Carrim was arrested at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport by the Madlanga commission’s recommendations task team in October for allegedly contravening the Commissions Act after repeatedly failing to appear before the inquiry.

He was granted bail of R100,000 by the Pretoria magistrate’s court in that matter.

Video courtesy of SABC.

TimesLIVE

Drift happens. Not because leaders lack intelligence. Not because the strategy was wrong. But because execution decays quietly, predictably, under the weight of competing priorities, unclear ownership, and fragmented attention.

Ethiopian Airlines sustained commercial focus through five government transitions to become Africa’s most profitable carrier. Dangote built pan-African cement capacity while competitors collapsed. Rwanda’s tax-to-GDP ratio climbed from 9.5% to 13% of GDP within six years. They didn’t try harder. They designed differently.

Focus is a design choice. Most organisations have designed for drift without realising it. FOCUS5™ is a disciplined system built from what actually works – not theory, but documented practice across organisations that couldn’t afford to let strategy fade.

Five moves that protect attention instead of fragmenting it:

FRAME · OWN · CADENCE · UNBLOCK · SUSTAIN

If you’ve wondered why good strategies stall after strong starts, why teams stay busy, but progress slows, why accountability erodes without anyone noticing, or why execution depends on heroic effort that can’t be sustained – this book, Drift Happens, written by Nkululeko Khumalo will show you where the leverage actually sits. Because strategy doesn’t fail all at once. It drifts. And drift is preventable.

EXTRACT

HOW WE GOT HERE

This did not happen overnight. The Age of Attention Decay emerged through three waves.

Wave 1: Always On (late 1990s–2000s)

Email made everyone reachable all the time. How quickly you replied became a proxy for how your work was judged. The workday stopped having edges. I remember a senior manager describing the shift. In 1997, she’d leave the office at 6:00 p.m. and genuinely disconnect until the next morning. By 2002, she was checking emails before bed, first thing in the morning, and during family dinners. Not because anyone explicitly demanded it, but because everyone else was doing it, and silence began to feel like absence.

Response time became a performance metric that no one formally tracked but everyone quietly measured. The executive who replied at 11:00 p.m. signalled commitment. The one who waited until morning seemed less engaged. Boundaries didn’t disappear in a single decision. They eroded through a thousand small moments when being responsive felt safer than being unavailable.

Wave 2: The Tool Explosion (2010s)

Slack, Teams, Zoom, Asana, Miro, Notion. Each tool solved a problem. Together, they scattered work across platforms.

A project manager I worked with kept seven tools open at once: email for external communication, Teams for internal chat, Zoom for meetings, Microsoft Project for task planning and tracking, Miro for brainstorming, SharePoint for documents, and Salesforce for customer data.

Each tool had been introduced to solve a specific friction. Email was too slow, so they added chat. Chat was too chaotic, so they added a project management tool. The project tool didn’t capture thinking, so they added a digital whiteboard. No single tool was the problem. The problem was the cognitive cost of switching between them. Work that used to live in two places now lived in seven. And every time she needed to find something, she had to ask herself: which platform did we use for that conversation?

We were communicating more, but understanding each other less. Researcher Linda Stone described this period as one of continuous partial attention. Always available, never fully present. The volume increased. The signal didn’t.

Wave 3: The Initiative Era (2020s–)

Markets accelerated. Organisations responded by launching more: transformations, restructures, agile squads, OKRs, KPIs. Very few initiatives were retired.

A CEO I spoke with described the pattern perfectly: “Every year, we set new priorities. But we never actually stopped doing the old ones. We just kept adding to the stack and hoping our people would figure out how to carry it all.” The language shifted too. Initiatives stopped being called “projects” with clear endpoints. They became “transformations” and “ongoing programmes”. Labels that implied permanence rather than completion.

By the time organisations realised the stack had become unsustainable, the mechanism for stopping work had atrophied. No one knew how to say no. No one had permission to retire an initiative. And no one wanted to be the leader who admitted their priority wasn’t as critical as they had claimed. What began as agility became accumulation. Each wave made sense in isolation. Email genuinely im­proved speed. Collaboration tools genuinely solved problems.

Launching initiatives genuinely responded to market demands. But the waves didn’t arrive individually. They compounded.

Emma lives at the intersection of all three: always reachable, working across multiple platforms, and juggling initiatives that keep multiplying. The system wasn’t designed to break her. It was designed in pieces, each one reasonable, none accounting for the cumulative load. And now the cost is undeniable.

WHY THIS FEELS IMPOSSIBLE TO FIX

Here’s what makes this so hard: our brains and our organisations are working against us in predictable ways. Your brain can’t switch gears cleanly. When you move from one task to another, part of your attention stays behind. Researcher Sophie Leroy calls it “attention residue”. That foggy feeling where you’re physically in the new task but mentally still in the last one. You’re in a new meeting, but part of your brain is still processing the previous one. Even a two-minute interruption can derail focus for 20 minutes afterwards. Focus doesn’t collapse all at once. It erodes. One interruption, one context switch, one decision stacked on top of hundreds of others until your brain just... can’t.

Ambiguity is exhausting. When Emma looks at those 27 KPIs and none of them tell her what to actually do, her brain has to work harder just to figure out what matters. Unclear goals don’t just waste time. They drain mental energy. Think about the last time you faced a strategic decision with unclear criteria. Your brain ran multiple scenarios, weighed options without clear trade-offs, and burned cognitive fuel without reaching resolution. That’s not laziness. That’s your brain working overtime to create clarity the system refused to provide.

Too many options paralyse us. You would think more priorities mean more choice. They do not. They create decision fatigue. When everything is urgent, nothing is clear. Research on choice overload shows that the more options we have, the worse our decisions become and the less confident we feel about them. I have watched teams spend an hour debating which of their ten “top priorities” to tackle first, only to realise they lack the authority to choose at all. So they attempt all ten in parallel, make marginal progress on each, and finish the week feeling busy but unaccomplished.

Organisations can’t let go. Leaders find it psychologically harder to kill an initiative than to start a new one. It’s loss aversion in action. Stopping something feels like admitting failure. So initiatives pile up, overlap, and compete for the same attention. A CIO once told me, “I can get approval to fund a new initiative in two ExCo meetings. But getting approval to stop one? That takes a year and requires proving it was someone else’s idea.”

Busyness gets rewarded. The person in back-to-back meetings looks committed. The person who blocks their calendar to think looks less busy. So the system keeps rewarding the behaviour that’s wearing people down.

The Overload Flywheel

These forces don’t simply coexist. They create a self-reinforcing cycle. Leaders add new initiatives. Teams stretch their attention across more work. Progress slows because focus fragments. Leaders interpret the slowdown as underperformance rather than overload. So they introduce more oversight, more check-ins, more initiatives to “accelerate” delivery. Attention fractures further. Progress slows even more. Trust in the strategy begins to erode. And the cycle continues.

The Pattern of Drift

Here’s what this looks like over the course of a year. It’s January. A new strategy launches. The narrative is crisp. The priorities feel realistic. Leaders walk out of the kick-off genuinely believing that this time the organisation is aligned. There’s energy in the room.

For a few weeks, the work reflects that belief. Teams set direction. Dependencies are mapped. People speak with confidence about the year ahead. Then February arrives, and the first unexpected issue hits. A customer escalation. A supplier delay. Two leaders request urgent help on something “temporary”. The strategic work isn’t dropped. It’s delayed. Until the fire is out. Until the quarter closes. Until the dust settles. But the dust never really settles.

By March, the volume of day-to-day work drowns out strategy. People tell themselves the delay is temporary. That the strategic work will resume soon. That this is just a busy period. At the Q1 review, the strategy still looks alive. The slides are tidy. The language is confident. But underneath, teams have already begun drifting back to what they know how to deliver.

Q2 makes the drift more obvious. Teams start adjusting what the strategy means. They soften timelines, drop the hardest elements, and focus on what feels achievable. They’re still talking about the strategy, but the actual work reflects a return to familiar patterns.

By Q3, people are stretched. Progress updates sound defensive. Meetings fill with explanations rather than decisions. Teams are working hard, visibly hard, but not on the work that moves the strategy forward.

As Q4 approaches, focus narrows to the immediate: performance reviews, revenue protection, operational risk. All the things that never paused when the strategy launched. By year end, the truth is undeniable. Most strategic objectives remain incomplete. Someone suggests rolling them into next year’s plan. No one objects. People are tired. The system has pulled them back to centre. They agreed with the strategy. They wanted it to succeed. But drift filled the space where discipline should have lived. This is the pattern organisations need to understand: drift happens.

Leaders aren’t careless. Strategies aren’t flawed. Drift is simply the natural state of complex systems without mechanisms to resist it.

Water flows downhill. Organisations drift back to the familiar. Both follow the path of least resistance. Both are predictable. Both require deliberate design to redirect. The question isn’t whether drift will occur. The question is whether your organisation has built the discipline to counteract it.

Drift doesn’t fight overload. It exploits it. When attention is scattered and demands multiply, the brain simplifies the world by returning to the familiar. It’s self-protection disguised as productivity.

These forces don’t just coexist. They create a cycle. Overload creates drift. Drift creates more overload. And once you’re in it, you can’t think your way out. You have to design your way out.

• Drift Happens: How Focus5™ Keeps Strategy on Track by Nkululeko Khumalo is published by Tracey McDonald Publishers. Extract provided by Janine Daniels (J Doubled Publicity).

The call is open to first-time writers and established names alike, and the publisher is looking for small, specific moments from everyday life that carry real emotional weight and cultural meaning.

Following in the footsteps of Staffrider

The anthology forms part of Pan Macmillan South Africa’s commitment to publishing writers who don’t always find their way onto the commercial bookshelf. It draws on a literary lineage that goes back to Ravan Press, founded in 1972, and its groundbreaking magazine Staffrider, launched in 1978. Staffrider gave community members, frontline witnesses and first-time writers a place to tell their own stories in their own words, and

A Slice of Life picks up that tradition by setting aside dedicated space for new voices to appear alongside seasoned ones.

“South Africans tell each other extraordinary stories every day – in taxis, at kitchen tables, in queues – and most of them never make it into print. We want to read the moments people usually think are too small to write about, because that’s often where the truth of a place or people lives,” says Zodwa Kumalo-Valentine, Commissioning Editor at Pan Macmillan South Africa.

What the editors are looking for

The brief is slice-of-life writing in the truest sense. Stories don’t need major plot twists, dramatic life lessons or cinematic revelations. The editors would far rather read about an amusing exchange in a bus or an awkward conversation on a morning school run.

Strong scene-building, real dialogue, honest detail and sharp observation will carry the most weight.

Every piece must be personal, autobiographical or observational non-fiction.

How to submit

Submissions can only be made online. Writers are asked to complete the form and submit their manuscripts via the Google Form link.

● Submissions must be between 1,500 and 4,000 words.

● All entries must be original, unpublished works. You must also declare that the work is your own intellectual property. Because this anthology celebrates authentic, lived human experiences, submissions must be written entirely by you. We do not accept stories written or co-written using generative AI tools.

● Document formatting:

○ Acceptable file types: .doc and .docx only (no PDFs).

○ Standard manuscript formatting: 12pt clean legible font (Times New Roman, Arial, or Georgia), double-spaced, standard 1-inch margins.

○ Include the story title and total word count at the top of page 1.

● Only one submission per person. Multiple entries from the same author will be disqualified.

● Complete the official submission intake form before midnight on 16 November 2026.

Because of the volume of entries expected, the editorial team cannot give individual feedback. Writers who haven’t heard back by 31 January 2027 should take it that their story hasn’t been selected for this anthology.

Matlala withdrew from the agreement in July after rejecting a 12-year direct imprisonment sentence proposed by the court instead of the eight years he had agreed to with the state. The plea agreement was subsequently declared null and void.

Matlala appeared before the commission in Pretoria on Monday, where his lawyer, Annelene van den Heever, objected to the use of the plea agreement and evidence linked to it, including section 205 affidavits.

“We vehemently oppose the use of section 105 [plea agreement] and section 205 [incriminating evidence], whether it is the affidavits or whatever is presented to the commission. We say it will bring justice into dispute if that is allowed at the commission.”

WATCH | Vusimuzi "Cat" Matlala at Madlanga Commission of Inquiry into criminality political interference and corruption in the criminal justice system taking place at Brigette Mabandla Justice College in Tshwane.

Video: ANTONIO MUCHAVE pic.twitter.com/i3FAYQxmEd

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 9, 2026

Van den Heever argued that allowing the commission to use the plea agreement and related evidence would infringe on her client’s constitutional rights.

The commission is investigating allegations that criminal cartels, including alleged cartel member Matlala, had infiltrated the criminal justice system.

The plea agreement relates to fraud and money-laundering charges Matlala faces in connection with his company Medicare 24 Tshwane District’s SAPS tender.

During the now-nullified plea proceedings, the court heard that affidavits submitted by Matlala implicated senior police officials. The state indicated that the information contained in the affidavits could assist in securing convictions against the officials.

The state alleges that members of the SAPS bid evaluation committee and senior officials colluded to bypass proper National Treasury regulations to award the health services contract to Matlala’s company.

Investigators allege that Medicare 24 Tshwane District did not have the necessary facilities, staff or equipment to fulfil the contract.

Several senior officers who were part of the adjudication process have also been arrested alongside Matlala and face similar charges.

The commission continues.

Sowetan

The most significant, of course, is the collapse of the ANC. The DA’s attainment of the highest number of votes in almost all the metros is also hugely significant, as is the party’s growing support among working-class black voters. The ongoing decline of the EFF is also an important development. The EFF has always been good at playing the media and gets far more media coverage than its support warrants.

But the numbers don’t lie, and it’s clear the EFF is a small party and in rapid decline. Support for the MK Party has been slowly declining in KwaZulu-Natal, perhaps due to the constant chaos in the party, and while it has not been able to win Durban outright, its success in KwaZulu-Natal will certainly make a major and inevitably highly damaging impact on the province.

ActionSA is a far-right party that mixes free market fundamentalism with extreme xenophobia and authoritarian populism and, like the Patriotic Alliance, does not even pretend to practise internal democracy

But while these four developments are hugely important and will radically change our politics, they were all expected. There are two other developments that were not expected. The first is the astounding progress made by ActionSA, in particular in Gauteng. The second is the impressive first outing by the SACP.

ActionSA is a far-right party that mixes free market fundamentalism with extreme xenophobia and authoritarian populism and, like the Patriotic Alliance, does not even pretend to practice internal democracy. Its success in Gauteng is a clear indicator of the turn to the centre right and far right in our politics, with the DA occupying the centre right and the FF Plus and ActionSA occupying the far-right space. The MK Party also has many far-right elements in its chaotic political orientation.

But the pollsters and commentariat didn’t only underestimate the support for ActionSA. They also totally misread the support for the SACP, which, at the time of writing, won just less than 2.5% of the national vote — just less than 700,000 votes — and more than 220 council seats.

The SACP didn’t run any kind of meaningful campaign, had almost no media attention and does not participate in popular struggles, whether in communities or among workers. Nonetheless, it was able to make a strong first showing, a showing that no poll or pundit predicted.

Some of the support that the SACP received was clearly from ANC supporters who could not bring themselves to vote for the party but preferred to register their protest vote for another party within the ANC alliance

Some of the support that the SACP received was clearly from ANC supporters who could not bring themselves to vote for the party but preferred to register their protest vote for another party within the ANC alliance. These people are mostly not communists, and their protest vote for the SACP is unlikely to translate into ongoing support.

However, this cannot account for all the support received by the party, and it could well be that some of it also comes from local dynamics and the long relationship between it and Cosatu, which, while sclerotic, continues to represent large numbers of public sector workers, such as teachers, prison warders and so on.

Before the election, the SACP encountered intense hostility from the independent left. This was due to its failed “Conference of the Left”, which sought to unite the left behind the party but only alienated and angered the independent left. This was primarily because the SACP invited the MK Party and a rogues’ gallery of discredited people, such as Ace Magashule and Irwin Jim, to the conference. With the MK Party supporting March and March and its leaders having a documented record of extreme corruption, many were appalled.

A number of organisations were also upset about their names being listed on the conference programme without having been consulted. There was also widespread unhappiness when the party did not follow through with its promise to disclose who had funded the conference.

But while these are all genuine issues, the fact is that the SACP has done vastly better than the two previous attempts to run left parties. In the 2014 general election the Trotskyist Workers and Socialist Party received 8,331 votes (0.05%), while the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party received 24,439 votes (0.14%) in the 2019 general election. The SACP has done vastly better, and it did very well in an election in which there was a massive swing to the right. This is something that must be taken seriously.

It is essential for the media and analysts to develop a proper understanding of why the party did so well

It is essential for the media and analysts to develop a proper understanding of why the party did so well. This will require proper empirical investigation rather than just people thumb-sucking and expressing their opinions. While we know that the SACP benefited from a protest vote internal to alliance dynamics, if a significant part of the party’s votes did come via Cosatu, there are real prospects for the union movement and the party to build a wider project from this base.

