate the Caf Super Cup match between Mamelodi Sundowns and USM Alger of Algeria at Loftus on Saturday at 3pm.

Da Cruz knows a win over Siwelele will buy him and his technical staff time going into the Fifa International break next week. A good cup run, or even a trophy in the Carling, would really take the heat off the 53-year-old Frenchman.

“Our main target is to qualify for the semifinal stage of the Carling Knockout Cup. We respect Siwelele FC and we have prepared well for this important game,” said Da Cruz, adding Chiefs are not disadvantaged by taking the match from FNB Stadium to Polokwane.

“The game is in Polokwane and we must concentrate on winning it and qualifying for the next round. They have a new coach and they have a different structure and we must focus on how we are going to play our game.”

Siwelele coach Godfrey Mosoetsa said given the stakes, his players need no extra motivation playing the Soweto giants.

“If you look at the eight teams that are left in the competition, you wouldn’t want to play against any of them because they are very competitive. We are looking forward to this one against Chiefs, who have a lot of supporters everywhere. It is a game that our players are looking forward to.

“As a coach you don’t need to do much to motivate the players in a match like this. It would be a big thing if we proceed to the next round.”

Mosoetsa said it would also be huge on a personal note.

“I only had a couple of games with the team and the more games you get, the better you are able to give different players opportunities and seeing them at a different level.

Our main target is to qualify for the semifinal stage of the Carling Knockout Cup. We respect Siwelele FC and we have prepared well for this important game.

Fernando Da Cruz, Kaizer Chiefs coach

Da Cruz was also quizzed on new signing and attacker Elias Mokwana, who did not have a pre-season as he was without a club after the winger’s recent return from a two-year stint in North Africa and Saudi Arabia.

“He is a good and experienced player. He was with Bafana Bafana before and has a lot of quality. We know he is not fully fit, but we have the Fifa break and that will give us enough time to work with him. After the Fifa break, it will be time to integrate him.”

There will be another opportunity to sign more players in December, where he said Chiefs will be looking for experience.

“We don’t want to recruit for the sake of recruiting, we want players who will add value to the squad. We know in some positions, we have a lack of experience. We need experience to support our talented players in training and during the game.”

Da Cruz was also asked to clarify the continued absence of midfielder Nkosingiphile Ngcobo and striker Khanyisa Mayo.

“Mayo is not ready physically at this moment but he is working hard to come back. As for ‘Mshini’ [Ngcobo], he has a lot of competition in his position with Mduduzi Shabalala and Mfundo Vilakazi. He must keep his motivation because we need everyone during the season.”

On Chiefs’ glaring inconsistency, Da Cruz said committing basic errors in matches has not helped them in that regard.

“We have analysed our matches since the start of the season. Sometimes we drew matches because of our mistakes but we deserved to win those games. We deserved to win two to three games in a row at some stage because of our performances, but it was not be.”

]]>Sydney Mahlangu/BackpagePix<![CDATA[MARK KEOHANE | For Wessels and and Moerat, this is a test within a Test]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/sport/2026-11-06-mark-keohane-for-wessels-and-and-moerat-this-is-a-test-within-a-test/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/sport/2026-11-06-mark-keohane-for-wessels-and-and-moerat-this-is-a-test-within-a-test/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 02:30:00 +0000The Springboks will beat Italy in Turin in the Nations Championship on Saturday. The intrigue is not in the result but in the individual performances of starting lock Salmaan Moerat and replacement hooker Jan-Hendrik Wessels.

For both, this is a test within a Test. It is about opportunity, credibility and making a statement that goes beyond beating Italy.

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus has picked his strongest available combination, with the core of his match-23 being the players who beat the All Blacks 3-1 in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry Series.

Erasmus knows what he will get from his established World Cup winners. What he needs is confirmation that Moerat and Wessels can be trusted to deliver consistently at Test level.

Wessels, 25, has been Erasmus’s hybrid impact project for three years. He can play loosehead prop and hooker, but Erasmus believes his greatest potential is at hooker. That belief has arguably been both Wessels’s blessing and his curse.

A generational schoolboy talent at Grey College, Wessels has spent much of his professional career being celebrated for his versatility without being allowed to settle exclusively in one position.

His numbers tell the story. Seventeen Tests, just three starts and an average of 28 minutes a Test. At the Bulls, he has played 71 matches but started only 27.

He is behind Gerhard Steenekamp at loosehead and Johan Grobbelaar at hooker. It is hardly the ideal environment for a player desperately needing consistent minutes in one position.

Erasmus has invested heavily in Wessels, but investment eventually demands a return. Malcolm Marx is the world’s best hooker and among the game’s most influential players. He cannot be expected to play every meaningful minute between now and the 2027 World Cup.

Erasmus needs another hooker he can start without hesitation, or introduce after 40 minutes rather than 60.

Moerat’s challenge is different, and considerably more personal.

Wessels has the physicality, aggression and natural talent. What he needs is an extended opportunity and, more importantly, a performance that demands another. Turin could be the beginning of that transition.

Moerat’s challenge is different, and considerably more personal.

The 27-year-old has been part of Erasmus’s Springbok environment since 2022, but injuries and repeated concussions have restricted him to 12 Tests in five seasons, six starts and a handful of captaincy appearances.

He has won 10 of those 12 Tests, yet few Springboks divide public opinion quite like Moerat. Erasmus and Stormers coach John Dobson have consistently praised his leadership, physicality, work rate and willingness to do the ugly work that seldom features in highlights packages.

Moerat is an enforcer. He hits rucks, makes tackles and brings a physical presence that coaches value enormously.

He has captained South Africa at under-18 and Junior Springbok level, Western Province, the Stormers and the Springboks.Leadership has never been his weakness. But the social media condemnation of Moerat is often vicious, spiteful and disproportionate to anything he has produced on a rugby field. His selection to start against Italy, having not played a Test this season, predictably brought another avalanche of criticism.

Moerat, who made 73 appearances for the Stormers before joining La Rochelle, has at least returned to regular rugby. He made his French club debut with 40 minutes against the Lions in the Champions Cup last month and has since started successive Top 14 matches, playing 54 minutes and then the full 80.

Erasmus clearly believes Moerat is ready. The challenge is for Moerat to make the public see what Erasmus and Dobson have always seen. He doesn’t need to convince his coach. He needs to impose himself on Italy, dominate the collisions and deliver the kind of performance that makes his selection indisputable.

And if he does, he can deliver the most satisfying two-fingered salute to those keyboard warriors who have made a sport of belittling him.

]]>Steve Haag Sports/Gallo Images<![CDATA[Power generation fell 5.2% in September as consumption kept rising ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-06-power-generation-fell-52-in-september-as-consumption-kept-rising/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/business/2026-11-06-power-generation-fell-52-in-september-as-consumption-kept-rising/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 07:00:00 +0000

Story audio is generated using AI

Electricity generation decreased by 5.2% year on year in September but ticked up 0.4% from August after declines of 0.1% and 0.4%, respectively, in the previous two months, Stats SA said on Thursday.

Seasonally adjusted power production was down 0.4% in the third quarter of 2026 compared with the second quarter, the data shows.

For the year to September, generation was down 6.9% at 163,747 gigawatt-hours (GWh) compared with 175,941GWh produced in the same period last year.

Power consumption was up 1.5% year on year in September but dipped by 0.9% on a monthly basis.

Electricity inflows into the country jumped 78.4% year on year to 594GWh in September, while outflows fell 58.8% to 530GWh.

The volume of electricity delivered to the country’s nine provinces edged up 1.6% to 16,200GWh. The exceptions were the Northern Cape, where delivery was down 21.7%, and KwaZulu-Natal, where it dipped 1.3%.

Eskom produces about 86% of the country’s electricity, and independent power producers contribute about 10%-15% after the launch of the renewable energy independent power producer procurement programme in 2011.

The country also imports and exports electricity to and from neighbouring countries through the Southern African Power Pool.

At the weekend, electricity & energy minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said South Africa and Africa must expand electricity capacity and make power affordable to unlock industrialisation and benefit from growing demand for energy-intensive industries.

Ramokgopa told the Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation’s Drakensberg Inclusive Growth Forum that the region had the mineral resources and renewable energy potential needed to support manufacturing but lacked sufficient electricity infrastructure to turn those advantages into economic growth.

Africa’s energy deficit remained a major obstacle, he said, noting that about 600-million people on the continent lacked access to electricity.

Growing demand from data centres and AI presented an opportunity for South Africa to attract investment, Ramokgopa added, pointing to the country’s undersea cable connections, electricity generation potential and renewable energy resources.

South Africa plans to add 102GW of new generation capacity, with 60% expected to come from renewable sources.

The country has also embarked on a R440bn programme to build 14,000km of new high-voltage transmission lines over the next decade to connect new wind, solar, battery storage and gas generation projects to the national grid while strengthening the network to support changing electricity flows.

The Integrated Resource Plan 2025 gazetted last year seeks to accelerate the diversification of the country’s energy mix, which is still dominated by coal, by expanding renewables, gas and nuclear capacity while managing the gradual decommissioning of coal plants.

Business Day

]]>SIPHIWE SIBEKO/Reuters<![CDATA[IN MEMES | 2026 local government elections]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2026-11-06-in-memes-2026-local-government-elections/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2026-11-06-in-memes-2026-local-government-elections/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 06:59:14 +0000As election week draws to a close, many South Africans took to social media to share their thoughts about the results. Whether it was the DA’s successful campaign run or the drop in support seen with the EFF, users leaned on memes and reworked viral moments to express their reactions to the never-ending twists.

The big dwang bang

Thanks to a Newzroom Afrika interview, memes quickly took over local timelines after an unhappy resident shared her frustrations about dire water shortages. Posts also picked up on Fikile Mbalula’s response to questions about potholes being a result of climate change.

Election day mayhem

Posts persuading voters not to vote for the DA continued right up to voting day, albeit with much talk from analysts about the differences in social media soapboxes not lining up with sentiments at the ballot box.

Viral figures behind the “Zuma must go” chant also resurfaced, while many were amused by top parties failing to secure their usual majority share.

Others were mocked for “blonde moments”, including Mbalula, who posted a photo of two white boys in ANC T-shirts — previously seen in MK Party matching sets — and a voter who was admonished for not double-checking her voting station.

The blue wave

It did not take long for American-style memes and reaction videos to wash up on local shores. Especially after Garreth Cliff suggested a loss for the Democrats, and rapper Nicki Minaj’s support of Republicans would come back to bite her in her own lyrics. The creator of the Chucky character also admonished her for repeatedly using the character in her memes while holding political views that do not align with the character’s recent portrayal.

TimesLIVE

]]>MASI LOSI<![CDATA[TOM EATON | Even without the full results, some things the ANC can’t deny]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/opinion-and-analysis/2026-11-06-tom-eaton-even-without-the-full-results-some-things-the-anc-cant-deny/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/opinion-and-analysis/2026-11-06-tom-eaton-even-without-the-full-results-some-things-the-anc-cant-deny/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 02:30:00 +0000The votes are still being counted, and right now most of us are, like Fikile Mbalula, unsure of a lot things. But at the time of writing on Thursday evening, the following is slowly becoming clear …

He’s making a list, he’s checking it twice

Paul Mashatile perfected the art of invisibility some time ago, so it’s hard to tell if he’s been naughty or nice. But we do know that he’s on track to get the world’s worst Christmas present next year, when he is elected leader of a party that has just unified South Africans around their desire to flush it down the toilet.

Imagine being groomed from childhood to take over as CEO of Porsche one day, and when you finally get there, the empire consists of two Checkers shopping trolleys with wobbly front wheels and an ageing Fiks asking you to tie his shoelaces.

A river in Egypt

As one catastrophic result after another rolled in from formerly secure ANC wards, journalist Clayson Manyathela asked our national monument to belligerent dysfunction, Gwede Mantashe, if the party was to blame for its own collapse. “No,” replied Mantashe, “it is because there are more parties contesting. It’s a maturing democracy.”

I look forward to Mantashe’s forthcoming lecture tour in which he will reveal that, when people drive their cars directly into walls, nobody is really to blame except a maturing universe in which many forces like momentum and gravity interact in complex ways.

Gogo a go or a goner?

It is now almost certain that Helen Zille will be sworn in as mayor of Johannesburg, and, given the DA’s dramatic gains in that city, it is now even possible that she will still be mayor five or even six hours after she is sworn in. Her critics will say nasty and hurtful things ― and that’ll just be her coalition partners ― but whatever you think of her, science tells us that if Zille spends her first day in office face-down on the floor, gently drooling into the carpet, she will have achieved considerably more than Dada Morero ever did.

An EFF poster, with the election slogan 'Victory or Death' is displayed along the Gqeberha beachfront. File photo
An EFF poster, with the election slogan 'Victory or Death' is displayed along the Gqeberha beachfront. File photo

RIP EFF

The EFF’s campaign slogan this year was “Victory or Death” and it clearly wasn’t kidding. At the time of writing the party had managed to win a mayorship of one municipality in North West, but this success would have been overshadowed by the fact that the EFF has lost ground in every province and, more importantly, in every metro. For an urban party so heavily dependent on ebullience and vibes, this is a death sentence, and we can now expect the stream of voters abandoning the party to turn into a flood. It was fun while it lasted though.

Dune 2

ActionSA has made impressive gains but one of the biggest winners of this election so far is the Patriotic Alliance, which, at the timing of writing, had tripled its share of the vote since the 2021 local government elections and was the third-largest party in both the Western and Northern Cape.

This will be very encouraging for Gayton McKenzie, who now has a number of arid landscapes at his disposal in which he can fail to recreate Dubai.

Better red than dead

I’ve been teasing the SACP for years, calling out the venerable old commies for their reluctance to detach from the largesse and safety of the ANC. But this year they’ve made me eat my words by finally putting their money where their mouth is (or at least putting their communal, shared bundle of IOUs where their mouth is) and getting into the game.

And fair play to them: so far their best showing has been in Eastern Cape, a very tough target. After all, to seize the means of production you first need the means of production to exist, and thanks to the ANC that province’s means shrink every year.

And with that, let the coalition chaos begin.