To achieve this, the SACP will have to make a clear break from the MK Party and the various corrupt scoundrels it invited to its failed Conference of the Left. There is widespread disgust at corruption, and the party will have to hold a clear line against corruption if it wants to build its support.

There must be a clear refusal to work with xenophobic organisations. The party will also have to start engaging other left organisations with respect, and make genuine amends for listing them on the programme for its Conference of the Left without their consent. It will be necessary for it to start supporting workplace and community struggles and to do so in a respectful way.

In light of the utter chaos that has engulfed Numsa, a good deal of which is a result of private funding for Irwin Jim’s personal lifestyle and for his power battles in the union, it is also essential that the SACP come clean on all sources of external funding. Rumours are already running rampant, and the party must be transparent about this to its members and to the general public. If it does not do so, it risks the same sort of implosion as Numsa a few years down the line.

• Dr Buccus is a senior research associate at the Auwal Socioeconomic Research Institute (ASRI)

TimesLIVE

Alice Hoffman

Scribner

If you are born with an extra finger on one hand, your blood is black, you can’t drown and you are being followed around by crows, then, in Alice Hoffman’s world, you are a witch. Fans of the author will of course know this. Hoffman has made the witchy world her own in fiction, and here she is introducing a new cast of witches in a novel which is set in the 1950s world of Radcliffe College, now a part of Harvard but at the time an adjunct where women could receive a university education but without distracting the men. However, of course, Massachusetts had an earlier history with witches, having been the site of the notorious witch trials of the late 17^th century.

One of the residences at Radcliffe is Lilith House, a very secret society where only witches go. And when the novel opens, two new students are invited to join – Ava, a country girl from Maine and Lauren, a wealthy local. Their backgrounds are very different, as are their characters, but of course they have one major similarity. And they become close to each other – at least for some of the time – and their lives become intertwined.

Lilith House may be a comfortable bolt hole for the young witches, but not all goes smoothly. Like most university students, their love-lives take up quite a lot of their time, and do not always go according to plan. But things also seem to be going strangely at Lilith House when senior students suddenly vanish just before their graduation. And they all had some part of their studies in common.

Then Ava finds diaries that date back to the time of the witch trials of the 17^th century, which seem to have links to the 1950s witchery of Ava and Lauren – and show that being a witch may well be a genetic inheritance. These historical sections add an interesting dimension to the novel. However, Hoffman’s linking of the early witch trials to the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s sometimes seems a little clumsy. Lauren’s brother – also a witch, of course – is gay, and in Senator McCarthy’s world, gay people had to be hunted down and dealt with. And so that becomes a dimension of the plot as well.

It is a long time since I have read a Hoffman novel, and there is no doubt that she can tell a pacy, clever story, though I am not sure I would describe it as bewitching. Her fans will probably love it, but I’m still not going to be checking out people’s hands when I meet them for signs of an extra finger.

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.

Türkiye 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.

Türkiye’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 US, 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 Türkiye’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 Türkiye’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 Türkiye’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, Türkiye’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 Türkiye’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%.

Türkiye absent from methane pledge

Methane emissions from waste in Türkiye 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. Türkiye’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. Türkiye 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 Türkiye had more developed waste disposal than poorer countries but less effective management, recycling and value recovery than much of Europe.

Türkiye 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

The commission has heard from several witnesses in camera since October 5 due to ongoing investigations and/or the confidential nature of the material.

Its final report is due to be delivered to President Cyril Ramaphosa by January 25 2027.

Video courtesy of SABC.

TimesLIVE

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.

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.

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?

It’s a familiar dilemma, and one Levi’s put at the centre of an intimate brunch in Sandton on October 9. Bringing together media and tastemakers over bubbles and canapés, the brand used the occasion to explore its different denim silhouettes, with particular attention given to its Curvy fits.

Through a styling showcase led by content creators Paula Bee and Thandiwe Gama, guests were introduced to jeans designed for different proportions, from more fitted silhouettes to relaxed styles. The broader point was that finding your perfect pair isn’t necessarily about following the latest denim trend or squeezing into a particular size. It’s about understanding how different cuts sit on your body and, perhaps more importantly, how you actually want your jeans to fit.

And while there’s no single pair that works for everyone, there are a few useful things to keep in mind before heading into the fitting room.

How to find your perfect pair of jeans:

1. Start with your measurements, not your usual size

Before you automatically reach for the size you’ve been wearing for years, get out the measuring tape. Levi’s recommends measuring your waist at its narrowest point, your hips at their fullest and your thighs at their widest. These measurements are more useful than relying on a single number, particularly when comparing different denim cuts.

The brand’s size guide also includes inseam measurements, which brings us to another consideration: length.

2. Pay attention to the rise and length

A high-rise jean sits higher on the waist, while mid- and low-rise styles sit progressively lower. Where the waistband falls can make a substantial difference to the overall fit, particularly when paired with different tops.

Length matters just as much. An ankle-grazing straight leg, a cropped flare and a baggy jean pooling over your shoes create three very different looks. Levi’s measurement guide recommends measuring from the crotch down the inside leg to determine your inseam, then adjusting the length depending on the style you’re after.

3. If the waist gaps, try a curvy cut

If you’ve ever found jeans that fit perfectly over your hips and thighs but leave a noticeable gap at the back of the waistband, the problem might be the cut rather than the size.

Levi’s 501 Curve jeans, for example, are designed with a smaller waist-to-hip ratio and additional room through the seat and thighs. The idea is to accommodate fuller hips without having to size up and sacrifice the fit at the waist.

Another option is the brand’s Cinch collection, which features adjustable tabs at the back of the waistband, allowing you to bring in the waist without changing the relaxed fit through the hips and legs. It’s a particularly handy feature if you like your denim a little baggier but don’t want a waistband that stands away from your back.

4. Know what your denim is made of

Not all denim behaves the same way. Traditional rigid denim, generally made from 100% cotton, has a firmer feel, while stretch denim contains elastic fibres that allow the fabric to move more easily.

According to Levi’s product guide, stretch denim can be particularly useful in slimmer cuts, where flexibility makes a noticeable difference to comfort.

If you prefer a structured, vintage-inspired look, rigid denim might be more your style. If comfort and ease of movement are priorities, a little stretch could make all the difference.

5. Don’t buy jeans you can’t comfortably sit in

A pair might look fantastic when you’re standing in front of the fitting-room mirror, but that’s only half the test. Sit down, bend your knees and walk around.

Check whether the waistband digs in, whether the fabric pulls uncomfortably across your hips or thighs, and whether you’re constantly adjusting the jeans to keep them in place. A pair that looks good for 30 seconds isn’t necessarily one you’ll enjoy wearing all day.

6. Try the cut you think you can’t wear

Straight-leg, wide-leg, bootcut, slim and relaxed jeans all distribute volume differently. Levi’s fit guide explains the differences between these silhouettes, but there’s no substitute for trying them on.

And perhaps this is the most useful lesson from the brunch: don’t rule out a style simply because you’ve decided it isn’t for your body type. Sometimes the pair you’d never have picked off the rail turns out to be the one you wear most.

After all, the perfect jeans are the ones you actually want to put on again tomorrow.

Wanted

Story audio is generated using AI

In an unusual move, Bafana Bafana coach Pitso Mosimane wheeled out his technical team of Morena Ramoreboli, Musi Matlaba and Kabelo Rangoaga to the squad announcement for the upcoming Pamoja 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualifiers against Kenya.

Assistant coach Ramoreboli, performance analyst and assistant coach Matlaba, and strength and conditioning coach Rangoaga gave the nation a glimpse of what informs the thinking behind his selection.

The back-to-back Group D clashes will see a faceoff between legendary luminaries Mosimane — the only South African coach to win the Caf Champions League three times — and Benni McCarthy, SA’s sole winner of the European version of the competition, who remains the all-time Bafana top goalscorer with 32 goals from 80 caps.

At Orlando Amstel Arena on Friday night, Mosimane will be keen to prevent McCarthy from presenting the Harambee Stars as a potential banana peel to spoil his perfect return to Bafana, which he marked with 2-1 and 5-0 victories over Guinea and Eritrea last month.

We respect South Africa, but our responsibility is to Kenya. We want to compete, get results and give our supporters something to be proud of – Benni McCarthy, Kenya coach

The wins helped Bafana, who top the group with six points, climb to position 48 on the Fifa rankings, a spot they last reached in 2011.

Afcon ticket

Completing a double over Kenya will continue the upward trajectory.

Importantly, victories will strengthen Bafana’s ambition and claw Bafana closer to punching their ticket to the biennial tournament, which Kenya will co-host with Tanzania and Uganda from June 19 to July 17 2027.

Bafana seek to secure a third successive Afcon qualification following a bronze medal finish in the 2023 edition in Ivory Coast and a last 16 elimination in Morocco in January.

Kenya lie 66 places below South Africa and will arrive in Johannesburg on Wednesday on the back of a three-match winless run.

In the Afcon qualifiers, they drew the opener with Eritrea 1-1 (at Nairobi’s Nyayo National Stadium where they will host Bafana on Tuesday), lost 1-0 away to Guinea in Conakry, and settled for a goalless stalemate with Rwanda in a friendly.

In his 24-man squad, McCarthy has included seven new players who missed out on the Guinea and Eritrea engagements.

The seven new inclusions are defenders Sylvester Owino of Gor Mahia, Eric Marcelo Ouma of RKS Rakow, midfielders Zak Vyner of Wrexham, Alwyn Tera of Ararat-Armenia and Henry Ochieng of Slough Town, forwards Adam Wilson of New Saints and William Lenkupae of Tulsa.

Automatic qualification

Bottom of the group Kenya have gained automatic qualification as joint co-hosts and are using the matches as preparation.

Loyalty will be out the window for McCarthy, who wants his players to approach the games with the right mentality. “South Africa have quality and experience, but we must believe in ourselves and play to our strengths. We are not going there merely to participate,” said McCarthy, as quoted by The Star Kenya.

“We need players who are ready to compete and understand what it means to represent their country. Everyone called up must come with the hunger to fight for a place in the team. Young players must understand that talent alone is not enough. They have to work hard, learn and show that they can handle the demands of international football.

“We respect South Africa, but our responsibility is to Kenya. We want to compete, get results and give our supporters something to be proud of.”

Bafana will welcome back Mbekezeli Mbokazi and Lyle Foster, while Mosimane will keep a keen eye on how captain Ronwen Williams and his Mamelodi Sundowns teammate Teboho Mokoena deal with their niggles should Miguel Cardoso decide to draft them in the Caf Super Cup clash against Algeria’s USM Alger at Loftus this afternoon.

Should Williams remain incapacitated, either Sipho Chaine or Ricardo Goss will man the goals, while Siphephelo Sithole, Bathusi Aubaas or Brooklyn Poggenpoel can fill in for Mokoena.

The year-end function is the one night when the org chart relaxes, colleagues meet the person behind the email signature, and a year of deadlines gets a proper send-off. It is also one of the few rewards a business can give its whole team at once.

A good year-end function will have people retelling stories about it around the coffee machine well into the new year. But for whoever has been handed the job of organising it, planning a memorable celebration starts with a long list: venue, menu, drinks, music and a budget to stretch across them all.

The Capital Hotels, Apartments and Resorts shortens that list considerably. With festive packages at 11 hotels across Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and the Western Cape, teams of 10 to more than 100 can choose a destination, pick a package and leave the venue, food and service to the hotel’s events team.

Packages to suit your teams’ personality

That leaves the harder question of what kind of party your team actually wants, because every office has its own personality.

There are teams that only warm up once the speeches are over, teams that would rather dress up and linger over dinner, teams that want good food and an easy afternoon, and teams that would happily stretch one night into a weekend away.

The Capital’s festive packages cater for all four, so the best place to start is with the mood, then the map.

Turn up the music

Teams who measure a party by how late it ends should look to the coast. At The Capital Zimbali Resort in Ballito, Dance into December packages start at R750 per person, with the option of adding a DJ to keep the dance floor full.

Inland, The Capital Mbombela throws pool deck parties from R350 per person, which is about the most refreshing way to spend a Lowveld evening in December.

Dress for dinner

For a long table, a dress code and a menu worth discussing on Monday, the newly refurbished Seven Hotel, Villas and Spa in Sandton hosts the Seven Senses Year End Experience.

From R1,400 per person, guests move through a seven-course sensory menu that ends with a “Design Your Own Plate” dessert, with an optional curated beverage pairing alongside.

A few kilometres away, The Capital Melrose in Melrose Arch offers packages from R750 per person, and its Platinum option adds a red-carpet arrival, live action stations and valet parking.

In Cape Town, The Capital 15 on Orange has four distinct ways to celebrate, from year-end lunches and poolside gatherings to gala dinners and a whisky-pairing experience at O Bar.

Keep it easy

Good food, a drink in hand and nobody stuck on clean-up duty is all some teams need.

In Umhlanga, The Capital Pearls Deck the Halls packages start at R475 per person, with three buffet options plus welcome drinks and festive extras included.

In Sandton, The Capital Empire’s Year End Extravaganza starts at R495 per person, with a choice of menus, a sparkling welcome and savings on venue hire, while The Capital On The Park builds menus, bars and entertainment around each company’s budget and preferences.

Make a night of it

Some celebrations deserve a lie-in the next morning.

The Capital on Bath in Rosebank, Johannesburg, pairs garden cocktails and team-building experiences for smaller groups with stayover options,

The Capital Menlyn Maine and Trilogy in Pretoria offer buffet, cocktail and set-menu options alongside discounted venue hire and accommodation.

The Capital Mbombela goes further still, giving teams the option to pair their year-end celebration with a Kruger safari getaway.

The planning, handled

Depending on the hotel and package, inclusions range from welcome drinks and buffet dining to audiovisual equipment, Wi-Fi, entertainment and accommodation benefits, which means fewer suppliers for the organiser to chase and fewer things to go wrong on the night.

“The year-end function is often the only time an entire team sits at the same table, and the person who organised it deserves to enjoy that as much as anyone,” says Marc Wachsberger, founder and CEO of The Capital Hotels, Apartments and Resorts.

“Our events teams take care of the details so that everyone, the organiser included, can simply celebrate.”

December dates are going fast: book now

December dates fill up quickly, and packages and availability vary by property.

Visit The Capital Hotels, Apartments and Resorts to find your nearest property, explore the available options, discuss your requirements with the events team and secure a date for your year-end function.

Choose your hotel. Pick your package. Celebrate your team. It’s that simple.

This article was sponsored by The Capital Hotels, Apartments and Resorts.

CRITERIA: The winner should be a novel of rare imagination and style, evocative, textured and a tale so compelling as to become an enduring landmark of contemporary fiction.

How to Teach Yourself to Smoke and to Remember

In 2015, my wife and I were sitting at a little plastic table on a beach in Sri Lanka. We had long since seen the tide go out and were watching it come back in, sea water rushing over our feet as we spoke and ordered another round of drinks. At some point the subject of my childhood came up. I spoke at length, staring at the ocean. When I looked over, I was surprised to see that tears were quietly spilling over Shann’s cheeks. I will never forget that moment because until then I hadn’t considered that the story I was telling was inherently sad. I’d just been talking about my brother. Not the bad things that happened to us, but what it felt like to survive these events alongside him. I was trying to explain that my brother was/is/has always been my hero.

The idea that my own story was in some way hidden from me followed me home from that trip. It grew inside me until I knew I needed to do something with it. The objective remained the same — I wanted to write about my brother, but not just about him, I wanted to write as him. To see what I might look like from his perspective. The more I thought about it, the more I knew that non-fiction wasn’t an option — my mind is too unruly, my thoughts too ill-suited to reality. If I wanted to tell a real story, if I wanted to get as close to the truth as possible, I realised I would have to make it all up. That’s why, a few months later, I stopped at the petrol station by my house and bought a pack of every brand of cigarette on the shelf.

I have long been interested in the workings of fate. The brothers in my novel lose their mother to a lightning strike and are left in the care of their dad. In his grief, their father makes sense of his loss by teaching his boys the Nicotine Gospel — part religion, part divination, part madness. “According to my father, an eight-by-five cardboard box containing somewhere near 20 machine-made cigarettes would tell you all you needed to know about a man.” I had never smoked in earnest before this novel, so I taught myself. The goal was to create my own version of the Nicotine Gospel, but after so much unwrapped cellophane, cordite and coughing, months had gone by and I had learned almost nothing. Then I started talking to other smokers. It was surprisingly easy to approach a stranger with a cigarette in hand. We congregated outside bars and cafes. Leaning on walls, I would ask these strangers what they smoked and who had given them their first cigarette. People recounted the story of their first cigarette with the reverence of a first love — beautiful, doomed, consecrated by fire and nicotine. Thanks to these conversations, The Nicotine Gospel in all its madness started to take shape.

Armed with cigarettes, childhood trauma, an eponymous playlist and a sense of humour, I started to write. I set the novel in Durban, a crumbling harbour city, always somewhat in disrepair. A place for sweat and stubborn people. A place of birdsong and the proliferation of rust, the humid air heavy with salt and sadness. I wrote the line, “All of this starts in 1987 with a bolt of lightning and a pack of Lucky Strikes,” and stared at it for days. I sat in bars and cafes, sometimes with tears streaming down my face, sometimes laughing. For over a year, I dredged the deep sediment that had settled over my memories. I drank litres of coffee. I filled ashtrays. I didn’t tell my brother about any of it. When at last I was finally done, I shut my laptop and sat in silence, watching my cigarette burn untouched down to the filter until only a fragile tower of ash remained. The screen of my phone lit up, a message from Shann, “I’ve found us a dog. She’s a Yorkie.” I paid my bill. I checked myself in to see a psychologist.

EXTRACT

The men in my family were known as the Lucky Boys, but not because good things happened to us. We were the Lucky Boys because my brother and I were brought up to measure all things, and I do mean all things, by a pack of cigarettes.

Dad was a Lucky Strike man, and that’s the only time I will refer to these cigarettes by their full name. He never would: to Dad they were Strikes or Luckies, the sticks of the future, the cigarette of Billy Joel and Tom Waits, mass-produced tobacco at its finest, a man’s entire character rolled neatly into seven centimetres. I’ve heard it said that the stomach is the way to a man’s heart but the route my brother and I took was by the lungs. And that’s why the three of us were the Lucky Boys. Whether we liked it or not, that red circle on the box was our family crest.

If 1987 is the beginning of the Lucky Boys, then 2011 is the end, our entire story contained inside lightning strikes like divine parentheses. The past is a collection of many things, but in 2011, there are only three things you need to know. You’re discovering them all in one go, which is fitting because I discovered them the same way.

One: I received a phone call to inform me that my father, Esben Muesli, had died. My father had been exiled from the world of the living by abnormal electronic activity in his brain. I stood, unable to speak while the voice through the telephone told me the official cause was a sudden unexplained death in epilepsy. They can call it what they want. It was lightning.

With the phone pressed against my ear, I imagined my father sitting alone beneath a naked light bulb as a moth slowly descended in a spiral and alighted on his forehead, its tiny weight the fatal catalyst. During the neural storm that followed, the moth briefly morphed into the image of my mother standing in front of him, much younger than he was, smiling, with one finger lightly pressed against the bridge of his nose. I prefer this imagined death to the medical version in which Dad fell and writhed on the floor, his teeth pressed together with hydraulic force, strange sounds and foam issuing from the corners of his mouth as his body clenched briefly and violently around his soul before letting go.

Mia found me standing in the doorway holding a pack of Luckies, the family brand, Dad’s brand, a lit cigarette trembling between my lips. The moment I shut my eyes and inhaled, she plucked the cigarette from my mouth and threw it out the door like an unanchored Catherine wheel.

Two: When I asked why she’d done that, my wife placed both hands over her face. I held her tightly as she cried, but owing to that curious universal law that limits emotions per capita, I could hardly feel anything at all.

“You’re going to be a father,” she said. “You have to quit. For real this time.”

I wanted to tell her I found it too far a coincidence that the world had reduced its count of fathers by one, only to replace a lost father with a new one. I wanted to tell her I didn’t feel like a father, that the life I’d contributed towards was just information to me, a thought sealed inside too many layers of her for me to feel it.

“Promise me,” she said.

I promised.

Three: Dan called later that same day. My little brother had grown up and was no longer Danny. I had no firm idea of what growing up had cost him, there are probably no words to explain these things, it had been at least two letters, five points on the scrabble board. Dan had called to arrange for the two of us to drive to the funeral together. Our father had spent the last four years living in Fish Hoek, a small seaside suburb on the Cape Peninsula. It was roughly a 1 500-kilometre drive from Durban, most of it along the coast with a brief detour through the Eastern Cape. The plan was to split the drive over two days and then, upon reaching our destination, we’d set our father on fire, turning him into a human cigarette as per his final wishes. After the basic details were discussed I asked my brother what he thought Dad had believed about death.

Dan’s voice was far away, propelled through unknown lengths of cables, and bounced off satellite dishes that orbited the planet as we spoke.

‘Dad said there was probably no smoking in heaven and no cigarettes in hell.’

Mom had taught us that God breathed life into man, and Dad taught us that when man dies God inhales him back into His lungs. This had seemed mystical at the time, but what was once numinous now felt unhealthy.

I leaned my forehead against the kitchen wall and shut my eyes. As always, an image of my father materialised in the gloom. He sat motionless, smoking, with a million moths circling above his head masquerading as his private disarray of thoughts, and he beneath them a divining rod for all the world’s madness.

Story audio is generated using AI

The National Lotteries Commission (NLC), which suffered a major setback this week after the awarding of the fourth national lottery licence was set aside and declared invalid, is also struggling to disburse funding intended for good causes.

A funding call issued by the NLC two years ago has been plagued by delays, leaving hundreds of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) waiting for funding.

The commission sought to downplay the problem, saying that despite delays, apparently caused by compliance issues and hold-ups in the appointment of distributing agencies, funding was still being awarded to deserving applicants.

The NLC said the 2024/2025 open call was the first time its application process had been fully digitised through its Thuthuka system, which was introduced to improve efficiency, compliance, accountability and transparency.

“The 2024/2025 open call application process was delayed by the extension of the call several times to enable organisations to meet the minimum compliance requirements,” said NLC commissioner Jodi Scholtz.

She said another factor contributing to the delays was the late appointment of distributing agencies, which are authorised under the Lotteries Act to adjudicate applications.

“The distributing agency members were appointed by the minister of trade, industry and competition (Parks Tau) in July 2025,” Scholtz said.

Despite these setbacks, she said the commission had already disbursed funding to more than 700 organisations.

“As of October 30 2026, the NLC reviewed 2,492 applications and awarded grants valued at R1.657bn to 721 organisations in the charities, sport and recreation, arts, culture and national heritage and miscellaneous sectors,” she said.

Scholtz said 1,771 applications had been reviewed and declined for various reasons, including concerns about the veracity of financial records submitted, whether proposed projects aligned with the funding call guidelines, and tax and regulatory compliance.

She said the NLC had worked closely with several organisations throughout the application and review process to help ensure that submitted documentation met statutory requirements.

“The volume of applications received by the closing of the call; over 16,000 organisations registered on the system and 4,348 applications with a request for funding of over R42bn were recorded on the system. Of these open call applications 3,138 were submitted for consideration by the distributing agencies,” Scholtz said.

The funding delays came into sharp focus last week when Johannesburg filmmaker Godongwana Mthethwa staged a protest at the NLC’s offices, raising concerns about the commission’s failure to release money intended to support good causes.

Mthethwa had intended to spend the night at the commission’s offices in protest but found the premises empty on the eve of the local government elections.

“We went to the NLC on November 2 with the intention of sitting in until we have a delegated official who is a decision-maker to come and address us,” Mthethwa said.

He said they were frustrated that the NLC was not fully utilising its development funding budget.

“The R1.2bn NLC budget that is supposed to be disbursed among communities … This funding is meant to help transform communities,” Mthethwa said.

He said soup kitchens, creches and soccer teams in his community were struggling without funding, leaving them behind in terms of development and transformation.

“We went there [the NLC] as concerned citizens of this country … to make them aware that this budget is important to help transform and elevate while creating economies in our communities,” he said.

Though Mthethwa had not personally submitted a funding application, he said he believed the NLC was a major reason many organisations in marginalised communities continued to struggle without financial support.

The bar set by the NLC and its executive is high and it puts the poor and marginalised NPOs at a disadvantage and favours the elites and their organisations.

UCSA chairperson Tebogo Sithathu

United Civil Society in Action (UCSA), an organisation representing civil society groups, told the Sunday Times that the NLC was failing to fulfil both its primary mandates: ensuring the effective administration of the national lottery through the issuing of licences and distributing lottery proceeds to good causes.

UCSA chairperson Tebogo Sithathu said it was difficult for non-profit organisations to comply with the standards imposed by the commission when applying for funding.

“The bar set by the NLC and its executive is high and it puts the poor and marginalised NPOs at a disadvantage and favours the elites and their organisations,” Sithathu said.

He also criticised the Thuthuka application system, describing it as “failing, expensive and difficult” for many people in underdeveloped areas to understand and navigate.

“Civil society has raised these challenges with the board, executive, portfolio committee and the minister. Instead, the NLC executive does not want to listen to its stakeholders which is the civil society,” Sithathu said.

He accused the commission of taking on the responsibilities of other government departments.

“The NLC has made itself an extension of Sars, social development and the department of labour, which means that the challenges faced by those departments have been adopted by the NLC,” he said.

The funding concerns come amid growing scrutiny of the commission following the Pretoria high court’s decision to set aside the awarding of the lucrative fourth national lottery licence to Sizekhaya.

The licence, regarded as one of the most lucrative tenders in South Africa, was declared invalid by the court.

Judge Norman Davis ruled that the decision to award the licence should be referred back to trade, industry and competition minister Parks Tau for reconsideration.

However, Davis suspended the declaration of invalidity for two six-month periods to allow Sizekhaya to continue operating the lottery while the minister reconsiders the award and makes arrangements for a new licence.

“The first period to allow the minister the opportunity to decide to award the licence afresh and the second period to allow the minister to negotiate and conclude a new licence,” Davis stated in the judgment.

In response to the judgment, the NLC said it was still considering its implications.

“The minister of trade, industry and competition will announce his decision on the judgment and its effect in due course. In terms of section 10 of the Lotteries Act, one of the NLC’s statutory functions is to advise the minister on the issuing of the national lottery licence,” the commission said in a statement last week.

The NLC added that Tau had already begun consulting the commission as they awaited legal advice on the judgment.

Polo, with its combination of athleticism, horsemanship and tradition, has long attracted an audience as interested in the occasion as the result.

Taking place on Saturday November 14 2026, the Standard Bank Polo Test Match returns to Val de Vie Estate in the Cape Winelands, bringing international competition and one of the summer season’s most anticipated social gatherings to the Pavilion Polo Field.

Following South Africa’s victory over England in 2025, the visiting team returns for another encounter. Both captains will lead their respective sides once again, with Jannie Steenkamp representing South Africa and Matt Perry at the helm of England’s challenge.

The rematch promises the speed, tactical precision and partnership between horse and rider that make polo such a compelling spectator sport.

Against the mountain scenery of the Paarl-Franschhoek Valley, the afternoon will unfold in distinctly South African fashion.

This year’s theme takes its inspiration from the sophistication of Mediterranean summers, interpreted through the relaxed elegance of the Cape Winelands. Expect champagne, sunshine and the sound of hooves thundering across the turf.

A partnership with purpose

Returning as headline partner, Standard Bank Wealth and Investment continues its association with one of South Africa’s most established polo destinations.

Its involvement now extends beyond the annual international encounter through its role as financial partner of the Stella Artois Val de Vie Polo Club.

“Polo is a sport defined by precision, strategy and a pursuit of excellence, values that resonate deeply with how we approach wealth management,” says Jacques Els, head of Standard Bank Wealth and Investment South Africa.

“Our partnership with Val de Vie Estate is an opportunity to celebrate these shared values while bringing people together through exceptional experiences.

“We look forward to another memorable international encounter between South Africa and England,” he says.

For Ryk Neethling, marketing and brand director of the Val de Vie Group, the continued investment reflects the estate’s ambitions for the sport.

“The sport is part of our DNA and welcoming some of the best players in the world reflects our commitment to hosting events of international calibre,” he says.

The event brings together several leading brands, including property partner Val de Vie Vivante Village South, vehicle partner Geely and lifestyle partner Carrol Boyes.

Johnnie Walker Blue Label, Veuve Clicquot and Stella Artois contribute to the hospitality, alongside wine partner Doolhof Wine Estate and coffee partner L’OR Espresso. Huge TNS provides connectivity, with Driven as the audiovisual partner.

The art of an afternoon at the polo

Part of polo’s enduring appeal is its social character. Between chukkas, attention shifts from the action to conversations over drinks, leisurely lunches and the pleasure of spending an afternoon outdoors.

Three hospitality experiences offer different ways to enjoy the occasion. The Stella Artois Premium Picnic provides a relaxed setting, with a welcome beer and a selection of food trucks.

The Veuve Clicquot Garden brings a celebratory touch, with a glass of Yellow Label Champagne on arrival, a gourmet burger and views across the field.

For those seeking a more elaborate culinary experience, the Johnnie Walker Blue Lounge offers signature drinks and five interactive food stations.

Private hospitality options are also available for groups of six or 10, incorporating shaded seating, food, drinks and access to an air-conditioned space. The private Johnnie Walker Blue Lounge accommodates 30 guests and offers an alternative for corporate entertaining and larger celebrations.

And then there is one of polo’s most charming traditions. At half-time, spectators are invited onto the field for the ceremonial divot stomp, replacing the pieces of turf displaced during play.

This year, Cherry Time joins as divot stomping partner, offering fresh cherries as guests take part in a ritual that has become as much a social occasion as a practical exercise.

Dressing for the occasion

The Cape Riviera dress theme calls for a wardrobe that feels polished without appearing overly considered. Think crisp white linen, nautical stripes, soft neutrals and flashes of Mediterranean blue.

For women, flowing midi dresses, tailored shorts, elegant trouser suits and sculptural accessories offer an easy interpretation of the theme.

Men might favour linen shirts, lightweight tailoring and loafers. A silk scarf or beautifully chosen straw hat adds personality, while practical footwear is essential: stilettos and polo fields are rarely compatible.

As the afternoon draws to a close, the focus shifts from the horses to the music. Bellville band Sunset Sweatshop will headline the entertainment, bringing its infectious combination of goema-rock, reggae, funk and folk to the stage.

With international competition, summer hospitality and live music extending the festivities beyond the final chukka, the Standard Bank Polo Test Match offers a fitting start to the Cape Winelands’ social season.

Be part of the occasion

Tickets start at R850 per person, with admission restricted to guests aged 18 and older.

Individual tickets are available through iTickets.

For private hospitality, corporate bookings and further information, visit the Standard Bank Polo Test Match website.

This article was sponsored by Standard Bank.

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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

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

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ActionSA, buoyed by its strong showing in Tshwane, Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni, will push the DA to drop Helen Zille as its mayoral candidate for Joburg and give the post to its leader, Herman Mashaba, instead.

Although the party is not outright opposed to Zille, it claims her “destructive ways” could be an obstacle to it supporting her for the top job.

At the heart of ActionSA’s gripe against Zille — who was the DA’s star performer in the elections — is the claim that she is “arrogant” and cannot be trusted. ANC elections chief Mdumiseni Ntuli claimed that she sees herself as a “messiah”.

“ActionSA will keep the DA out of Jozi if they insist on Helen. She is not honest; she says one thing to you today and stabs you in the back the next,” said an ActionSA source.

“We will never sacrifice Nasiphi [Moya] in Tshwane,” the source added. “She’s given us our biggest numbers yet, so we would rather let go of Ekurhuleni and Joburg.”

The push to block Zille is taking place behind the scenes as parties prepare for two weeks of intense negotiations after the local government elections ended with 122 hung councils. It comes despite Zille winning almost 35% of the vote in Johannesburg, with the ANC a distant second on just over 20% and ActionSA on about 16%.

The bad blood between Mashaba and Zille dates back to the ActionSA leader’s time as DA mayor of the city, a position he held from 2016.

Zille has hit back at ActionSA’s push to keep her out of the top job.

She told The Political Arena podcast this week: “[Mashaba] doesn’t like me because I called him out on being the EFF mayor when he was supposed to be the DA mayor and for conking in to the EFF on every single issue because they had the balance of power in the city.

“I said we can’t do that. Coalition management does not mean staying in power at all costs. There are some lines you don’t cross, and he didn’t like that. He needs to make up his mind.”

Ntuli said: “A number of us will be very uncomfortable with the display of arrogance of Helen Zille. This thing that she is the messiah, she is going to travel all the way from Cape Town to fix Joburg.”

Responding to Ntuli, Zille said suggestions that she thought she was the messiah existed only in the minds of political leaders. She said the DA had a rigorous process for selecting its mayoral candidates, to which she had also been subjected.

“I decided to put my name forward,” she said. “I wasn’t exempt from any process. There was tough competition, and my name came out. I still felt I had a contribution to make in politics. If the party rejected me, then I would have come to work in any campaign I was put in …”

When asked whether she would work with Mashaba, Zille said she did not know who was being immature in the relationship.

ActionSA chair Michael Beaumont said yesterday the party remained open to exploring all coalition options, including one with the DA and Zille.