]]>Freddy<![CDATA[ANC faces coalition scramble as grip on major cities slips]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-06-anc-faces-coalition-scramble-as-grip-on-major-cities-slips/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-06-anc-faces-coalition-scramble-as-grip-on-major-cities-slips/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 02:30:00 +0000

Story audio is generated using AI

The ANC is on course for a bruising result in the country’s major cities, and if its poor electoral performance continues it will soon have to scramble to secure coalition deals to retain a role in governing the country’s councils.

Early returns and projections from the November 4 local government elections suggest the party will fall short of a majority in every metro and finish behind the DA in most of them.

That would be a marked deterioration from 2021, when the ANC suffered heavy losses but still held outright majorities in Buffalo City and Mangaung.

Counting is at an early stage though, and the trajectory could change. But the numbers so far point to a contraction of the ANC’s footprint in local government. The fragmented political landscape will soon result in coalition talks to decide who runs the cities.

“We do not see ourselves as a party that would disappear … this gives us an opportunity to repackage,” ANC first deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane said at the IEC’s national results centre, where counting of votes is taking place.

Official results are expected to be released on Sunday.

After that, parties will have to negotiate coalitions, a process that has proved unstable in cities such as Johannesburg and Tshwane.

Business Day was told on Thursday by sources, who declined to be named, that the ANC’s top seven officials held a meeting on the way forward on Wednesday night — ahead of a planned meeting of the national coalitions task team led by its secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula.

“Early results suggest a chastening day for the ANC,” said Louw Nel, a senior political analyst at Oxford Economics. He said the party isn’t expected to win a majority in any of the eight metros, while the DA is projected to finish first in at least five.

South Africa’s major metros drive most economic activity, and losing outright control of these hubs deprives the ANC of big municipal budgets, procurement power and administrative influence.

The DA finds itself in a strong negotiating position in Gauteng.

Louw Nel, political analyst

The projected outcome makes clear that urban voters are through tolerating the ANC’s service delivery failures.

For decades, the DA was considered unable to challenge the ANC’s electoral support, largely due to deep generational loyalty to the revered liberation movement that defeated apartheid under leaders such as Nelson Mandela.

The DA’s origins, in part, in white liberal politics and the former New National Party also presented an obstacle. It struggled to break beyond minority voter bases in a country where black South Africans make up 80% of the electorate, allowing the ANC to portray it as an elite, minority-focused party.

The sharpest change is in the economic heartland of Gauteng province. In Ekurhuleni, the DA is leading with about 41% of counted votes, ahead of ActionSA on 18.1% and the ANC on 16.8%. The ANC took 38.2% there in 2021. It was also running third in Johannesburg among votes counted so far, according to partial results, having won 33.6% in the last election. In Tshwane it took 34.3% in 2021.

In Tshwane, ActionSA is currently second with almost 25%, according to Nel. Mayor Nasiphi Moya’s time in office has raised the party’s profile there. In 2021 it won 8.6% in the capital.

“The DA finds itself in a strong negotiating position in Gauteng,” Nel said, adding that ActionSA is emerging as a potential coalition partner in Tshwane. Herman Mashaba, the party’s founder and a former Johannesburg mayor, has built support in the province’s townships. That positions ActionSA as a potential kingmaker in all three Gauteng metros, Nel said, alongside an unpopular ANC.

While in Gauteng the DA is expected to emerge with the lion’s share of the vote, the ANC’s national tally is projected to register as a 10% loss of electoral support, from 40% to 30% since the 2024 general elections, due to the party’s last remaining strongholds such as Limpopo and the Eastern Cape also expected to decline.

A huge political shift is also unfolding across KwaZulu-Natal as Jacob Zuma’s MK Party is projected to redraw who governs strategic municipalities in that province.

By Thursday afternoon, MK Party was the leading party in KwaZulu-Natal with 33.2% of the vote, followed by the ANC with 24.8% and the IFP with 22.7%.

In eThekwini metro, MK Party led with 39.4%, followed by the ANC (23.5%) and the DA (23.2%). In eThekwini, MK Party surged into top place with nearly 39% of the vote, pushing the ANC and DA out of direct control.

In Msunduzi, the party secured more than 50%, sweeping the capital’s wards, and in Endumeni MK Party led the poll, relegating the ANC to fourth place.

With strong showings in key industrial hubs such as uMhlathuze and Alfred Duma, MK Party has established itself as KZN’s dominant force, triggering its entrance into high-stakes coalition talks to lead the government across the province.

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) election prediction model estimates that Cape Town will be the only metro that will be governed by the DA without requiring a coalition. The CSIR estimates that the DA is set to garner above 58% of the votes.

In Nelson Mandela Bay, the CSIR projects the DA first with 39% against 27.3% for the ANC. The two parties were virtually tied in 2021, with the DA on 39.9% and the ANC on 39.4%, so the projection implies a drop of about 12 percentage points for the ANC.

In Mangaung, the CSIR has the ANC ahead on 37.3% against 30.2% for the DA, with the EFF at 8.4%. The ANC won 50.6% there in 2021, a slim outright majority then.

In Buffalo City, the ANC is projected to lead with 39.9%, more than double the DA’s 18.2%. That is still a steep fall from the 59.3% it won in 2021, its best metro result. The United Democratic Movement (UDM) is projected third on 9.9%, ahead of the EFF on 7.2% and the South African Communist Party (SACP) on 5.1%.

“Voters are moving away from the ANC in large numbers … and we cannot ignore the regional dynamics of the votes,” said political analyst Tasneem Essop.

Business Day

]]>SANDILE NDLOVU<![CDATA[EDITORIAL | Failure to find strategic partner for SAA is draining the fiscus]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/opinion-and-analysis/opinion/2026-11-06-editorial-failure-to-find-strategic-partner-for-saa-is-draining-the-fiscus/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/opinion-and-analysis/opinion/2026-11-06-editorial-failure-to-find-strategic-partner-for-saa-is-draining-the-fiscus/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 02:30:00 +0000

Story audio is generated using AI

The dismissal of former South African Airways (SAA) acting CEO Matshela Seshibe from his substantive role as head of Air Chefs marks another critical milestone in the national carrier’s ongoing struggle for governance and accountability.

The Air Chefs board terminated Seshibe following the recommendations of retired judge Basheer Waglay after a detailed disciplinary inquiry into serious governance failures and unbudgeted salary adjustments. Yet, while establishing consequences for executive misconduct is a welcome step towards running a clean ship, focusing solely on individual accountability risks obscuring the deeper, systemic crises that continue to haunt South Africa’s flagship carrier.

To fully understand the airline’s precarious position today, one must trace its long history of turbulence. For decades before business rescue, SAA operated under severe structural deficiencies, chronic governance lapses and heavy political interference.

High operating overheads, erratic leadership turnarounds and costly strategic blunders meant that by late 2019, SAA, unable to service its mounting liabilities or operate as a going concern, was officially forced into business rescue to prevent total liquidation.

The legal restructuring process came at an immense cost to the South African public. Clearing the airline’s legacy debt and completing the business rescue process consumed a staggering R38bn in taxpayer funds.

Over R169m alone was paid out to external consulting firms and business rescue practitioners within the first five months of the process.

When SAA finally emerged from business rescue in September 2021, it was envisioned as a debt-free, right-sized carrier equipped with R2.5bn in fresh working capital. Crucially, at the time, the government recognised that it had no skills and expertise to operate an airline, and promised it would find a strategic partner who would inject cash and much-needed aviation expertise.