“We do have major misgivings and concerns about any arrangement involving Helen Zille, given her well-established track record in destroying any stable and effective coalition in Joburg. Any discussions may need to examine this thoroughly,” he said.

ActionSA and the ANC are due to meet today to discuss a possible agreement, including whether to accommodate Zille.

For its part, the ANC is considering two options for the hung Gauteng metropolitan municipalities.

These include a grand coalition with either the DA or ActionSA, or a minority government in which the ANC would occupy opposition benches while entering into a confidence-and-supply agreement with whichever party governs.

“There is no other option for us. Either it’s a grand coalition between two big parties, or you say the big party governs and then we support the budgets,” said a senior party leader.

The ANC is also not going to push for its mayors to be installed, especially if a coalition arrangement involves more than two political parties.

“We will not take a mayoral position, because we [always] take the blame when [for example] robots are not working in Joburg. The ANC takes the blame because the mayor is ANC. In a coalition like that? No,” said the party leader.

Another senior ANC leader said there were also discussions about reviewing the party’s relationship with the DA as a government of national unity (GNU) partner.

However, another NEC member — who favours an ANC-DA arrangement in the metros — said a grand coalition between the two parties was the only viable option for ensuring stability.

The leader claimed ANC heavyweight David Makhura had been in talks with DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis over the past few weeks.

But any push for an ANC-DA coalition in Gauteng is likely to face resistance from the party’s provincial structures.

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

DA leaders were not reachable for comment yesterday, but the Sunday Times understands that the party has resolved not to publicly comment on the nitty-gritty of coalition talks.

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The ANC’s national leadership will meet this week to determine its approach to coalition negotiations after the party’s worst electoral performance yet, as political formations begin positioning themselves to govern hundreds of hung municipal councils across South Africa.

The party’s national working committee (NWC) is scheduled to meet on Monday, followed by a national executive committee (NEC) meeting on Thursday, where its coalition task team is expected to present various options for adoption ahead of formal negotiations.

Nationally, the ANC garnered 30.7% of the votes, with the DA, MK Party and EFF following with 24.24%, 9.76%, and 6.22% of the vote, respectively. Only Cape Town will be governed with an outright majority after the DA received 56.42% of the vote. The other metros ― Nelson Mandela Bay, Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Buffalo City and eThekwini ― will be governed through coalitions.

“Greater choice and competition is a sign of a strong democracy … to have our election declared free and fair is an incredible achievement,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Sunday. “All who seek public office must be judged by one standard: whether they put public services first.”

The ANC’s internal meetings will be among the first major tests of how it intends to exercise its diminished electoral mandate, with the party facing the prospect of negotiating its way into administrations in municipalities it previously governed outright.

Meanwhile, the DA’s coalition discussions will be co-ordinated nationally under the federal executive’s authority to ensure a consistent, principled approach countrywide, the party’s federal council chair, Ashor Sarupen, said.

“The DA’s federal executive has mandated the party to initiate discussions with political parties that share a commitment to clean and accountable government, rooting out corruption, service delivery for all, the rule of law and nonracialism.”

SACP leader Solly Mapaila told Business Day the party would invite the ANC, EFF, MK and other parties “of the left” to discuss possible coalition partnerships across the 138 hung municipalities.

The negotiations will take place against a 14-day deadline for the new municipal councils to be finalised after the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s declaration of the final results. In the first council meetings councillors will elect mayors, speakers and other officebearers, pressuring parties to reach agreements quickly.

The ANC has already begun preliminary engagements with potential coalition partners, including ActionSA, with discussions so far limited to what the parties are prepared to bring to the negotiating table rather than specific municipal agreements.

WATCH | Business Day political editor, Hajra Omarjee speaks to ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba on the party’s coalition negoations and the proposal that the DA’s Helen Zille not be made mayor of Johannesburg. pic.twitter.com/G5ZSQXM0iT

— Business Day (@BDliveSA) November 8, 2026

The ANC’s national leadership is expected to play a central role in determining which partnerships it pursues, amid indications that provincial and regional structures will have limited autonomy in striking agreements.

Secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said the NEC would determine the party’s approach to coalitions, while ruling out any rush to secure positions at the expense of its political principles.

The ANC has also indicated that it is prepared to sit in opposition where the terms of a coalition agreement do not meet its requirements.

“The ANC will not be in a hurry to get into coalitions. That is not the only option. There is also an option to sit in opposition,” Mbalula said.

The position comes as the party confronts differing political calculations in key provinces and metros, particularly Johannesburg and KwaZulu-Natal, where the election results have altered the balance of power.

In Johannesburg, where the DA emerged ahead of the ANC, the regional party leadership has had to contend with the prospect of losing control of the municipality. The ANC’s Johannesburg structures have indicated a willingness to occupy the opposition benches rather than enter an arrangement that does not serve their interests.

In KwaZulu-Natal the ANC’s provincial leadership has moved to centralise control of coalition negotiations, instructing regional structures not to initiate discussions or enter into agreements with other political parties without prior authorisation.

In a directive dated November 6, provincial co-ordinator James Nxumalo told all regional co-ordinators that the coalition process remained the sole responsibility of the provincial structure and would be guided by a clear provincial mandate.

“No region is authorised to make commitments, enter into agreements or represent the organisation in any coalition engagement without an explicit mandate from the province,” the letter says.

The directive also cautions regional structures against drawing conclusions about potential coalition arrangements, stating that the election results had not yet been formally declared at the time it was issued.

The intervention comes as the MK Party emerged as the leading political formation in KwaZulu-Natal and indicated a preference for working with the ANC, raising the prospect of an alliance between the two parties in municipalities where neither can govern alone.

The directive in effect places the responsibility for determining the ANC’s negotiating position in the province with its provincial leadership while preventing regional structures from pursuing separate arrangements with prospective coalition partners.

Business Day

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Spur Corporation CEO Val Nichas earned R26.1m in total remuneration in the 2026 financial year as the restaurant group, which owns Spur and Rocomamas, completed the five-year strategy she was appointed to lead in 2021.

Her total pay rose from R20.6m in 2025, according to the group’s integrated annual report. It comprised R6.6m in guaranteed pay, a R5.4m short-term incentive, R597,000 in bonus-matching shares and R13.4m from share appreciation rights that vested during the year.

The end of the strategy cycle provides a measure of the growth achieved since 2021, when Spur was dealing with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, including restaurant closures and restrictions, financial pressure on franchisees and uncertainty among employees.

The strategy was built around four stakeholder groups: employees, customers, franchisees and investors. Its priorities included building a high-performance culture and a pipeline of future leaders, advancing employment equity and BEE, investing in marketing and innovation, revitalising lower-margin brands, improving franchisee profitability and lifting returns for investors, with international expansion in markets where its brands had the greatest growth potential.

In 2021-26, the group’s restaurant network grew from 624 to 751, while its loyalty club membership rose from 1.2-million to 2.6-million. The number of customers served annually increased from 48-million to 56-million.

Over the five years, restaurant turnover grew at a compound annual rate of 15.3%, profit before tax 25.1%, earnings per share 27.9% and cash generation 27.5%. Return on equity grew at a compound annual rate of 17.8%, the group said.

Spur’s share price grew at an annual rate of 17.5% over the period, reaching a record R45.49 on May 29, the highest level since the group listed on the JSE in 1986, it said.

Franchisees invested more than R400m in their restaurants in the two years before the report, and the group’s first franchisee satisfaction survey, conducted in the 2026 financial year, recorded a 71% satisfaction score.

On transformation, Spur’s broad-based BEE rating improved from level 8 in 2022 to level 4 in its 2025/26 assessment, and the group met the required threshold for supplier development for the first time.

Nichas said the strategy had been shaped by the need to protect the business while changing its brands and operations to meet customers’ needs.

“It was not the beginning any new CEO would choose, but it brought immediate clarity. We had to decide what mattered most, what needed to change and what should never be lost,” Nichas said.

“Our first responsibility was to protect the foundations of the business, support our franchisees and people, grow turnover and profitability and provide stability at a time when certainty was in short supply.”

Her short-term incentive was calculated using company performance, weighted at 80%, and personal performance, weighted at 20%. The company performance score was 102.5%, while her personal performance factor was 133%.

A further 621,454 share appreciation rights from an allocation made in November 2023 are expected to vest this month. Spur estimated their value at R8.5m, based on a share price proxy of R41.36.

Nichas is not done with Spur, as she prepares for “the next phase”.

“The completion of the initial strategy is not an end. It is a moment to recognise what has been achieved, to acknowledge where we adapted and to be candid about what remains unfinished.

“The next phase will require us to further accelerate growth, expand transformation, strengthen franchisee returns and continue evolving our customer experience,” she said.

Business Day

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The Madlanga commission investigating criminality, political interference and corruption in the criminal justice system will resume its public hearings with alleged criminal kingpin Vusimusi “Cat” Matlala expected to take the stand on Monday and Tuesday.

Over the coming weeks the commission will also hear the testimony of witnesses scheduled to appear under subpoena, including suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu, KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi and crime intelligence head Lt-Gen Dumisani Khumalo.

The commission has heard from several witnesses in camera since October 5 due to ongoing investigations and/or the confidential nature of the material.

Its final report is due to be delivered to President Cyril Ramaphosa by January 25 2027.

TimesLIVE

1968 — France outscore the Springboks three tries to nil in Bordeaux, but the visitors still win the first Test 12-9. Flyhalf Piet Visagie nailed four penalties, three of them in the first half.

1992 — Jockey Michael “Muis” Roberts completes his triumphant season as British champion jockey at Folkstone without adding to his 206 victories, but logging a record 1,068 rides. Roberts was only the fifth jockey in English history to have clocked 200 wins, though he was the first since 1952. His total number of rides was also an English mark, and at 38 he was the oldest first-time winner of the British jockey championship.

1996 — Frans Botha is stopped in the 12th round by IBF heavyweight champion Michael Moorer in Las Vegas. On the same bill, South Africa strawweight champion Morgan Ndumo was stopped in the sixth round by Mexican legend Ricardo Lopez. In the main bout, underdog Evander Holyfield stunned the world by stopping Mike Tyson to take the WBA heavyweight crown.

1996 — The Springboks bag seven tries as they beat Argentina 46-15 in the first Test in Buenos Aires.

1996 — Bafana Bafana, crowned African champions early in the year, kick off their 1998 World Cup qualifying campaign with a 1-0 win over Zaire at the FNB stadium. Striker Phil Masinga scored the winning goal in the 72nd minute.

2002 — The Springboks suffer their worst defeat to France as they go down 10-30 in Marseille. Eighthman Joe van Niekerk scored South Africa’s only try in a match where flyhalf Francois Gelez punished the visitors with five penalties. Wings Vincent Clerc and Cedric Heymans scored tries for the home side. The losing margin eclipsed the 13-point deficit South Africa had endured in 1992.

2007 — Dale Steyn finishes with 5/34 as the Proteas bowl out New Zealand for 118 in the first Test at the Wanderers for a first-innings lead of 108 runs.

2008 — Hashim Amla scores 140 as the Proteas beat Bangladesh by 128 runs in the second ODI at Willowmoore Park in Benoni. Dale Steyn and Johan Botha took three wickets each bowling the visitors out for 230. With the final match a few days later being abandoned, South Africa won the series 2-0.

2008 — The day after claiming the 50m breaststroke world record, Cameron van der Burgh breaks the 100m breaststroke world short-course mark going 56.88sec at the World Cup meet in Moscow, taking more than half-a-second off the previous 57.47 mark set by American Ed Moses in 2003.

2013 — The Springboks score three tries as they beat Wales 24-15 at Millennium Stadium in their opening Test of the end-of-year tour. Centre Jean de Villiers, the captain, hooker Bismarck du Plessis and scrumhalf Fourie du Preez dotted down.

2014 — David Wiese and Robin Peterson take three wickets each in Sydney, but Australia clinch the deciding third T20 against the Proteas by two wickets off the penultimate ball. South Africa made 145/6 with Reeza Hendricks making 49 and Quinton de Kock 48.

2018 — Australia hit back to win the second ODI against the Proteas in Adelaide by seven runs to level the three-match series at 1-1. Kagiso Rabada took four wickets to help bowl out the hosts for 231, with Dwaine Pretorius taking three. David Miller’s 51 was the top score in the South Africa innings, which went the full 50 overs to 224/9.

2020 — Sibulele Holweni scores five goals as Banyana Banyana beat Comoros 7-0 in a Cosafa women’s championship match in Port Elizabeth.

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Again the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has delivered on its constitutional mandate in exemplary fashion. The IEC has steered the country through one of the most complicated and high-pressure elections in our recent history, and its steadfast commitment to free and fair elections in the face of enormous logistical and legal challenges is absolutely worthy of the highest possible praise from every South African who cares about our democracy.

The Constitutional Court ruling setting aside the IEC’s rejection of the ANC’s candidate list pushed the commission into a real rush. They were suddenly on the hook to print 27-million ballots in a week. That was a huge undertaking. On top of that, they had to deal with the fact that there were more candidates to accommodate and had to go back and redo all their planning, which had been done over many months, in the space of just a few days. The IEC leadership and staff responded with sheer professionalism.

It’s a real testament to the IEC’s standing as one of the best-run public institutions in South Africa that, even as costs went through the roof and deadlines were squeezed to the limit, the IEC’s fundamental commitment did not waver in the slightest.

The decision to extend the Constitutional Court’s judgment to all other parties in a similar position (the ANC was not the only party in the litigation) clearly reflects the IEC’s commitment to fairness, equality and the spirit of our constitution. It was not a logistical decision at all. It was a decision about the essence of democracy and about ensuring that every party and every voter is treated with the same respect and equal opportunity.

We know, of course, that no election is going to be completely free of incidents. A few isolated objections, a few complaints from various parties, are to be expected in any election of this magnitude. That said, those things in no way detract from the success of the IEC’s overall effort. The fact that the campaign period was entirely peaceful and orderly and that the IEC was able to deal with and resolve issues fully as they arose is a testament to the quality of the leadership and the commitment of the IEC staff.

To every member of the IEC, from the top down to the staff, your commitment has again strengthened our democracy and underpinned the integrity of our elections.

The IEC has again demonstrated why it is held up as a model institution. The country can and should be grateful for that.

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Irvin Jim, who has been “suspended” as general secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), has written to regional leaders who orchestrated the suspension to provide written representations as to why their membership of the metalworkers’ union should not be terminated.

Numsa’s national office bearers, including Jim, announced recently that their special national executive committee had resolved to suspend the regional leaders, who in turn said they had lost confidence in them.

However, the regional leaders announced at a media briefing that their own executive committee, which met on Monday, had resolved to suspend the office bearers on charges of dereliction of duty, conduct bringing the union into disrepute, gross violations of the Numsa constitution and constitutional procedures, and wasteful expenditure.

The central committee meeting held by the regional leaders in October resolved to strip the national office bearers, including Jim and president Andrew Chirwa, of their powers and replace them with a task co-ordinating team.

In a letter dated November 5 to the regional leaders and Numsa staff members, Jim hit back, saying the task team had no standing within Numsa or authority to speak on behalf of the union “whatsoever” given, among other reasons, that no valid central committee was convened on October 23 2026 and as such any resolutions emanating from that meeting were of no legal effect.

“Accordingly, you are well advised to ignore the content of the letter issued by [task team members] [Silumko] Nondwangu and [Karl] Cloete and make use of the opportunity afforded to you to make written representations as to why your membership/services should not be terminated by 6pm on Saturday November 7 2026. Failing which, Numsa’s national executive committee will proceed to consider your continued membership/services in the absence of any such representations,” Jim said.

However, the regional leaders’ special national executive committee meeting had maintained that the central committee meeting of October 23 was “properly constituted and that its decisions remain valid and binding. No court of law has set aside those decisions.”

In their letter to the “suspended” regional leaders dated November 5, Nondwangu and Cloete said they were writing to “formally advise you of developments regarding the purported suspension issued against you by comrade Irvin Jim”.

“The special national executive committee, duly convened on November 2 2026, considered the decisions and actions taken by comrade Irvin Jim in relation to the suspension of elected leaders and office bearers of the union.

“Having considered the relevant constitutional provisions and surrounding circumstances, the special national executive committee concluded that the purported suspension issued against you was not authorised by the Numsa constitution and was therefore unlawful, unconstitutional, invalid and of no force or effect.

“The special national executive committee accordingly resolved that the purported suspension be lifted with immediate effect and that all comrades affected by such actions be restored to their full rights, responsibilities and standing within the union.”

Nondwangu and Cloete stated the regional leaders remained members and/or elected leaders in good standing, and the “purported suspension issued against you is regarded as invalid and unenforceable”.

“Any restrictions that flowed from that purported suspension are withdrawn. You are entitled to resume and perform all functions, duties and responsibilities attached to your elected position within the union.”

Numsa regional leaders from the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, JC Bez, Mpumalanga and Sedibeng defied Jim by convening a meeting recently of the central committee, the highest decision-making body between national congresses. Jim had written to them to say the meeting scheduled for October 23-25 had been cancelled until further notice.

The letter by Jim followed a ruling by labour court judge Edwin Tlhotlhalemaje preventing Numsa and the office bearers from barring delegates from Mpumalanga from attending, participating and voting at committee meetings.

The dispute arises from events at the Mpumalanga regional congress on June 29 and 30. Before the congress, the region’s Ehlanzeni local shop stewards council resolved that local office bearers would identify and nominate delegates from among its members.

After the congress, a shop steward complained directly to Jim that the process used to select delegates from Ehlanzeni structures was unlawful. They alleged that the election of Ehlanzeni council delegates contravened the Numsa constitution, “which in turn called into question the status of the regional congress and the delegates elected at that congress”.

In a letter dated September 4 to all central committee delegates, Numsa president Andrew Chirwa announced that the committee would reconvene without the Mpumalanga delegates.

This prompted Mpumalanga regional chair Nkosinathi Makhanya to approach the courts for relief.

In his ruling, Tlhotlhalemaje interdicted the office bearers from excluding the Mpumalanga delegation and found that Chirwa “on his own or with the general secretary” had “usurped the powers of the CC, acted ultra vires, and put the cart before the horse” and that such conduct “amounts to self-help”.

Numsa is expected to hold its national congress later this month, where a new national leadership will be elected.

The power struggle and counter-suspensions were viewed as threatening the credibility of the union, the backbone of the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu).

At its peak before its expulsion from Cosatu in November 2014, Numsa was its largest affiliate with about 360,000 members.

The temptation now is to treat the aftermath as a game of coalition horse-trading. That would be a grave misreading of the moment. The ANC’s slide is a matter for its own post-mortem, and it should be treated as such. What matters for the country is what the people’s mandated representatives do next. The argument is simple: the single most important task of every new coalition, whatever its party-political colour, is to fix municipal government, because it is where the state meets the citizen and where the promises of the constitution are either kept or broken.

Think of fixing municipal government as building a house. Pillars alone do not hold up a roof; construction does, and sequence matters. First come the basics: the supremacy of the constitution, the rule of law and a capable, ethical state. These unlock private investment, free each citizen’s potential and make sustainable service delivery possible in our municipalities. Seen this way, the election result is a eucatastrophe: a sudden turn for the better at the moment things looked hopeless, if, and only if, the message from the ballot is understood.

That message is loud. Voters are asking for a change in the essence of local government as the constitution envisaged it. The constitution is clear that local government is a distinct sphere with five objectives: democratic and accountable governance, sustainable services, social and economic development, a safe and healthy environment, and community participation. It also requires municipalities to pursue these within their financial and administrative capacity, prioritising communities’ basic needs.

There is a warning here, too. Co-operative government and sound public administration are the infrastructure of the constitutional order, not its ephemeral surface.

Fixing municipal government therefore requires a structural reset that tackles issues we have ignored for too long: how the budget is expressed spatially across the whole country, the hierarchical mindset that has poisoned relations between spheres of government, and the golden rule that all state-wide planning happens in a municipality. The reset must also elevate local government as the primary site of delivery. Political parties should start fielding leaders who understand its scope, rather than treating it as a place to park leftovers once national and provincial representation has been settled.

There is a warning here, too. Co-operative government and sound public administration are the infrastructure of the constitutional order, not its ephemeral surface. The expectation is that provincial and national government will begin to understand their obligations to municipalities as distinct spheres with distinct political mandates, even in coalition arrangements. Party-political triumphalism in a ballot-dispersed landscape is the eye of the cyclone. If these spheres do not respect municipalities, the fix will fail. The calm will not last, and the rhetoric used to “embrace” voter feedback already shows flashing lights, red or otherwise.

What should the new administrations do? Four things, and in this order, will fix what is broken. Fix municipal infrastructure, because no service can be delivered over broken pipes and roads. Create public-works jobs and end tenderisation, so that spending reaches communities rather than intermediaries. Make inclusion visible, so that every resident sees themselves in the council’s decisions. Renew democratic culture from the ward upwards, so that accountability is built from the ground. If leaders treat this as a contract between themselves and the people, and among citizens themselves, we can fix it faster than the cynics expect.

Accountability must be written into every coalition agreement. Partners should publish clear service-delivery targets, such as water and electricity reliability, refuse removal and road maintenance, and report against them publicly and regularly. Where targets are missed, the parties that share power must share the blame, and voters should be able to see who held which portfolio. A coalition that cannot be held to account for delivery has not earned its place in office.

“Fix Municipal Government” must be experienced as a verb, not a slogan. Coalition agreements should be judged by one test: do they make municipalities work? Leaders should invite the nation to walk this road with them, in our cities and towns, where people meet the state firsthand. The goal is the dignity of our people: basics that work, corruption ended, law and order restored and, ultimately, jobs from an economic revival. The voters have done their part. Now it’s up to those they elected to fix the municipality, or explain why they didn’t.

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The dust has settled on the 2026 local government elections, and the political landscape of South Africa has shuddered. For the ANC and its faithful, the results have arrived not merely as a disappointment, but as a sobering historical rupture. Across the country’s metropolitan municipalities, the loss of absolute majorities has signalled a decisive end to the era of unchallenged liberation politics.

Yet, to frame this election solely as a narrative of shifting party fortunes, rising coalitions, or voter fatigue is to misread the deeper, more structural crisis facing the republic. The ballot box did not create South Africa’s divisions; it merely illuminated them. When we evaluate the 2026 poll through the diagnostic architecture of The Lehohla Ledger* and the unyielding metric of spatial autocorrelation — specifically Moran’s I — a stark and unsettling reality emerges. The election results are an acute symptom of a much deeper, unhealed pathology: continued spatial injustice.

Beyond the ballot: reading the land

For decades, mainstream political commentary has treated elections as ephemeral horse races, bounded by manifesto launches, media spin and the transient theatre of campaign trails. But as my framework demonstrates through its thousands of empirical instruments, human geography tells a more permanent, unvarnished story.

The Lehohla Ledger forces us to look past aggregate municipal averages — which routinely mask profound internal disparities — and examine the granular mesh of our settlements. It maps out how apartheid’s engineered geography has not only survived the democratic transition but, in many ways, metastasised.

Consider the textbook microcosm of this spatial apartheid: the infamous 75-metre divide across the M1 highway separating Alexandra from Sandton. In Sandton’s affluent wards, governance has largely shifted towards privatised security, insulated ratepayer-driven maintenance and high-turnout civic engagement — a “Low-Low” spatial cluster of stability and capital retention. Just a stone’s throw away, Alexandra’s high-density formal and informal voting districts struggle under the weight of crumbling bulk infrastructure, staggering youth unemployment, and the structural “1:1 Ratio Paradox”, where the pool of formal workers is overwhelmed by dependents. This is a classic “High-High” cluster of systemic deprivation.

The mathematical fingerprint of apartheid’s ghost

Why did the 2026 elections produce such seismic political shifts, and why are ANC followers left grappling with such profound losses? The answer lies in the behaviour of Moran’s I, the statistical measure of spatial autocorrelation.

An increasing Moran’s I tells us something alarming: poverty and wealth in South Africa are becoming increasingly clustered and entrenched. Instead of post-apartheid urban planning diffusing development and integrating historically segregated spaces, our metro areas are hardening into hyper-segregated enclaves. Wealth clusters tightly with wealth; destitution clusters intensely with destitution.

When spatial injustice deepens, democracy ceases to be viewed as an instrument of transformation and is instead experienced as an empty ritual.

As Moran’s I ticks upward, it locks spatial injustice into the very physical layout of our cities. When public goods, municipal revenue and infrastructural investment follow historical lines of privilege, the social contract frays. For the ANC, which built its legitimacy on the promise of a united, non-racial and equitable society, this increasing spatial polarisation acts as an unyielding political indictment.

When voters in townships like Alexandra or the peripheral margins of our metros cast their ballots — or chose, in millions of instances, to abstain not out of sheer cynicism but painful experiences — they were reacting to this spatial trap. Clientelist politics and historic loyalty cannot survive a geography where daily life is defined by uncollected garbage, dry taps and impassable roads, all while prosperity glitters visibly across a highway. The rising Moran’s I measures the physical distance between the ruling party’s liberation promises and the inescapable, concrete reality of the township periphery.

The political fallout: coalition paralysis and the periphery

The 2026 results — marked by the loss of the ANC’s majority and the proliferation of fragmented municipal councils — mean that South Africa has entered an era of complex coalition governance. For disappointed ANC loyalists, the immediate instinct is to look for tactical missteps, leadership errors or external interference.

However, the Ledger suggests that tinkering with political coalitions or changing executive mayors will yield little change if the underlying spatial economy remains untouched. In “High-High” poverty clusters, voters have moved decisively away from traditional loyalties. In some wards, protest parties and radical economic formations capitalised on the rage of the unmapped and unserved; in others, profound voter apathy signalled a quiet secession from the ballot box, with citizens seeking autonomous survival strategies entirely outside the state.

When spatial injustice deepens, democracy ceases to be viewed as an instrument of transformation and is instead experienced as an empty ritual. The rising Moran’s I is a warning light on the dashboard of the state: it indicates that structural inequality is reproducing itself faster than political parties can adapt to it.

Towards a data-driven spatial reckoning

If the 2026 local government elections teach us anything, it is that political power without spatial restructuring is hollow. Winning a plurality or cobbling together a fragile, short-lived municipal coalition is no longer enough when the underlying geography is structurally insolvent.

To honour the sacrifices of our history and address the genuine grief of voters who watched their historic movement lose its grip on the majority, South Africa’s political leadership across all parties must look down from the podium and look into the data.

Healing the nation requires a generational commitment to spatial justice guided by rigorous empirical instruments. It demands decentralising economic engines, retrofitting neglected infrastructure in high-deprivation zones, and dismantling the physical barriers that make our cities monuments to division rather than integration.

The 2026 election is a historic turning point. It can either be the beginning of a chaotic descent into municipal paralysis, or it can serve as the rude awakening that forces South Africa to finally rewrite its geography. The numbers have spoken; the map is clear. It is now up to the state to bridge the gap before the rising Moran’s I draws a line that cannot be crossed.

* The author’s experience in statistical applications of 65 years has consolidated in what has become 2,752 instruments of the Lehohla Ledger. It is an intellectual trove driven by over 3,500 articles that Dr Pali Lehohla has penned throughout his work life as a bureaucrat and as a member of the public

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A Judicial Conduct Tribunal set to probe a complaint against Eastern Cape High Court judge Belinda Hartle over alleged use of a racist slur and swearing at a court official will begin this week.

The tribunal, consisting of retired Supreme Court of Appeal justices Boissie Mbha and Sharise Weiner and Legal Practice Council chair advocate Pule Seleka, will investigate allegations against Hartle and whether she is guilty of gross misconduct.

The hearing has been scheduled to begin on Monday and run until November 18 in Sandton, Johannesburg.

A gross misconduct finding by a tribunal and endorsed by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) could lead to a recommendation of impeachment to be voted for by parliament. If impeached, the judge could lose her lifetime salary benefit and her job as a judge.

The complaint against Hartle was filed by a court official, Thozamile Semekazi, who alleged Hartle hurled derogatory and racist remarks at him in the East London (now KuGompo City) high court chambers in May 2025.

Hartle has denied the allegation before the Judicial Conduct Committee (JCC), which dealt with the matter before the JSC.

Semekazi alleged he was belittled by the judge when he delivered “a pile of case files” to Hartle’s office. The case files were delayed.

“Judge Hartle did not even allow me to speak for myself; what she heard from [the secretary] was sufficient for her to the extent that, while standing at the door, facing the inside of her secretary’s office, while I was seated … she uttered the following words to my face: ‘F**k you’, ‘p**s man’, and as she turned to look at her secretary, continued with the insults and said, ‘I am tired of [registrar Thabosa] Mafalala’s staff, bloody f**king k****r’ — with such a confident, loud and aggressive, firm voice,” Semekazi alleged.

Semekazi said the judge later apologised to him.

Hartle, before the JCC, denied using the k-word. She, however, accepted that she used an “expletive” but said it was not directed at Semekazi. The judge said that she had been dealing with delayed delivery of files for cases to be heard.

“In my brief interaction with Mr Semekazi — who I did not expect to be seated in my secretary’s office when I entered to inform her of the status of the trial I was hearing — I did inform him very firmly that I would not be accepting the chair-load of files that was standing in the entrance to her office. It is my sharp rebuke that must have upset him,” the JCC report quotes Hartle as having said.

“My expression of frustration with regard to the registrar’s abuse of my kindness was directed at [the secretary] Ms Frost and her alone. I used a single expletive. I hardly had time to consider who was present in her office before the word had slipped out. I immediately apologised to the stranger in our midst [Mr Semekazi] that I was sorry for the word.”

Before the JCC, Hartle disputed ever using the k-word and accused Semekazi of grossly misrepresenting the interaction. She said the complaint constitutes an attempt to undermine her work and destroy her.

The tribunal takes place months after Eastern Cape judge president Selby Mbenenge also faced a tribunal probing a complaint of sexual harassment against him lodged by a judge’s secretary, Andiswa Mengo.

Business Day

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By Ned Parker, John Shiffman, Mike Spector, Peter Eisler and Linda So

As Republicans faced a nationwide drubbing in Tuesday’s midterm elections, supporters streamed out of a Dallas ballroom where they’d hoped to toast a win for US Senate candidate Ken Paxton, a favourite of President Donald Trump.

In the hotel bar, Michael Little, a 59-year-old businessman and three-time Trump voter, stared at the president’s image on a television screen. “People are pissed off at Trump. Trump has cost us,” he said, capturing a sentiment rippling through the president’s Make America Great Again movement after the Republican Party’s worst electoral defeat in decades.

Across the coalition, some supporters who once viewed Trump as MAGA’s greatest asset are beginning to question whether he’s become its biggest liability.

The midterm losses amounted to more than a repudiation of Trump. They were a referendum on the political and cultural movement he built. A defining force in American politics that began as a campaign slogan during Trump’s 2016 presidential run now faces a potentially existential reckoning after voters disillusioned with soaring fuel prices, the Iran war and Washington corruption delivered Democrats decisive congressional majorities.

Trump’s first major response to the midterms came on Friday. Instead of changing course, he doubled down on the movement’s core. He promoted Stephen Miller, the main architect of the administration’s hardline immigration crackdown, to chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles. Wiles was seen as a stabilising force inside an often chaotic White House.

The move was celebrated by some of MAGA’s most ardent influencers, who saw it as a return to the anti-immigration agenda at the movement’s roots. “Exactly the energy we need,” right-wing influencer Benny Johnson posted on X to his 4.1-million followers. “Solid move. It’s Miller Time.”

The White House did not directly answer Reuters’ questions about why Republicans lost, the defeat of candidates who embraced Trump’s false 2020 election claims, or where MAGA goes from here. Instead, it pointed to Trump’s remarks on Wednesday, when he said, “If I were on the ballot, we would have won.” He also said it was “largely true” that the Iran war had cost Republicans because “it drove the gasoline up”, but that he’d do it again.

For nearly a decade, MAGA has reshaped the Republican Party and transformed national debates on issues such as trade, immigration, race and gender. The movement installed loyalists throughout federal agencies, cracked down on immigration and pressured corporations and public institutions to retreat from diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. MAGA survived the fallout from the January 6 2021, attack on the US Capitol and propelled Trump back to the White House. In Trump’s second term, MAGA was no longer a faction of the Republican Party; it was the party.

Now, the Democrats’ sweeping victory has forced the movement to grapple with an unexpected question: is MAGA over?

Reuters interviews with more than a dozen MAGA activists, influencers, party strategists, Christian nationalist leaders and researchers who track right-wing politics, along with a review of MAGA supporters’ posts and podcasts since Tuesday, show a movement turning its anger on itself.

The stolen-election claims that have driven MAGA since Democrat Joe Biden beat Trump in the 2020 presidential election have mostly gone quiet. Instead, supporters are blaming Republican leaders and Trump’s advisers, and in some cases the president himself, for broken promises on living costs, the Iran war and the government’s decision to redact or withhold major portions of its investigative files on late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

MAGA’s factions also disagree about what comes next. Some want a return to populist and nationalist basics. Some want a movement less tied to one man. And a vocal minority say MAGA is already dead.

“We have to rebuild,” Steve Bannon, a prominent MAGA proponent, podcaster and former Trump White House adviser, told Reuters. He urged the party to double down on an aggressive populist and nationalist agenda and praised Trump for elevating Miller. “Miller’s appointment as chief of staff underpins my point,” he said. “There is no more hardcore MAGA proponent than Stephen.”