In fact every state cent spent on business rescue was prised from the fiscus under the guise that SAA 2.0 would be operated with a strategic equity partner, who would acquire and hold a 51% share of the company.

This talk of a partner has been a pipe dream for the last five years, as two groups of the airline’s state-appointed boards of directors — one appointed in August 2021 and another appointed last September — have presided over the effective squandering of goodwill, the R2.5bn it started off with, as well as the shattering of any hope of self-sustainability.

Despite claiming a controversial R155m profit for the 2024/25 financial year, subsequent oversight revealed that operating costs far outstripped actual revenue, with net gains heavily inflated by one-off asset disposals and a R1bn fictitious government share buyout.

The Auditor-General subsequently issued a disclaimed audit opinion over accounting discrepancies and severe internal control failures. Operating losses continue to mount, leading to cash shortages so severe that the airline has had to stagger employee salary payments.

Compounding these financial woes is continuous instability in key leadership roles. SAA has experienced perpetual senior staff turnover, including the unexpected resignation of group former chair turned CEO John Lamola, the early retirement of acting CFO Lindsay Olitzki, and multiple executive suspensions.

Some of these ongoing struggles highlight the harsh economic realities of operating state-owned airlines in the modern global aviation context. Commercial aviation is an unforgiving industry defined by razor-thin margins, volatile jet fuel prices, intense international competition and immense capital requirements.

While a national carrier can generate broader economic benefits such as retaining foreign currency, expanding regional trade routes and fostering high-skilled technical sectors, these benefits are easily wiped out by political meddling and operational inefficiencies. Without a hands-off, purely commercial governance structure, public airlines remain structurally ill-equipped to compete against nimble private rivals.

Enforcing accountability at subsidiaries like Air Chefs is a necessary starting point, but true recovery requires commitment to commercial discipline, skilled leadership and an end to shareholder interference. Without these structural shifts, SAA will remain a permanent drain on public coffers.

If SAA is ever to break out of this cycle of bailouts and administrative turbulence, the government must stop paying lip service to finding a strategic partner and actually do it. The important national carrier can simply no longer be left in the hands of the state.

]]>EUGENE COETZEE<![CDATA[Jacob Zuma denies secret pact to block apartheid-era TRC prosecutions]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-06-jacob-zuma-denies-secret-pact-to-block-apartheid-era-trc-prosecutions/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-06-jacob-zuma-denies-secret-pact-to-block-apartheid-era-trc-prosecutions/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 02:30:00 +0000

Story audio is generated using AI

When former head of state Jacob Zuma returned to South Africa in 1990, he was part of an ANC delegation that negotiated with the apartheid regime for a democratic state, but says the talks did not include agreements to suppress investigations or prosecutions of apartheid-era atrocities.

Zuma, like his predecessor former president Thabo Mbeki, in an affidavit before the commission investigating allegations regarding efforts made to stop the investigation or prosecution of Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) cases, denies he was part of “secret talks” with apartheid-era generals for them not to face prosecution for apartheid-era crimes.

“I reject any suggestion that I concluded, authorised or implemented a secret or unlawful agreement to prevent and/or stop any investigation or prosecution of offences arising from the conflicts of the past,” Zuma’s affidavit reads.

Zuma filed the affidavit to the commission, chaired by retired justice Sisi Khampepe, shortly before it was reported that he was unwell, leading to a delay of his appearance before the commission. The MK Party leader has since made public appearances in the days leading up to this week’s local government elections.

The commission has publicly stated that “at the right time former president Zuma will give his evidence before the commission.”

Zuma had initially legally challenged Khampepe’s chairing of the commission but failed in his bid before the Constitutional Court in August.

In the affidavit, Zuma accepts that there were talks by ANC leaders in the years before the 1994 elections with the apartheid regime leaders, but denies those talks included agreements on how former defence force and police generals could avoid facing prosecution for apartheid-era crimes.

“It is common ground that during the period addressed in the allegations, I held senior positions in the African National Congress. I became deputy president of the ANC in December 1997 and deputy president of the republic in June 1999.

“Before that, I had participated in negotiations concerning South Africa’s transition to democracy. I confirm Dr Penuell Maduna’s evidence that he and I returned to South Africa in March 1990 as an advance team, to prepare for negotiations with the apartheid regime. This relates to that historical role. However, that unique role does not establish any later agreement to suppress TRC investigations or prosecutions.”

Both Zuma and Mbeki before the commission face allegations that between 1998 and 2003 they were part of a series of secret meetings with former South African Defence Force (SADF) generals and police generals aimed at finding a mechanism to avoid prosecutions arising from the conflicts of the past.

Mbeki has denied the allegations.

“I deny that I participated in an unlawful pact to protect members of the ANC, the former security forces or any other person from lawful investigation or prosecution. I deny directing or authorising the obstruction of any identified TRC-related cases,” Zuma says.

He contends the allegations against him are based on hearsay evidence.

“The fact that evidence is hearsay does not, by itself, dispose of its admissibility or weight in this inquiry, more particularly when weighed against my evidence herein.

“I accordingly request that the commission refrain from making any adverse finding concerning me unless and until the primary evidence is disclosed and I have been given a fair opportunity to answer and test it.”

During his presidency from 2009 to 2018, Zuma appointed Adv Menzi Simelane as head of the NPA. The decision was later overturned by the Constitutional Court in 2012.

I deny that I made either appointment to protect any person from investigation or prosecution. The fact that an appointment was later found to be invalid does not prove that I intended to stop TRC prosecutions

Former president Jacob Zuma

Zuma contends his appointment of Simelane was not aimed at stalling TRC cases prosecutions.

“I accept that I made the appointment. I deny that I appointed Adv Simelane to delay, stop or control any TRC investigation or prosecution. I also deny that I ever instructed or allowed him to remove Adv Anton Ackermann, move Chris Macadam or withhold investigators from any TRC matters.

“I deny that I made either appointment to protect any person from investigation or prosecution. The fact that an appointment was later found to be invalid does not prove that I intended to stop TRC prosecutions.”

The TRC was set up by the government of national unity to help deal with events under apartheid as a platform for perpetrators of human rights violations to testify about crimes and murders committed during apartheid. The cases were referred to the NPA, but more than two decades after the TRC finalised its work, the NPA has prosecuted just a few cases of apartheid-era crimes.

Business Day

]]>SANDILE NDLOVU<![CDATA[Cyber victims get a lifeline as free helpline launches in SA]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/news/2026-11-06-cyber-victims-get-a-lifeline-as-free-helpline-launches-in-sa/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/news/2026-11-06-cyber-victims-get-a-lifeline-as-free-helpline-launches-in-sa/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 02:30:00 +0000

Story audio is generated using AI

For South Africans scammed out of their savings or blackmailed through their phones, the next move — knowing where to turn — can be the hardest.

A free, confidential service launched in South Africa this month, aims to help. UK charity The Cyber Helpline has started a 12-month South African pilot to guide victims of online fraud, hacking, harassment and other cyber threats.

The project grew from a conversation cybersecurity entrepreneur and cyberpsychology expert Anna Collard had with her husband two years ago about financial sextortion targeting children and teenagers. Criminals were reaching young people through phones and social media, coercing them into sharing explicit material, then using it to blackmail them.