As pro-Trump internet forums digested the election results, a notable slice of self-described MAGA loyalists – more than 20% – raised doubts about the movement’s leadership and direction, according to an analysis of social media traffic done for Reuters by PeakMetrics, a data intelligence firm. About half of that cohort remained supportive of the MAGA movement but no longer backed Trump as its leader. The other half remained loyal to, though critical of, the president himself.

The analysis was based on 12,850 posts sampled from a universe of 4.6-million Trump-related comments on X and Reddit from 9pm on Election Day to 8 pm the next evening. It found broad concern among MAGA supporters as the results became clear. Of the posts that assigned blame for the rout, nearly a third said concerns about the Iran war and Israel’s influence over US policy had overshadowed Trump’s message. A quarter said Republicans not fully committed to the MAGA agenda had undermined the movement.

The results left Trump facing large Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress. Democrats could hold as many as 56 of the Senate’s 100 seats, more than enough to block his judicial nominees. They will also hold governorships in all seven battleground states Trump won in 2024, and they swept every statewide race in Texas, which last backed a Democrat for president in 1976.

Some prominent Republicans, long wary of a MAGA base that punished dissent, have begun openly criticising Trump.

Republican US Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said on Saturday that corruption was present in “all branches of government”, including “I’m sad to say, within the Trump administration.” He cited Calley Means, a former White House adviser who told The Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Friday that Trump’s top aides catered to special interests and blocked policies popular with Trump’s Make America Healthy Again movement. Voters “were expecting us to drain the swamp, but it seems like the swamp won”, Johnson told Fox News.

Asked about Johnson’s remarks and Means’ accusations, White House spokesperson Allison Schuster did not address the corruption allegations, saying Trump had “made incredible strides to Make America Healthy Again”.

On Sunday, Republican US Representative Marlin Stutzman of Indiana, who won reelection despite his party’s losses, called Trump’s promotion of Miller a “bad mistake”. “You don’t promote those who were in charge,” Stutzman told CNN. “He’s not liked out here in the Midwest by people. They don’t like his tone,” he said of Miller.

White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said Miller had “been a key player” in delivering on Trump’s agenda “since day one” and would “continue to deliver historic successes” as chief of staff. The White House also pointed to statements from 19 Republican lawmakers supporting Miller’s promotion.

‘MAGA is stale’

The midterm losses have muffled one of MAGA’s loudest refrains: since Tuesday, talk of election fraud has virtually vanished among right-wing influencers.

“I have been banging the drum of rigged and stolen elections since 2020, but that is not why we lost the midterms,” Rogan O’Handley, a MAGA influencer who posts under the name DC_Draino, wrote on X to his 2.3-million followers. “We lost because we failed to fix the things voters sent us to do.” He didn’t respond to a request for comment.

After the 2020 election, Trump supporter Isabella DeLuca was among thousands who stormed the US Capitol on January 6 2021. She was charged with five crimes, including theft of a table from inside the Capitol, and pleaded not guilty. Her case was dismissed after Trump returned to office and pardoned her.

This time, the 26-year-old conservative influencer directed her anger towards what she described as out-of-touch Republican leaders who failed to appeal to Gen Z voters on affordability, avoiding foreign wars and other key issues.

“Republicans were just lazy. They felt like that they were entitled to people’s votes and that people would vote for them no matter what,” DeLuca told Reuters. “It goes to show you that you do have to earn people’s votes, and that even in a super red state like Texas, you’re not untouchable.”

The MAGA movement this year appeared “tired”, she said.

That sentiment was echoed in online right-wing forums, said Jennifer Golbeck, a University of Maryland professor who has analysed MAGA-related posts since 2016. She said engagement by Trump’s most loyal backers has steadily declined since January, including a 27% drop in posts and comments on Patriots.Win, a popular MAGA forum.

”The enthusiasm and the passion even among this hardest core group of supporters hasn’t really been there," Golbeck said. “They are saying that ‘MAGA is stale.’ It’s not new and exciting like it once was.”

Fox News, a cable network that has long been a key platform for MAGA voices, saw a sharp decline in viewership ahead of the midterms, with its total daytime audience down 27% in October from a year earlier, according to Nielsen, the audience measurement firm. In a statement to Reuters, Fox said it drew more viewers than its cable-news rivals on election night. “FOX News has been the number one network in cable news for a quarter century,” the network said.

Some prominent right-wing influencers blamed the president’s advisers or Republican lawmakers ― but rarely Trump himself ― for ignoring key voter concerns. In posts, online broadcasts and interviews with Reuters, many blamed dissatisfaction with the economy, though they differed on other reasons for Tuesday’s results.

It wasn’t just failure to address affordability that “crushed” Republicans, said Ben Shapiro, co-founder of the conservative site Daily Wire, on his online show on Wednesday. “If you’re talking about an electoral catastrophe ― a wipeout like we saw last night ― you need more ingredients. Here are the other ingredients: chaos and corruption.”

Laura Loomer, an influencer close to Trump, wrote on X: “America is over and the American Dream is dead.” Yet she told Reuters the losses did not signal the end of MAGA, arguing that anyone seeking the 2028 Republican presidential nomination would need Trump’s base.

“The Republican Party belongs to President Trump,” Loomer said. “The MAGA movement is still the majority of the GOP base, and whoever wants to run for president in 2028 on the GOP ticket, they would be unwise to be dismissive of President Trump.”

On Thursday, Loomer put her podcast on hiatus, saying she had been “running on empty for too long” and needed to focus on her personal life and upcoming wedding. She’ll return in January, she added.

Broken promises

The midterms also tested the beliefs that have held MAGA together, and some of them are giving way.

The Democratic sweep dealt a significant setback to the election denial movement, a central pillar of MAGA politics since Trump’s 2020 defeat. Candidates who embraced his false claims of widespread voter fraud lost heavily, including several who had worked to overturn the 2020 result. Election deniers will hold at least 41 fewer congressional and statewide offices next year, and they have lost 70% of the called races for statewide posts that oversee elections, according to States United Action, a nonprofit that tracks such candidates. Trump made no effort to contest the results and instead blamed Republicans for the defeat.

With few close races and no credible basis for a challenge, many prominent pro-Trump election skeptics dropped fraud allegations and urged supporters to keep organising. A handful of allies still alleged, without evidence, that the vote was rigged. Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder and promoter of false claims that machines flipped votes in 2020, said he was not concerned by Trump’s pledge to accept the results. “That’s his opinion. I’ve got a different opinion,” Lindell told Reuters. “I think it’s all been stolen.”

But such claims stayed largely on the fringe, even among Republicans. Without contested races, the MAGA election denial movement risks losing the money, attention and momentum that sustained it. “Nobody’s going to be putting money behind it,” said Wendy Via, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, a nonprofit that tracks hate speech and extremism.

Retired Lieutenant-General Mike Flynn, who falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen and is a popular figure in the Christian nationalist wing of the MAGA movement, accepted the defeat. He called the results “a massacre” and criticised Trump and his administration for failing to deliver on pledges ranging from lowering costs to releasing the government’s investigative files on Epstein.

Responding to Vice President JD Vance’s assessment on X that the Iran war was “the reason we lost”, Flynn wrote: “the sheer number of broken promises is why the blue tsunami happened.”

Flynn also criticised Christian voters for failing to show up. “As a Catholic and a Christian, I’m sorely embarrassed and disappointed,” he wrote.

Other prominent Christian nationalists were divided over whether MAGA can outlast Trump.

Douglas Wilson, a Christian nationalist pastor who was invited by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to deliver a sermon at the Pentagon in February, told Reuters that MAGA “is not going anywhere” but must become less personality-driven and more focused on border control, tax cuts and avoiding foreign wars.

Joel Webbon, a far-right Christian nationalist pastor from Texas, was far less sanguine. “Trump lost this all by himself,” he said in a video on X, arguing that the president abandoned his base by embracing Israel, launching the war in Iran and failing to follow through on releasing the Epstein files and mass deportations.

“MAGA is dead,” Webbon wrote in an accompanying post. “Forever.”

Reuters

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Nomusa Zulu, 63, who died after collapsing at the Shallcross Primary School voting station in Demat, about 20km southwest of the Durban CBD, on Wednesday morning, was laid to rest at Mopel cemetery in Hammarsdale on Saturday.

The former expanded public works programme worker had cleaned the roads in her locality until two years ago when she went on pension.

Her family told TimesLIVE they had to make the funeral arrangements with their meagre resources, without any assistance, messages of condolence or visits from the IEC or any government agency.

For them, that silence has become part of the pain.

Her sister Cynthia said she and members of her family would not bother to vote again.

“There is no point in voting because nobody cares,” Cynthia said.

“She went to vote because she believed her vote would change things. Now we are burying her alone.”

The family said only the MK Party, which won ward 72 where Demat’s Shallcross Primary School voting station was located, that extended visits, condolences and promises to assist the family with funeral arrangements.

Zulu collapsed while standing in the queue at the voting station. She died on arrival at Chatsworth’s RK Khan Hospital in Chatsworth, about 7km by road from the voting station.

The family says they had to call an e-hailing vehicle themselves to take her there, despite many police vehicles and cars belonging to IEC officials present at the scene.

“No one thought of transporting her to hospital,” a family member said.

Her daughter, Amanda Zulu, said her mother was so excited about going out to vote.

“She normally wakes up at 4am on the voting day, on Wednesday she was up at about 5.30am. By 6.30am she was already pestering me saying ‘We must go early so that we must come back and rest’,” Amanda said.

“At about 7.30am we made our way to the voting station. It took us about 30 minutes because the voting station is far away. When we arrived at the station, officials said, as an elderly person, she must go to the front and vote and she left me in the ordinary queue.

“A few moments later I got a call from one of the neighbours saying I must rush inside the voting station as my mother had collapsed. I hurried in and found her on the floor.”

The family is angry and believe Zulu could have been saved if IEC officials at the station had rushed her to a medical facility. They say the IEC should have ensured there were people with medical training at voting stations.

Previous reports said election observer Pretty Jwarah, who was at the station, said bystanders gave Zulu water, contacted her daughter and called for an ambulance.

On Thursday, provincial electoral officer Ntombifuthi Masinga confirmed the death and conveyed the IEC’s condolences.

TimesLIVE

It was not fluent or convincing, but the poacher’s goal by Martin Odegaard in the 72nd minute earned Mikel Arteta’s side a sixth league win by a single-goal margin this season.

Arsenal moved to 27 points from 10 games, six clear of second-placed Manchester City, who were last night going to try and bounce back from consecutive defeats at Nottingham Forest.

The Gunners showed last season a champion’s knack for picking up wins even without hitting top gear and it was very much in evidence against a Hull side who provided a stern test.

Captain Odegaard had not scored since September but was on hand to snaffle a rebound after Noni Madueke’s shot had been saved by Hull keeper Konstantinos Tzolakis.

Tottenham Hotspur’s recent revival came to a halt as they went down 1-0 at Leeds United, for whom Noah Okafor struck the winner 97 seconds after coming off the bench at Elland Road.

There was controversy, though, with Leeds fortunate not to be reduced to 10 men in the first half when Jayden Bogle escaped a red card for a dangerous tackle on Mathys Tel.

Tottenham were seeking a fourth successive win but faded against Leeds, and Okafor drove home a low shot from the edge of the area in the 79th minute. That proved enough for Leeds to end a five-match winless league run and move above Tottenham into eighth place with 14 points. Tottenham have 12 points.

Tottenham fans were furious that Bogle was spared any punishment for his rash lunge on Tel, which resulted in the Spurs winger being forced off with an ankle injury — the VAR check on the challenge taking four minutes.

Visiting manager Roberto de Zerbi played down the controversy, however. “I’m sorry for the result, but first of all I’m sorry for the performance in the second half,” the Italian said.

“We didn’t play like a top team, we played without the right spirit, the right character, the right physicality in the duels.”

In another game, Fulham and Newcastle United shared the spoils in a 1-1 draw at Craven Cottage, with Jacob Murphy giving the hosts a late lead only for Rodrigo Muniz to equalise.

Reuters

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The moment Pieter-Steph du Toit flattened right wing Ange Capuozzo, it was clear the Springboks had no mercy for the understrength Italians in Turin yesterday.

The 45-0 advantage they took into the break confirmed that determination, while their near-flawless display in the first half had one wondering how they might identify what to improve on before taking on France in Paris on Friday night.

Up front and in the backline, South Africa had looked like a million dollars.

Hooker Malcolm Marx was at his best, dotting down twice to take his career tally to 31, just one behind Jaque Fourie and two behind Makazole Mapimpi, the country’s third-highest try-scorer.

Flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu was brilliant again, scoring a try and slotting in nine conversions and a penalty, while winger Ethan Hooker was a constant threat down the left touchline.

Scrumhalf Morné van den Berg was sublime at the base of the scrum.

At least the Boks looked far more human in the second period before running out 66-7 winners; the Italians performed better, but they were still far from world-beater status.

Until Paul de Villiers scored from a maul with eight minutes remaining, the teams had been level 7-7 for the second half. Hooker went over for a well-deserved five-pointer at the death to restore the aura of dominance.

Coach Rassie Erasmus admitted the Boks would need to be better against France and Ireland in their final two Nations Championship contests.

“We know it wasn’t perfect. I know we have to play much better than this if we want to be competitive against France and Ireland, but it’s nice to know that being a month away from each other, the boys just got together and clicked, so that was satisfying.”

The match at Stade de France could prove to be the toughest on the Bok route towards glory in the inaugural competition.

We wanted to get back onto the horse and win. We rolled the dice against Australia, and a lot of the guys were in sync and didn’t have a lot of game time, so we just wanted to get back [to] winning again.

Rassie Erasmus, Springbok coach

South Africa and the All Blacks, who beat Scotland 43-21 yesterday, are both unbeaten on 20 points with four bonus-point victories apiece. The Springboks are top of the Southern Hemisphere log by virtue of a superior points difference — 67 — but they will need to at least match New Zealand, who face Wales and England in their final two games, for match and bonus points to remain No 1 and earn a spot in the November 29 final.

Erasmus wasn’t particularly fazed by the shift in momentum after the break.

“It’s always almost impossible to put 80 minutes 100% together.

“Obviously, we were not constantly happy with the second half … we don’t think Italy is a bad team. They’re a proud team, and they would always start running the ball from everywhere in the second half,” said Erasmus, who made six substitutions soon after the restart, including bringing off Marx and captain Siya Kolisi, another try-scorer.

“We made some changes we wanted to see, and then you do lose a little bit of rhythm, but I think we can’t fault the guys if we win 66-7.

“I don’t think you can start nitpicking problems into the second half.

“Obviously it wasn’t perfect, but I think it was proper.”

The Italian scrum did trouble the Boks a couple of times, even winning a penalty in the second half, and this could be an area the French might try to target.

And the hosts’ sole try — coming from a long pass to unmarked lock Federico Ruzza on the left touchline — showed that there are weaknesses to be exploited in the South African defence.

But the Boks were barely under any sort of pressure that France would be hoping to apply, but then again, Erasmus viewed the Italy encounter as a way of getting back to winning after losing to Australia.

“We wanted to get back onto the horse and win.

“We rolled the dice against Australia, and a lot of the guys were in sync and didn’t have a lot of game time, so we just wanted to get back [to] winning again.”

Another positive was that there were no serious injuries to report. Lock Salmaan Moerat withdrew shortly before kickoff because of a back spasm. “Hopefully it’s not too serious,” said Erasmus.

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The University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Master of Business Administration (MBA) programme has climbed five places to rank second in the Knights Better World MBA Ranking.

This ranking assessed 166 MBA programmes worldwide on how they include sustainability in business education and the impact their graduates have after completing their studies.

The ranking made UCT’s MBA programme the highest ranked in Africa.

UCT’s Graduate School of Business (GSB) moved ahead of Australia’s Griffith Business School, which had held the top position for six consecutive years. Maastricht University’s School of Business and Economics in the Netherlands took first place.

Speaking to TimesLIVE, CT GSB director and dean Dr Catherine Duggan said the improvement followed changes to the MBA programme aimed at preparing students to deal with complex business challenges, including technological disruption and sustainability.

“The programme has introduced two new courses, Navigating Digital Disruption and Data-Driven Decision Making, which examine how artificial intelligence (AI) and digital technologies are changing business models and management decisions,” she said.

The programme’s African focus was another important part of its approach, with students learning to work in markets where businesses often have to adapt to uncertainty.

Caitlin Ferreira, associate professor and modular MBA programme director

Duggan said the courses also look at the social and ethical impact of these technologies, including who benefits from their use and how they can support inclusive growth.

“The school had also changed its teaching and assessment methods to encourage students to think critically about technology,” Duggan said.

“In one accounting assignment, for example, students use AI to complete a project before examining and questioning its results,” she said. “83% of our core courses are now engaged with issues of impact and sustainability, compared with an average of about 49% across the top 40 schools in the ranking.”

She said the ranking also placed greater emphasis on what graduates do after completing their studies. The weighting given to graduate impact doubled from 10% to 20%. “This measures the number of graduates working in sustainability-related positions or at organisations with a social or environmental mission,” she said.

Duggan said 62% of UCT GSB’s recent graduates were working in impact-focused roles and organisations, compared with an average of 25% among other schools in the ranking. These include graduates working in:

• renewable energy;
• sustainable development;
• financial services;
• social enterprises; and
• organisations supporting digital transformation across Africa.

Associate professor and modular MBA programme director, Caitlin Ferreira, said the stronger focus on graduate outcomes was important because it looked beyond what students learnt in the classroom to how they used their qualifications in the workplace.

“The programme’s African focus was another important part of its approach, with students learning to work in markets where businesses often have to adapt to uncertainty,” she said.

She said the school wanted to build a position in the global market that reflected the knowledge and innovation coming from the continent.

“Some of the most interesting innovation in the world is happening in Africa, and executives and business schools around the world have much they could learn from the approaches and insights we are developing on the continent.”

She said the ranking shows that the school has become a global leader in the way it approaches business education while highlighting the work being done across Africa.

TimesLIVE

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When international musical sensation and three-time Grammy-winning flautist Wouter Kellerman’s business partner, Tholsi Pillay, joined him on his improbable journey to stardom, she told him: “Wouter, you’re a middle-aged white flute player in Africa. It’s not looking very good. I think you’re going to need my help.” It was indeed an almost quixotic quest.

We are at Fairlawns Boutique Hotel & Spa in Sandton for a Wine & Executive Club dinner, quaffing Glenelly Estate’s Lady May while contemplating the extraordinary second act of a man who spent 20 years waiting to fulfil his childhood ambition.

The wine pairing could not be more serendipitous. Madame May-Éliane de Lencquesaing bought Glenelly — then a Stellenbosch fruit farm — at the tender age of 76. She had already embarked on a second act, inheriting a French wine estate at 55 and studying oenology after years as a peripatetic military wife. Glenelly was the third act for the now centenarian.

Kellerman’s first act began in Linden, Johannesburg, in a household dominated by classical music, with one exception.

“There was one non-classical album, a Miriam Makeba album, which I played night and day. And when my mom went off to work, the lady who looked after me played only African music the whole morning. So from very early on, I really enjoyed the crossover.”

His mother was a chemist, his father a banker, and at 10, following a family outing to the symphony orchestra, he chose the flute and never put it down.

“I liked the idea of expressing myself with my breath. I absolutely loved playing the flute. My teacher was so amazing; she was so encouraging.”

School was an unhappy place. Despite being academically gifted, he constantly whistled melodies under his breath, irritating his teachers. One saddled him with an unkind nickname that stuck throughout primary school.

“It was terrible. There was a lot of bullying, a very difficult time, and in the middle of that was this teacher who was incredibly encouraging. It just takes someone to encourage you.”

His talents lay in music and mathematics, but the family couldn’t afford music studies. An Anglo American scholarship offered an alternative: electrical and electronic engineering.

He continued practising, performed with the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra, and, after working on the coal mines, attempted to become a professional musician.

“Within six months, my money had run out. So I had to go back to engineering.”

By then he had a young family. His marriage ended, he gained custody of his children and became their primary caregiver.

“I was the taxi dad that looked after the homework, that took them to their lessons. It just didn’t work to be a musician.

“So I started my own engineering software company, which I ran in the mornings; the afternoons I spent with the kids, and in the evenings I would try and find an hour to play the flute.”

For two decades, he maintained this balancing act, allowing himself three weeks each year for international masterclasses.

“My mom told me that perseverance is so much more important than talent, and I kept that in mind. I just kept on practising every day.”

Finally, at 44, with his children sufficiently independent and his financial obligations settled, he took the plunge.

“People thought I was being crazy. I was having a midlife crisis. But I had waited 20 years. There was absolutely no way I was not going to give it a full try.”

He insists this was calculated rather than reckless. “I had paid off my house, my car, my kids’ studies. Everything was paid off. I couldn’t do it earlier because that could maybe have put my family at risk.”

Success was hardly instantaneous. His first album was mixed in Los Angeles by a producer whose previous project had won eight Grammys, but the major labels weren’t interested.

“I remember walking into Universal, and the guy says to me, ‘Wouter, we love you. We love your music. We think you’re amazing, but it’s just not our thing.’ And I looked on his desk. There was the CD still in its plastic. He had not even listened.”

Undeterred, Kellerman rented the UJ Theatre for three nights, distributed flyers on parked cars and enlisted his friends to fill seats. The resulting DVD won him his first South African Music Award.

His philosophy remains uncompromising. “If you can imagine it better, redo it. And I can always imagine it better.”

Engineering had taught him that artistic excellence alone doesn’t guarantee success.

“Musicians can’t just be musicians. You have to run your 360-degree music business. I’m hands-on with every aspect.”

For Kellerman and Pillay, this meant doorstepping journalists, sleeping on floors and couches in the US and fighting relentlessly to change perceptions of the middle-aged white man and his flute.

International recognition followed, although he remains pragmatic. “The Grammy doesn’t automatically open doors. It’s not like people are going to book you because of it, but it’s a fantastic tool in your arsenal.”

His greatest pleasure seems to lie in collaboration. He recalls working with traditional musicians at Rajasthan’s folk festival in Jodhpur.

“They don’t speak any English, but still we’re able to spend a few days and create a whole evening of music. It blows my mind that people from completely different places in the world can find each other.”

Building bridges through music remains his mission, evident in his latest collaboration, Drum in My Heart, with Makhadzi Entertainment.

Yet receiving South Africa’s Order of Ikhamanga in Gold earlier this year moved him more profoundly than the Grammys.

“For me, the most important recognition is at home, where the people that I love are. People in South Africa matter. To me that’s a higher, more important award than the Grammy. It just touches my heart more.”

In Pressure, Oscar-winning actor Brendan Fraser takes on the role of Gen Dwight D. Eisenhower, the American military commander who made one of the most consequential decisions of the war.

Directed by Anthony Maras and based on David Haig’s stage play, the film unfolds over the nerve-racking 72 hours preceding the June 1944 invasion. Andrew Scott plays British meteorologist James Stagg, whose prediction of violent storms threatens to derail an operation involving thousands of troops, ships and aircraft.

With conflicting forecasts, impatient generals and the possibility of catastrophic losses, Eisenhower must decide whether to postpone the invasion or proceed as planned. Neither option offers comfort.

Fraser brings humanity and vulnerability to a man history tends to remember as an imposing military figure, exploring the extraordinary burden of leadership when every decision carries potentially devastating consequences.

We spoke to Fraser about stepping into Eisenhower’s shoes, the responsibility of portraying a historical figure and the very human fears behind one of history’s most momentous decisions.

I’m Brendan Fraser. I play Dwight Eisenhower, “Ike”, in the film Pressure.

On the historical figure of Eisenhower

Eisenhower wasn’t a glory hound in my understanding of who he was. He had an ability to hear everyone out. He was fallible. He didn’t always make the correct decisions, but when he made a mistake, he owned it.

He wanted to do and make choices that were in the interests of what was fundamentally the best thing to do, ethically and morally. He was duty bound — a career soldier. He went on to become a five-star general and one of the most popular US presidents ever. I grew to be a real fan of the guy. I didn’t expect that that would happen.

On Eisenhower’s responsibilities

He had written letters, famous ones, two of them: One was in the event of success and one was in the event of failure. In the event of success, he thanked the troops for their service and accomplishment and said, “We’re just getting started, basically.” In the case of failure, he took responsibility and said, “If there’s any reason this didn’t succeed, the fault is mine and mine alone.”

On the pressure Eisenhower faced

The pressure that came with it was from the top. It was from below. It was from the soldiers in his command, the leaders he needed to please, the president, [British prime minister Winston] Churchill.

The very fact that the fate of humanity hung in the balance of how they performed in the next 72 hours.

On the conflict between staff and Eisenhower

James Stagg [the chief meteorologist for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) during World War 2, working Eisenhower leading up to the Normandy landings] and Eisenhower collided in this film. Their ideologies conflicted.

There were hurt feelings as a result of their dialogues, but we also saw that there was great respect that they grew to have for one another by the stories end.

On Eisenhower’s humanity

Stagg had to appeal to Eisenhower’s sense of humanity because he knew that Eisenhower cared about his troops. He wasn’t among those in the Joint Chiefs of Staffs who had more sociopathic tendencies about sacrificing waves of men to get boots on the beach. There’s a metric that involves bringing about five times as many of everything that they needed, five times as many soldiers, bullets, meals, everything, accounting for the redundancies and the losses that they’d suffer, but in order to succeed in the mission, there was enough gear and effort to prevail. That meant accepting the collateral effects of loss of life, which punished Eisenhower immensely. The disaster of Operation Tiger meant a loss of soldiers that reminded him of his own sons. They were all his sons as far as he was concerned. Stagg appealed to him that way.

On working with Anthony Maras

Anthony has that intrepid spirit of Australian filmmaker, a fearlessness, with rapid fire history questions and answers at his disposal.

On the film’s close-up portrayal of the GIs

This isn’t just a film about Ike Eisenhower or this Stagg character. We see the men and boys, the soldiers. We follow a core group of them and we see their challenges and successes, their fate over the course of the story. The film isn’t just about what’s going on in the corridors of power and behind closed doors.

On the analogue methods of predicting the weather

Weather prediction in 1944 was a combination of the analogues, records and taking measurements with weather balloons that had transponders in them, triangulating the height they went to and whether they blew off course. It was mercurial but it was the only way to obtain data. There were weather ships that were stationed off Nova Scotia in the North Atlantic, which were easy prey for U-boats. Air force flights sent information like, what’s the weather like on the Isle of Man? It ushered in a period of codifying the methods and improving on them because the information was so important.

On his research for playing Eisenhower

I got access to the archives for about three hours, to specific documents. The entire operation from cover to cover was as thick as a Hollywood script on paper. I could see the staple marks, a little rusty in the corner. The top secret, classified document gave minute details about what it would take to succeed and to not succeed, written in military jargon. It gave the role gravity — to feel the weight of responsibility of playing this character.

On how the costumes helped him get into character

Uniforms give posture and discipline to the way military people dress. Everyone automatically knew the rank and file of person depending on what feathers they were flying, what patches they had, what colours they wore. My vanity as an actor was indulged in the sense that it gave me a strong feeling of confidence to be dressed appropriately.

On the authenticity of Daniel Taylor’s production design

Taylor’s work as the production designer was specific, down to the colour of the ink and the shape of the nib on the pens that they used. The detail was all there. The look of the period was built in. The phones had red plastic or green plastic, one was a hot wire hotline to the White House.

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Is our education system delivering future-relevant managers? To answer this, I’ll start with a hypothetical job advertisement for the near future:

Wanted: manager. You will lead a team of 11 people and 14 AI agents, spread across Butterworth, Johannesburg and Nairobi. You will use data to make decisions and be able to identify which parts are relevant and which are not. You will explain to a customer or the board why the algorithm took a particular stance, and reason whether the algorithm was right or wrong. You will build a business case in a day, test a prototype in a week. You will be a decent human being.

This touches on the qualifications required for future-relevant managers in a world where AI and machine learning will keep rapidly advancing. Our work in management education is to cultivate what cannot be downloaded: judgment, integrity, courage, curiosity, and the confidence to build something where nothing exists.

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 found that employers expect about 39% of the core skills to change by 2030. It projected about 170-million new roles created globally and 92-million displaced. The fastest-growing skills are in AI and big data. Analytical thinking leads, followed by resilience, flexibility and agility.

Bringing this home and looking at another side of employment, Stats SA reported that the official unemployment rate reached 33.6% in the second quarter of 2026. Among young people aged 15-34, it stood at 47.4%, with 5-million young South Africans unemployed. In this same quarter, formal-sector employment fell by 41,000 jobs, while the informal sector grew by 34,000.

The economy is showing us where work is emerging: in the small, the informal, the self-made and the self-started. The National Development Plan understood this a decade ago, when it envisaged that small and growing businesses would generate the bulk of South Africa’s new jobs. Yet when we teach management, whose management do we teach? The management of the corporate boardroom, or the management of the spaza network, the township logistics start-up, the rural agri-processor and the five-person digital agency?

Given these parallel realities, developing future-relevant managers requires five shifts.

Shift 1: the traditional manager commanded. The future manager conducts.

Imagine an orchestra where some of the players are people, and some are algorithms. The manager of the digital era conducts human talent and machine capability — which task is best done by whom, human or machine, and how do I play them in harmony? This requires designing workflows, framing instructions for AI systems, supervising outputs, and knowing precisely where human hands must stay on the instrument.

Shift 2: AI can produce a confident, well-formatted, entirely plausible paragraph that is wrong. In the research world, they call it hallucination; in the boardroom, it is risk. The manager of the future must be able to tell truth from plausible nonsense. They must ask: where did this number come from? Whose data is missing? Who is harmed if this model is wrong? What would I decide if the machine were unavailable?

Shift 3: if 39% of core skills are shifting within a few years, then a degree is the start of a learning relationship, and a graduate must leave with the habit of learning and the humility to unlearn. The digital era invites us to keep finding out.

Shift 4: the digital era in Africa does not look like Silicon Valley. It looks like WhatsApp catalogues, mobile payments, informal supply chains, and a young entrepreneur running an enterprise from a phone with an intermittent connection. It looks like businesses that must be resilient to power cuts, price shocks and thin margins long before they become scalable.

In our management cases, are we training our students for this reality? Do we teach pricing using the market in Mthatha and customer service using the shop down the road from this campus? Do we treat the informal economy as a field of innovation to be understood?

Shift 5: I am not saying that every graduate must start a company; what I am saying is that an owner mindset is the common thread of every effective manager in the digital era. The owner mindset asks: what problem am I solving? Who is the customer? What does this cost? What happens if I am wrong? Inside a large company, we call it intrapreneurship. In a township, we call it hustle. In a development agency, we call it innovation.

In my work at the Centre for Entrepreneurship Rapid Incubator, we empower thousands of student and township entrepreneurs; we incubate and mobilise funding for their small businesses. We teach key management principles:

• Customers before certificates. A paying customer is the most honest examiner you will ever meet.
• If you are going to fail, then fail cheaply and early. The young entrepreneur who tests and fails for R500 learns what the R500,000 business start-up often learns too late.
• Funders follow evidence. Capital moves towards people who have already tested something, even in a small way. A pilot beats a pitch, and the first ten customers beat a thousand-word plan.

In conclusion, and taking into account our environment, every management programme should consider including the following:

• Replace one exam with one venture. Let there be a live project in which students serve a real customer, whether a local business, school, clinic or co-operative, and are assessed on what they learned and what they delivered;
• Make AI literacy a core competency. Every student should learn to use AI tools, to declare how they used them, and to defend their reasoning;
• Turn alumni into a living curriculum. The alumni relations office is a hidden asset. A university with thousands of graduates in the field already owns a case library. It simply needs to open it;
• Data analysis, digital marketing, cybersecurity basics, no-code tools and financial literacy must be part of the curriculum. They are the new grammar of management; and
• Add a new measure: what are our graduates doing 12 and 24 months after graduation, and what value are they creating?

And so, returning to the advert for the manager at the outset, the qualifications required are: the discipline to learn and unlearn; the judgement to know when to trust a machine and when to overrule it; the humility to serve a customer in Mthatha with as much respect as you address a boardroom in Sandton; the courage to start something small; the integrity to be trusted with something large; and a record of having built something that did not exist before.

• Professor Lose is director of the Mandela University Africa Hub for Entrepreneurship and the Centre for Entrepreneurship Rapid Incubator (CfERI), Nelson Mandela University

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It is morning again in America, and my faith in American democracy is somewhat restored. The Democratic Party’s shellacking of the Republicans in this week’s midterm elections was not just a quantitative blowout but also a qualitative shift just as mind-blowing in its pluralism.

In one fell swoop the people of Georgia elected the first black woman governor in the history of the US, Keisha Lance Bottoms, and a Mexican-American woman from the Rio Grande Valley, Gina Hinojosa, is now headed for the governor’s mansion in Texas.

The Democrats have not sent a senator from Texas to the US Congress since Lloyd Bentsen in 1998. Despite Elon Musk pouring more than $200m (about R3.3bn) into that race, a Christian seminarian, James Talarico, coasted to the Senate with a large margin. Money is not always king when faced with a democratic revolt.

A white evangelical pastor, Adam Hamilton, is now the first Democrat from Kansas elected to the US Senate in almost 100 years.

A quirky former logger in Maine, Troy Jackson, brought down a seemingly unbeatable pillar of Maine’s Republican Party, Susan Collins.

An African-American man, Aaron Ford, is now governor-elect of Nevada.