SVP content strategist Anna Collard.
SVP content strategist Anna Collard.

“That conversation was the start of this project. And the more I looked, the clearer it became that the need does not stop with children. Everyone affected by a cyber incident deserves the same reassurance and someone to turn to, whatever their age.”

Collard and her team began collecting South African cases last December. They found that 74% of those victims had not reported their experiences to police.

“The data doesn’t tell us why, but it suggests the helpline is reaching people whose experiences are invisible to the authorities,” she said.

“Imagine losing your savings to a SIM-swap scam and not knowing who to call. Or being harassed online by someone who won’t stop and feeling too embarrassed to tell anyone. For many South Africans, that is where the story ends,” Collard said.

The pilot is housed by Collard’s MiDO Academy, in partnership with The Cyber Helpline UK and sponsored by Amazon Web Services. It draws on a volunteer-led model operating in the UK and US.

According to Collard, more than 2-million people have accessed the charity’s guidance since 2018, with over 100,000 receiving direct support.

“What its casework shows, and what we have built into the new, tailored South African playbooks is that victims suffer far more than financial loss. Shame, anxiety, depression and lasting distress are common, and recovery works best when support addresses both the technical and the emotional impact of an incident,” Collard said.

Early South African findings identified investment scams as the most common named attack, followed by online shopping and auction fraud. Harassment and sextortion cases were also emerging. The largest age groups targeted were 25 to 39 and 40 to 65.

“As a researcher, I’m interested in why people don’t report (shame, lack of trust in the institutions, not knowing where to turn?) and this sits at the heart of my work on human susceptibility to online manipulation. Every case logged sharpens the picture, shapes how we train responders and helps us reach the people who need support most.”

Users begin at the cyberhelpline.com, where a 24-hour chatbot asks a few anonymous questions and offers step-by-step guidance on securing accounts and devices, preserving evidence and knowing where to report. Cases needing more support go to a trained local responder, who follows up through the platform.

The helpline does not recover money or investigate crimes. It helps victims understand what happened, protect themselves from further harm and find the appropriate bank, police or specialist service.

]]>Supplied<![CDATA[W Cape teacher loses dismissal challenge over absenteeism and insubordination]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/news/2026-11-06-w-cape-teacher-loses-dismissal-challenge-over-absenteeism-and-insubordination/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/news/2026-11-06-w-cape-teacher-loses-dismissal-challenge-over-absenteeism-and-insubordination/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 02:30:00 +0000An arbitration award handed down this week by an Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) panellist has upheld the dismissal of a teacher at a Western Cape school who had prolonged absences from duty after an assault by a pupil.

The award on Tuesday addressed a complex intersection of workplace trauma, chronic absenteeism and institutional safety obligations within the Western Cape Education Department (WCED).

The educator referred her dismissal to the ELRC for the arbitrator to decide whether it was substantively and procedurally fair and thereafter determine the appropriate remedy.

The former teacher also sought retrospective reinstatement, alternatively substitution of her dismissal with a lesser sanction.

The former teacher, who was permanently employed by the WECD since October 2024, was dismissed on May 21 this year after being found guilty of misconduct and insubordination.

She had faced a similar charge a few months earlier and received a final written warning for insubordination.

She was absent from October to December 2025 and 66 days in 2026.

In January this year, she was charged for misconduct and her pattern of absenteeism.

She argued that the department should have followed an incapacity process because her absences were linked to the psychological effects of an attack in 2024.

According to the award, she testified that a pupil pushed her against a classroom door and grabbed her. The pupil was removed from the school and never returned, but she said she continued to feel unsafe there.

The teacher testified that she had not received a written safety assurance or participated in a safety meeting that resolved her concerns.

She maintained that she would have been willing to return if appropriate safety measures had been implemented. She argued that the employer should have pursued an incapacity processes, not a sanction.

However, the school principal and circuit manager testified that the school was safety compliant. Management also argued that despite offering health and wellness referrals and counseling options, the teacher repeatedly refused cooperation, failed to follow proper notification protocols for absences and outright defied direct instructions from district leadership to return to work.

Arbitrator Gert van der Berg concluded that despite the traumatic context raised by the teacher, her defiance of direct return-to-work instructions, rejection of cost-free wellness support and breach of an active final written warning rendered the employment relationship irretrievably broken.

“In analysing the evidence presented before me, I find on a balance of probability that the witnesses of the (WECD) were reliable and credible when they testified.

“Their evidence convinces the commissioner that the applicant was aware of the rules, policy and consequences of continued absenteeism and disobeying of a lawful instruction to return to work on 6 November 2025,” the arbitrator said.

]]>123RF<![CDATA[BLAST FROM THE PAST | Zulu shines with bat and ball as Proteas beat Sri Lanka]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/sport/2026-11-06-blast-from-the-past-zulu-shines-with-bat-and-ball-as-proteas-beat-sri-lanka/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/sport/2026-11-06-blast-from-the-past-zulu-shines-with-bat-and-ball-as-proteas-beat-sri-lanka/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 02:25:00 +00001998 — David Frost wins his second tournament in the US, scoring a final-round five-under-par 67 to take the Tucson Open by five strokes. He carded a 22-under 266.

1993 — The Springboks take on Argentina for the first time, but they are forced to hold on in Buenos Aires for their 29-26 victory. Winger James Small scored two of South Africa’s four tries in the first half as the visitors built up a 29-10 lead, but they were unable to add another point in the second half.

1996 — The Proteas, having gone unbeaten in the round robin phase of the three-nations tournament also including Australia, lose the final against India in Mumbai by 35 runs. Chasing 221 to win, South Africa were bowled out for 185, with Pat Symcox top-scoring with 46.

1997 — Lance Klusener scores 54 runs from 41 balls and then takes 6/49 as the Proteas, on 311/9, beat Sri Lanka by 66 runs in a four-nations tournament ODI in Lahore. Gary Kirsten and Hansie Cronje made 50 each.

2001 — Shaun Pollock finishes with 6/56 — and a match haul of 10/147 — as the Proteas bowl out India for 237 in the first Test in Bloemfontein. Gary Kirsten top-scored with an unbeaten 30 to help the Proteas win by nine wickets.

2004 — The Springboks score four tries as they edge Wales 38-36 in the opening match of their end-of-year tour. Substitute Jean de Villiers, fullback Percy Montgomery, flyhalf Jaco van der Westhuyzen and eighthman Joe van Niekerk dotted down for South Africa.

2005 — Captain Graeme Smith hits 66 off 65 balls as the Proteas chase down a revised target of 140 from 30 overs to beat New Zealand in the fifth and final ODI at Centurion to win the series 4-0.

2010 — Flyhalf Pat Lambie makes his international debut against Ireland at Lansdowne Road in Dublin, helping the Springboks to a narrow 23-21 win. He came on as a substitute and minutes later delivered a crucial pass that led to a try by Gio Aplon. Lambie added the conversion to give South Africa a 23-9 lead. The Irish hit back with two late tries, but only one was converted.

2010 — James Cunnama wins his first full Ironman triathlon, crossing the line first in the Florida event at Panama Beach in 8hr 15min 59sec. He was 13th after completing the 3.8km swim in 51min 45sec and 11th after finishing the 180km cycle in 4:35:55. But his 2:43:09 run over the standard marathon distance was more than three minutes quicker than the next fastest competitor and he won by nearly three-and-a-half minutes ahead of Portugal’s Pedro Gomes.

2013 — JP Duminy scores 64 and Faf du Plessis 55 as the Proteas beat Pakistan by 68 runs in the third ODI in Abu Dhabi for a 2-1 lead in the five-match series. Imran Tahir took four wickets as South Africa bowled out the home side for 191.

2021 — Rassie van der Dussen scores an unbeaten 94 from 60 balls and Aiden Markram 52 not out off 25 as the Proteas, on 189/2, beat England by 10 runs in a T20 World Cup match in Sharjah. Kagiso Rabada took 3/48, featuring a final-over hat-trick of Chris Woakes (7), Eoin Morgan (17) and Chris Jordan (0).

2022 — South Africa stun hosts New Zealand 38-37 and then beat Uganda 27-22 in their final round robin matches at the Fast5 Netball World Series in Christchurch to advance to the evening final, where they went down to Australia 34-20 to finish as runners-up. In the group games on the previous day, South Africa beat England 32-26 and Jamaica 28-27, but went down 19-25 in their only round robin defeat to Australia. South Africa’s previous best finish in the six-team tournament was a bronze medal in 2012.

2022 — Rilee Rossouw’s 25 is the highest score as the Proteas are limited to 145/8 to lose their T20 World Cup group 2 match against the Netherlands in Adelaide by 13 runs, eliminating them from the tournament.

2025 — Quinton de Kock hits an unbeaten 123 off 119 balls to help the Proteas reach the 270-run target for an eight-wicket win over Pakistan in the second ODI in Faisalabad to level the three-match series at 1-1. Tony de Zorzi contributed 76 and Nandre Burger took 4/46, including Pakistan’s first three wickets for 22 runs.

]]>ICC/Archive<![CDATA[Northern Cape leads election results capture as IEC says more than 60% processed ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-05-northern-cape-leads-election-results-capture-as-iec-says-more-than-60-processed/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-05-northern-cape-leads-election-results-capture-as-iec-says-more-than-60-processed/Thu, 05 Nov 2026 17:37:13 +0000

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The Northern Cape is leading the capturing of results in the 2026 local government elections with 87% of results captured as the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) continues its counting, verification and auditing processes countrywide.

IEC chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo said the commission was pleased with the steady progress being made with more than 60% of the 66,073 results captured by 5pm.

Providing a provincial breakdown on vote counting, verification and results, Mamabolo said the Western Cape was in second place with 69% followed by the Eastern Cape at 60% and the Free State at 64%.

Mpumalanga had captured 52% of its results while KwaZulu-Natal stood at 37%.

The North West and Gauteng were both at 35% while Limpopo was trailing at 23%.

“The electoral commission is pleased to report that the capturing and verification of election results are progressing steadily across the country,” he said.

Mamabolo said the commission salutes the thousands of men and women who are pulling out all the stops to ensure the finalisation of the capturing and auditing of results.

By 5pm more than 60% of the 66,073 results had been captured.

“The commission further reports that about 40,202 results slips have been scanned while 32,238 have undergone independent auditing as part of the verification and quality assurance processes,” he said.

Mamabolo said the measures were intended to ensure the accuracy, transparency and integrity of the results before they were finalised.

At municipal level, 65 of the country’s 213 municipalities, representing 31%, had completed the capturing, scanning and auditing processes.

The Northern Cape was leading in municipal completion with 21 of its 26 municipalities completed, representing 81%.

The Western Cape followed with 14 of 25 municipalities completed (56%) while the Free State had completed seven of its 19 municipalities (37%).

In the Eastern Cape, nine of the 33 municipalities had completed the process (27%), compared with five of 17 in Mpumalanga (29%).

KwaZulu-Natal had completed six of its 44 municipalities (14%), the North West two of 18 (11%) and Limpopo one of 22 (5%).

Gauteng was the only province yet to complete the process in any municipality with none of its nine municipalities having reached completion at the time of the briefing.

Mamabolo cautioned that the figures remained provisional until objections material to an election had been finalised.

“The commission remains committed to finalising the results as expeditiously as possible while ensuring that all prescribed verification and quality assurance processes are rigorously followed to safeguard the accuracy, transparency and integrity of the results.

“It is anticipated that the results collation process will be concluded by the weekend. The commission therefore urges political parties, independent candidates, the media and members of the public to exercise caution when interpreting partial results and to rely on officially verified results published by the commission,” he said.

TimesLIVE

]]>Freddy<![CDATA[ANALYSIS | Democrats swept midterms as millions watched on livestreams with influencers]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/news/2026-11-05-analysis-democrats-swept-midterms-as-millions-watched-on-livestreams-with-influencers/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/news/2026-11-05-analysis-democrats-swept-midterms-as-millions-watched-on-livestreams-with-influencers/Thu, 05 Nov 2026 19:04:02 +0000

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By Jaspreet Singh, Harshita Mary Varghese and Aditya Soni

The Democratic midterm sweep cemented a new front in the battle for media audiences: livestreaming, where left-leaning creators such as Hasan Piker are attracting viewers large enough to challenge established news outlets for attention.

Television networks have long dominated live election coverage, but as audiences increasingly turn to online creators to make sense of major news developments, media companies are trying to turn their broadcast talent into digital personalities.

That was on display Tuesday night when Comcast-owned NBC News launched the “Kornacki Cam”, a nearly 11-hour livestream featuring data guru Steve Kornacki. Blending detailed analysis of incoming results with behind-the-scenes footage, it drew 29-million views across platforms and peaked at more than 300,000 concurrent viewers for nearly three hours.

But some of the fiercest competition came from independent livestreamers, whose role in political coverage has grown over the past year. Chief among them was Piker, a self-described Marxist who has divided Democrats with remarks such as “America deserved 9/11.”

Abdul El-Sayed asked Piker to tone down his rhetoric after the streamer said Jews who supported Israel should be concerned for their safety, CNN reported. El-Sayed won Michigan’s Senate contest on Tuesday and is set to become the first Muslim senator.

The 35-year-old Piker drew a peak of 241,783 concurrent viewers to his election-night stream on Twitch, according to analytics platform Streams Charts. The stream drew 1.75-million hours of viewing, making it the second-most-watched individual broadcast after NBC News’ “Kornacki Cam.”

That was nearly three times the viewing of ABC News’ YouTube coverage and five times that of CBS News. Traditional television still commanded much larger broadcast audiences, however, with NBC averaging 6.8-million primetime viewers, ABC 5.1-million and Fox News about 4-million, according to Nielsen data.

“It’s hard to pick a singular label like 2024’s ‘podcast election’. But if there was one channel that really gained steam this election cycle, it was livestreaming,” said Jasmine Enberg, co-founder at creator economy-focused media startup Scalable.

In 2024, influencers helped reshape campaign media strategies as Donald Trump won a second presidential term, demonstrating how candidates could increasingly use digital personalities to reach voters beyond traditional broadcast audiences.

In the midterms, Democrats were outspent by Republicans on traditional advertising, but candidates including El-Sayed and James Talarico used digital videos to build audiences organically.

Election-related livestreams drew 10.27-million hours of viewing — equivalent to more than 1,170 years of continuous watching — across more than 2,500 channels in the 30 days leading up to the November 3 vote, according to Streams Charts.

Viewership was 4.5 times higher than ahead of the 2022 midterms, with Piker accounting for nearly 45% of total watch time. Right-wing podcaster Candace Owens drew a peak audience of 70,000 concurrent viewers, the data showed.

Piker’s growing political clout

Beyond El-Sayed, Piker campaigned with Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar and backed progressive challengers including New York’s Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, who won congressional seats on Tuesday.

His growing clout also drew Republican attacks, with Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers using Piker’s 9/11 remarks against El-Sayed. California congressman Ro Khanna also appeared on Piker’s election-night stream, underscoring the streamer’s appeal to Democratic politicians seeking younger audiences.

That demographic is increasingly important. Some 38% of Americans aged 18 to 29 regularly get news from social media influencers, compared with 8% of those 65 and older, according to a 2025 Pew Research Center survey.

Still, experts are divided over whether political livestreamers can match the influence of podcasters such as Joe Rogan, who draw millions of viewers and listeners per episode, including many who might not otherwise engage with politics.

“It does seem clear that a lot of these streamers have become influential enough to become boogeymen for their opponents,” said Max Willens, principal analyst at Emarketer.

“If you wanted to put a finer point on it and ask me, is Hasan maybe one of the leading voices and most influential public figures for the far left in the political system, that’s probably true. But to say that he is in that kind of role for the capital-D Democratic Party, that’s a bridge too far.”

Reuters

]]>Jonathan Ernst<![CDATA[Mokonyane says ANC would be ‘worse off’ if local polls were in 2024]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-05-mokonyane-says-anc-would-be-worse-off-if-local-polls-were-in-2024/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-05-mokonyane-says-anc-would-be-worse-off-if-local-polls-were-in-2024/Thu, 05 Nov 2026 17:22:48 +0000

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The ANC says the election results so far show an improvement compared to 2024.

The party’s first deputy secretary general Nomvula Mokonyane said the ANC would have been in a worse position had these local polls taken place in 2024.

This is despite signs that the ANC’s national support is likely to drop from the 40.18% it received in 2024 to around 32% in these elections.

At around 50% of the total votes counted on Thursday, the ANC was at 32.01%, the DA 26.32% and the MK Party in third place at 7.54%.

In Gauteng’s highly contested municipalities, the DA was leading in eight of the nine with the ANC leading in only one.

“If you look at 2024 and 2026, had we had local government elections in 2024, we would be in a worse-off situation compared to where we are now,” said Mokonyane.

“The ANC is as yet to be condemned. What you see now compared to 2024 is totally different. In Soweto for example, where MKP would have won four wards where we were in a local government, the ANC has come back, and we have wiped out MK.”

According to Mokonyane the ANC campaign was run well and different from other political parties, as theirs was centred around going directly to the homes of potential voters.

“The good thing about the campaign was that we invested more on going to individual voters and talking to the voters,” she said.

However, Mokonyane said there are lessons that the ANC will have to learn going forward that have affected the party’s prospects in these elections.

Mokonyane identified its regional and provincial elective conferences as having been a distraction when the party should have focused on the local government elections.

The Eastern Cape provincial conference was disastrous for the party as the fight between current chair Oscar Mabuyane and secretary Lulama Ngcukaitobi reached boiling point, leading to the conference being interdicted by the court and the provincial task team being nullified.

“Of course the delay in the list process also affected the timeframes of canvassing and going out to the voters which is something that we will reflect on including the conferences that went on and coincided with our election process. These are lessons to be learnt,” said Mokonyane.

She said the ANC will go into coalition talks, which will start in earnest, especially in KwaZulu-Natal which the MK Party seems well on its way to winning.

“You will remember the ANC has a history of working together with other parties. In KwaZulu-Natal we did that with three MECs in the past, we have worked well and we were able to win KwaZulu-Natal in that regard,” said Mokonyane.

“We are now working in KwaZulu-Natal on the basis of coalitions and arrangements. And of course it is premature for us to start talking because the ANC is open to talk and work with everyone as long as we ensure there’s stability, as long as we ensure that those six pillars that are contained in our manifesto are also reflected on what that political party or individual [stand for] because we are going to have independents.”

TimesLIVE

]]>MASI LOSI<![CDATA[DA takes majority control of at least four councils in Western Cape, 13 hung still and counting ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-05-da-takes-majority-control-of-at-least-four-councils-in-western-cape-13-hung-still-and-counting/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-05-da-takes-majority-control-of-at-least-four-councils-in-western-cape-13-hung-still-and-counting/Thu, 05 Nov 2026 17:01:48 +0000

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The DA has secured majority control of at least four out of 24 local municipalities in the Western Cape after the counting and declaration of votes was concluded in at least 17 local councils across the province by 6pm on Thursday.

Western Cape IEC Chief Micheal Hendrickse said that at that time, there were at least 13 hung councils in the province, which means they would have to be governed by coalition arrangements.

“There are 17 councils that have been completed, of which four are outright majorities. So there is 13 so far across the province.”

This has put the DA in a position to govern Bergrivier, Swartland, Cederberg and Drakenstein without the support of any other party.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has captured and audited 65% of the 4,040 result slips in the Western Cape, with the City of Cape Town expected to be the last municipality to be finalised because of the volume of votes.

Hendrickse said counting had been completed at voting stations across the province, with the process now moving to the capturing and auditing of results.

“In ward 91 in Khayelitsha, we had to send a team because it was taking too long for us to get the results. A team had to go there and check what was happening. But for the rest, all the counting has been completed. We are now at the stage of capturing, auditing and scanning,” he said.

Several municipalities have completed their counting processes, with the results showing a mix of outright party leads and councils where no party has secured a majority.

In Prince Albert, the Patriotic Alliance (PA) secured five seats, the DA four and the ANC one.

In the Langebaan area, ActionSA secured three seats, matching the DA’s three, while the ANC won two seats. The People’s Movement for Change (PMC) and PA secured one seat each.

In Oudtshoorn, the DA secured 10 seats, the ANC five, the PA three and the Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) three.

In Kannaland, ICOSA secured three seats, matching the DA’s three, while the Karoo Independent Party and ANC secured one seat each.

In Swellendam, the DA and ANC each secured four seats.

In Knysna, the DA secured nine seats, the ANC four, the PA two, while the SACP, PMC and EFF each secured one seat.

Hendrickse said results from Saldanha Bay on the West Coast showed that no party had secured an outright majority, despite the DA and PA emerging as the largest parties in their respective municipalities.

He said the City of Cape Town was expected to be the last municipality to be finalised because of the high volume of results that still needed to be captured and audited.

But the DA earlier declared that it was on course to win Cape Town with an outright majority, based on its analysis and projections after the declaration of results at midday.

Hendrickse emphasised that all counting had taken place at voting stations, with results determined through duplicate results slips signed by party agents.

“One copy is left behind, and the other is brought together with our other security material to our local offices, where they are then verified first,” he said.

TimesLIVE

]]>Yoliswa Sobuwa<![CDATA[WATCH | The Political Arena team breaks down the LGE results as they trickle in ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-05-watch-live-the-political-arena-team-breaks-down-the-lge-results-as-they-trickle-in/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-05-watch-live-the-political-arena-team-breaks-down-the-lge-results-as-they-trickle-in/Thu, 05 Nov 2026 15:23:54 +0000

Arena Holdings’ senior politics reporters are coming to you live from the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) results centre at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, Gauteng, to unpack the early election results and what they mean for municipalities.

TimesLIVE

]]>Thapelo Morebudi<![CDATA[EXPLAINER | Unrest grows as France debates minimum wage hike]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/news/2026-11-05-explainer-unrest-grows-as-france-debates-minimum-wage-hike/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/news/2026-11-05-explainer-unrest-grows-as-france-debates-minimum-wage-hike/Thu, 05 Nov 2026 14:03:54 +0000

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Paris ― France faced its latest nationwide protests on Thursday after weeks of unrest over the cost of living and public services, with trade unions and student groups mobilising demonstrators across the country.

The movement began in late September with protests by students over underfunded schools but has broadened into a wider challenge to the government, triggering some of the worst street violence and looting that France has experienced in years.

Here is the latest on the situation in France.

The government’s response

The government has mobilised 70,000 police and other security officers to ensure that the 220 demonstrations planned on Thursday pass peacefully.

It hopes to avoid a repeat of nationwide demonstrations on October 17 that caught security forces off guard and spiralled into a wave of clashes and looting.

The government has indicated it is considering an increase in the minimum wage, which has stood at €1,478 net per month since June, when it was increased by €35 to reflect higher inflation.

France’s biggest union, the CFDT, is calling for an increase of at least €100 net per month.

The government has so far resisted broad measures to address protesters’ anger over the cost of living as it struggles to keep the budget deficit under control.

For students, it has pledged to send about 3,000 teachers, who are fully qualified but have not yet started work, to fill staffing gaps. It has also promised smaller class numbers, further increases in staff numbers next year and €4bn in loans for school renovations.

Grassroots protest movement

A grassroots protest movement backed by some unions is set to hold a new round of demonstrations on Saturday as it has done weekly since the October 17 protest.

Some unions and housing rights associations have called for pan-European protests on November 20-22.

The unrest has dealt a blow to household confidence, which fell in October to its lowest level since June 2013, according to the statistics office’s monthly consumer survey.

The turmoil, which has also dented business confidence, complicates an ongoing fiscal crisis and adds to pressure from higher energy prices resulting from the Iran war.

The minority government is struggling to pass spending cuts in France’s deeply divided parliament as part of its 2027 budget and is at risk of being toppled by opposition parties if a compromise cannot be found with at least some of them.

The unrest has added to investors’ concerns over France’s fiscal outlook, weighing on stocks, increasing pressure on government debt and pushing the yield on the 10-year benchmark bond to 5.14% last month, its highest since 2002.

Will the unrest spread?

France’s protests are not unique in Europe, though they have been among the biggest in a wave of Gen Z-led demonstrations seen across the continent this year.

Hooded rioters looted stores in Frankfurt late last Saturday after tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Germany’s biggest cities to demand better education and lower living costs.

Clashes erupted in Italy last month between police and protesters during demonstrations over poor public services and the rising cost of living, while Spain and Portugal have faced protests over housing.

Presidential election

President Emmanuel Macron will step down at next year’s election after a decade in power. Polls indicate the unrest is benefiting far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, who is already the frontrunner in polls to replace him and has long talked tough on law and order.

Hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon has also seen a poll bump even though he has faced criticism from the government for backing the protesters’ demands, criticising the authorities’ handling of the crisis and not clearly condemning the violence. He said Macron should yield to the protesters or leave office.

Macron’s former prime minister Edouard Philippe, now a centre-right presidential candidate, is trailing both Le Pen and Melenchon, which means he may not make it into the May 2 runoff if he does not regain momentum.

Reuters

]]>Denis Balibouse<![CDATA[SPOTLIGHT | Betrayal, epic battles, African stories and US jazz maestro returns ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2026-11-05-spotlight-betrayal-epic-battles-african-stories-and-us-jazz-maestro-returns/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2026-11-05-spotlight-betrayal-epic-battles-african-stories-and-us-jazz-maestro-returns/Thu, 05 Nov 2026 12:13:28 +0000Spotlight is our bite-size entertainment snapshot featuring new releases in South Africa, exclusive film trailers and more. New episodes come out every Thursday on Sunday Times Lifestyle, Sowetan Entertainment and YouTube, plus you can follow Spotlight on Facebook.

WATCH ALL EPISODES

Click here to find previous episodes of Spotlight with all the movie news you need, and follow the show on Facebook for all the latest news and giveaways.

This week Spotlight brings you drama, legendary battles and big moves in the entertainment industry. We head to Easter Island for a dark comedy thriller, explore an epic tale of good vs evil, and catch up with international saxophonist B Thompson ahead of his South African tour.

Trust no-one and question everything in Wild Horse Nine. Two CIA agents are sent on a secret mission to the remote Easter Island, but their assignment soon spirals into a dangerous web of secrets, political intrigue and betrayal. From Oscar-winning director Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin, In Bruges), the film stars John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi and Mariana di Girolamo. Wild Horse Nine is in cinemas.

A legendary battle between good and evil unfolds in the epic fantasy Ramayana: Rise of a Legend. Prince Rama and the immortal King Ravana are on a collision course that could threaten the balance of creation. Directed by Nitesh Tiwari, the film stars Ranbir Kapoor, Yash and Sai Pallavi, with a score by Oscar-winning composers Hans Zimmer and AR Rahman. Ramayana: Rise of a Legend is now at cinemas.

African entertainment continues to make its mark. FAME Week Africa 2026 brought together filmmakers, musicians, content creators and international industry leaders under the theme “Africa. Untold. Unstoppable”. France took centre stage as the destination country, while MIP Africa opened doors for partnerships and opportunities to take African stories to global audiences. MultiChoice confirmed Die Kantoor, South Africa’s adaptation of The Office, will return for a second season. Stained Glass TV, behind The Wife and eHostela, is also teaming up with MultiChoice on a new dark psychological thriller. Local stars Thando Thabethe, Kim Jayde and Siv Ngesi joined discussions on turning creative talent into ownership and business success.

Soul, smooth jazz and fine dining take centre stage as acclaimed musician and social media sensation B Thompson returns to South Africa for the B Thompson Luxury Series 2026. Fresh off the release of his instrumental single Intimacy, Spotlight caught up with him to chat about his musical journey and what fans can expect next.

For full interviews, breaking news, trailers and clips, visit our Spotlight Facebook page. See you at the movies.

Presenter Collette Prince is styled and dressed by Claris by Gerrit Pienaar when attending premieres and special events.

Facebook @Claris by Gerrit Pienaar/Instagram: gerritpienaardesigns.

TimesLIVE

]]>Empire Entertainment<![CDATA[WATCH | The Political Arena team breaks down the early election results ]]>https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-05-watch-live-the-political-arena-team-breaks-down-the-early-election-results/https://www.sundaytimes.timeslive.co.za/politics/2026-11-05-watch-live-the-political-arena-team-breaks-down-the-early-election-results/Thu, 05 Nov 2026 11:05:34 +0000

Arena Holdings’ senior politics reporters are coming to you live from the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) results centre at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, Gauteng, to unpack the early election results and what they mean for municipalities.

TimesLIVE

]]>Thapelo Morebudi