A moderate black candidate, David Crowley, is now governor-elect of Wisconsin.

In the biggest upset of the elections, Michiganders elected Abdul El-Sayed as the first Muslim senator in the history of the US, defying the odds and the racist bigotry thrown at him by his opponent Mike Rogers and President Donald Trump. As with the latter’s allegations that Barack Obama was not born in the US, the American people did not fall for the line about El-Sayed being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and a jihadist.

The Democrats will have their plates full repairing the damage to American institutions over the past two years and in restoring the faith of people like me around the world. As anyone who has taken the time to read my columns over the years will know, I am an Americophile.

In 2024 the American people made an error of judgment — what the Greek tragedians called hamartia — by electing a deeply flawed man to the highest office.

I have spent half my adult life enjoying the perquisites of American higher education. To be sure, the US is not the only democratic country in the world, nor is it the only pluralistic country, nor the only one that offers material comfort to most of its citizens.

However, the US is unique in giving people of almost any national, racial, gender or religious background a shot — a sense of possibility.

In professing my admiration for America’s democratic pluralism, I make a distinction between the American people and the American government, even as they are connected.

In 2024 the American people made an error of judgment — what the Greek tragedians called hamartia — by electing a deeply flawed man to the highest office. But the Greeks staged those plays to serve as a warning system or a form of public therapy to alert the nation to the dangers of hubris. The Democrats’ victory can thus be viewed as a moment of awakening, or anagnorisis, if they grab it.

To be sure, American political culture is Janus-faced, simultaneously hankering for a bygone era of white supremacy while also reaching forward to a multiracial democracy. It has always been up to the American people to decide which way the country faces — from the abolitionists to the civil rights movement.

This time around there is a possibility to repair the damage of the past two years in a manner perhaps not seen since the Progressive Era, when society imposed a check on the rapacious reign of the so-called robber barons, among whom were the Rockefellers, Morgans, Carnegies and others.

The thing about political prognostication is that it is not that hard, if only politicians would listen. They do not listen because, like Oedipus, they refuse to read the signs. I predicted this exact moment when I wrote an article published in these pages shortly after Trump’s election. I wrote: “Trump’s actions may be followed by a Democratic takeover of the US Congress in the midterms and by different political outcomes at the state and local levels.”

If I may hazard another prediction, it is that the Republican Party may well have seen its dying days. Under the personalist rule of Donald Trump, the party has failed to build that which is the engine of political parties — a political machinery.

We may be in the early stages of a political realignment we have not seen since — wait for it — the Republican Party’s emergence as an anti-slavery coalition in the 19th century. Maybe then the party will go back to its roots, but I wouldn’t bet the house on it.

And now to a wish for my own country. One of the most heartening aspects of the US midterms is the new generation that almost spontaneously bubbled up to the national spotlight. The elections demonstrated an old truism — that political change begins in the neighbourhood, as demonstrated by the GOAT of community organising, Georgia’s Stacy Abrams, the true hero of this moment.

I wonder, wistfully, what South African politics would look like if we had young political leaders elected directly by the people in their own communities.

During the campaigning I saw a clip of former US president Bill Clinton giving a speech at the University of Michigan. A young Al-Sayed had preceded him at the podium to give the valedictory speech for the graduating class. Clinton looked to him and said: “I wish everyone in the world who believes we are fated to a clash of civilisations and cannot reach across the religious divides could have heard you speak today.”

We all have stories of being inspired by an authority figure, whether it is a local teacher or sports coach or the president, if you’re lucky. Our political and electoral system has closed off such possibilities for our young people, and we show neither the appetite nor the capacity to self-correct and inspire them. Eish.

• Mangcu is professor of sociology and history at The George Washington University

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You know the silly season is in overdrive when Hlaudi Motsoeneng resurfaces from the hinterlands of the Free State. He spewed gobbledygook at a campaign rally of his African Content Movement in his hometown of QwaQwa on the eve of the elections. Anyone who votes for the ANC must commit suicide, he suggested. “My QwaQwa people, if you dare vote ANC, grab a gun, point it at yourself, shoot and kill yourself,” he said. “If you are a right-thinking QwaQwa resident who prioritises their own future, there’s no way you will vote for the government of oppressors.”

He went on to say he was obviously qualified to turn QwaQwa around — just look at his track record at the SABC. Um, the very SABC that successfully sued him over his looting of R11m as a questionable “success fee”. Mamparahlaudi then claimed his ACM’s “90% content philosophy” would deliver services such as jobs and clinics. The people of QwaQwa are in for a long circus after this clown’s party emerged as the second biggest in the Maluti-a-Phofung local council — trailing the party whose supporters failed to commit mass suicide.

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Unlike Donald Trump, President Cyril Ramaphosa never asked anyone at his campaign rallies or door-to-door house visits to pretend he was on the ballot for this past week’s elections.

Yet, as is the case with Trump after the Republican Party’s routing in the US midterm elections, Ramaphosa finds himself in a precarious position after the ANC’s calamitous showing in the local government polls.

Terms such as “lame-duck president” aren’t yet being bandied about, as they are in the US with regard to Trump, but an uncomfortable conversation within the ANC has started about the composition of the multiparty government Ramaphosa runs. The lobby opposed to the government of national unity (GNU), consigned to the periphery of ANC politics for much of the past two years, is regaining its voice and agitating for the DA and the Freedom Front Plus to leave the coalition.

Also having something of a revival is a grouping of regional leaders — mostly former members of the disbanded Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal regional executive committees — who are calling for Ramaphosa and the rest of Luthuli House to fall on their swords for the party’s poor performance in the past two elections.

In August, just as campaigning for the local government elections shifted into high gear, the regional leaders wrote an “open letter” to the party’s national executive committee (NEC) warning that the “movement is losing the confidence of the people it was founded to serve”.

“The electoral decline … did not happen overnight. It was the result of accumulated weaknesses, strategic failures, organisational stagnation … Yet one of the most disturbing features of the post-[2024] election period has been the unwillingness of the NEC to accept responsibility for its role in the decline.

The president’s critics in the party complain that he and the NEC he leads have demonstrated no appetite for a serious turnaround

“Instead of undertaking honest self-reflection and leading a process of collective accountability, the NEC chose to direct its attention elsewhere … The fundamental question remains unanswered: if provincial structures were solely responsible for electoral decline, what responsibility does the NEC bear for the national campaign and the allocation of resources, strategic leadership and political direction?”

Luthuli House never responded to the letter.

This week, as party members and leaders came to terms with the ANC’s sharpest decline in electoral fortunes, the same questions were being asked.

At the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) national results operations centre on Friday, an ANC activist stared at the dashboard almost in disbelief as it showed the former juggernaut of South African politics was hovering at just over 30% of the votes. After lamenting that the ANC would have no outright-majority control over any of the country’s eight metros, he turned to what he saw as the main reason for the disastrous performance.

“We can blame our councillors, accuse them of ‘lacking capacity’, like [ANC national chair] Gwede Mantashe did last year,” he said. ”But the truth of the matter is that these results are first and foremost [the] people’s verdict on our national leadership and the unfulfilled promise of renewal.”

That the ANC’s electoral support has been on a downward trajectory since Ramaphosa’s predecessor, Jacob Zuma, took office in 2009 is not in dispute. But what seems to have stunned many within the ranks is how sharp the decline has been under the incumbent leader.

It was soon after the 2016 local government elections that the campaign to have Ramaphosa replace Zuma as ANC leader and the country’s president gained momentum.

The ANC had suffered heavy losses, surrendering control of the Nelson Mandela Bay metro in the then Port Elizabeth and losing Johannesburg and Tshwane to the DA. The party’s overall support at the time stood at 55% — the lowest it had ever been since the ANC started participating in elections.

Ramaphosa was sold as a leader who would reverse the slide. And, for a while, his campaigners seemed to have been proven right. Having narrowly defeated ANC veteran Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to become the party’s president in December 2017, he went on to lead the ANC to a 58% win in the general election that took place two years later. It was all on the back of “Ramaphoria” — the positive mood that had engulfed the country after what many believed to be the end of Zuma’s state-capture era characterised by corruption.

But by 2021 Ramaphoria had fizzled out, and the ANC saw its support during that year’s local government elections shrink to 46%. Blame it on Covid-19 and the lockdown, it was argued, and Ramaphosa was duly re-elected as ANC president amid claims from his lobbyists that no other ANC leader was popular enough to guarantee a victory at the next polls.

They were to be proven wrong. The party did so badly in the next elections that, at 40%, it could no longer form a government on its own. Ramaphosa could keep the keys to the Union Buildings thanks to his GNU deal with the DA, the IFP, the Freedom Front Plus and several other parties.

The president’s critics in the party complain that he and the NEC he leads have demonstrated no appetite for a serious turnaround.

Hence the calls, albeit minority ones, for the NEC to be disbanded and replaced with an interim leadership structure that would manage the party and take it to the national conference.

“We do not have the luxury of saying we are going to wait until December next year to elect a new leadership. By that time, it would be too late, as there is nothing to suggest that the current NEC, which buried its head in the sand when we lost the elections in 2021, would suddenly wake up now and devise a strategy to avoid the country having [DA leader Geordin] Hill-Lewis as a serious contender for next president,” said a Gauteng ANC leader.

“Besides, if we allow the current NEC to take us to the next congress, we will end up electing one of the same people who have failed us as the next president because they will control the process.”

While not entertaining a debate on whether the current NEC — of which he is a member — should be allowed to finish its term or be disbanded immediately, ANC elections head and chief whip Mdumiseni Ntuli conceded that there was a need for introspection on the part of ANC leaders.

“I think we are in a very difficult corner as the sitting leadership of the NEC because any assessment of what has happened has got to begin at national level. We can’t assess other people without having a genuine and objective conversation about the extent to which we, at the central level of the organisation, have led the party over the past four or five years,” Ntuli said.

Speaking on the podcast The Political Arena this week, political commentator and writer Richard Calland said disbanding the NEC now would be a terrible idea, not just for the party but for South Africa as a whole.

“We think that would be a disastrous road to take because you create a leadership vacuum and you create a leadership struggle, and it would be chaos, I think. I suspect that in the end the ANC will have to do what it did in 2024, which is to stay calm, reflect deeply on what happened but not panic in terms of changing leadership,” Calland said.

“It needs to have experienced and seasoned hands on the tiller for the next two weeks of negotiations. This is an election that is as much about the next two weeks as it is about yesterday and today. We live in an era of fragmented politics, coalition politics, and therefore the negotiations about the governments that are going to be formed will be intense. They have to be led, in my view, by national leaders because they are so difficult. You cannot let it be spread around the country with different local leaders taking different views. I think that would be chaotic, and the people of this country and the businesses and the economy deserve better.”

Calland seems to favour a GNU-like deal involving mainly the ANC and the DA, as he believes this would guarantee stability for many of the hung councils.

But Ntuli is uncertain, and says the ANC needs to use the next few days to review its approach to coalitions.

“The assessment we are going to have to make, from 2024 to date, is whether these coalitions, including the GNU, have actually provided any advantage to the ANC,” he said. “It may very well be that it provided national stability, which we all want, but to what extent has that national stability allowed us to make the necessary changes, whether in the economy or other areas of life, in a manner that is going to make the ANC endear itself again to the population of South Africa?”

Ntuli’s sentiments echo those in the party who argue that the ANC should rather work on a coalition deal with ActionSA and smaller parties in Gauteng — shutting the DA out. If that path is not possible, they argue, the ANC should be content with going onto the opposition benches in all three Gauteng metros.

However, there are strong indications that Ramaphosa and party secretary-general Fikile Mbalula — supported by finance minister Enoch Godongwana and several other ANC leaders who were instrumental in striking the GNU deal with the DA in 2024 — are keen to work with the DA even at local level.

But given the severity of the election loss, do they still have the clout to drag a reluctant ANC into yet another pact with the DA?

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By Philip van Ryneveld and Jugal Mahabir

Most large municipalities buy electricity in bulk from Eskom and sell it to consumers with a markup that must pay for the municipality’s own electricity distribution networks, including operations and maintenance plus equipment such as transformers and municipal powerlines. Historically, municipalities have generated a surplus doing this, using it to cross-subsidise other services. Electricity has been the largest single activity on municipal budgets — and the biggest item on a household’s municipal account.

The recently launched local government white paper identifies many critical internal local government problems, including poor administration and corruption, and sets out measures to tackle them.

It also identifies key external challenges faced by municipal governments.

Among these, it highlights the damaging impact of high bulk electricity prices on municipal finances, noting that between 2008 and 2025 the price charged by Eskom rose from 18c/kWh to 184c/kWh.

This is a ninefold increase over a period when general inflation rose only one and a half times, translating into a quadrupling of the price in real terms (which are price rise minus inflation) over the period.

A few more numbers convey the magnitude of the increase. Between 2008 and 2025, municipalities paid Eskom R1.26-trillion, which they covered through the fees they charged customers. Had the bulk electricity price risen only as fast as inflation, they would have needed to pay just R473bn. The difference of R789bn is the additional amount municipalities have had to pay Eskom because of that portion of Eskom’s bulk price rise that was higher than inflation.

Municipal debt to Eskom has been climbing at a worrying rate, and must be dealt with, but the amount of R789bn is close to eight times the total accumulated debt of all municipalities to Eskom at the end of 2025, which then stood at R94.6bn (R111.6bn at the end of the 2026 financial year).

Indeed, the total accumulated debt of R94.6bn was only 7.5% of the R1.26-trillion figure, meaning that, taken as a whole, the payment rate of the municipal sector to Eskom was roughly 92.5% over the period, excluding relatively small debt write-offs.

Had the real cost of electricity remained at 2008 levels, rising only as fast as inflation, municipalities would have saved R110bn just on the 2025 bill to Eskom, enough to pay off all the accumulated debt of all municipalities to Eskom.

The sum of R789bn is about equal to the total of all grants, conditional and unconditional, from the government to municipalities for the six years prior to and including 2025 and 89% of all property rates collected nationally between 2008 and 2025.

The main victims have been households and businesses but municipalities have also been squeezed. The white paper notes that in 2008, payment for bulk electricity and bulk water combined was equivalent to just under half of the total combined revenue collected by municipalities for all trading services: electricity, water, sewerage and refuse.

By last year this had risen to nearly three quarters, leaving just more than a quarter of total service revenue collected for municipalities to run their own activities across all these services.

First to suffer is always maintenance, especially the capital expenditure needed to renew and expand networks. But over time this leads to outages, increased water and electricity losses and other failures, leading to the downwards spiral that many municipalities are now in. The scope for cross-subsidising other services from electricity revenues is largely gone.

Municipalities have much to answer for. The fact that some municipalities have been able to manage these pressures reasonably successfully points to failures in others. But now that load-shedding is over — partly because high prices reduced demand — most of the blame for poor services and high prices is directed at municipalities. Yet, as these numbers show, there has been a massive and continuing transfer of money from consumers to Eskom, which municipalities have to collect.

And the challenge for municipalities is that the charges for all their other services must come out of these same pockets. No surprise that we are seeing worsening payment levels across all services, with large increases in vandalism and electricity theft.

At the Treasury’s request, the white paper puts the ball in its court to find new mechanisms to take on these and other challenges. It is not easy.

The good news is that the president has appointed outstanding commissioners to the Financial and Fiscal Commission (FFC) with former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene as chair and former Treasury deputy director-general Malijeng Ngqaleni as deputy. The FFC advises on all fiscal matters relevant to decentralisation. It played an important role after 1994 in establishing the current system but has lost impact since then. It must step forward once again.

• Van Ryneveld and Mahabir were involved in the drafting of the recent Local Government White Paper. Van Ryneveld is a former CFO of Cape Town and Mahabir works at the Public Affairs Research Institute.

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Africa’s automotive opportunity is substantial. The challenge is to turn it into factories, suppliers, jobs and affordable mobility. The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) provides a framework for doing so, but its success will depend on what governments and industry build together.

Africa remains one of the world’s most significant untapped automotive growth opportunities. Low motorisation, a growing population and accelerating urbanisation create an expanding need for mobility. Yet demographic potential does not automatically become demand for new vehicles. Affordability, access to finance and the cost of ownership will determine how much of that opportunity can be realised.

Africa accounts for only a small share of global automotive production. Yet it possesses many of the fundamentals for growth, including established manufacturing centres, mineral resources and a rapidly expanding population. The opportunity now lies in strengthening regional integration and value chains to unlock this potential at scale.

This was central to the discussions at the Africa Automotive Investment Forum in Alamein, Egypt, last month. With automotive rules of origin now agreed under the AfCFTA, the task is to translate that framework into investment, production and employment.

Few industries connect as many parts of an economy as automotive manufacturing. A vehicle plant creates demand for components, metals, plastics, glass, textiles, electronics, logistics, energy, finance, training and retail infrastructure. This makes the sector a practical test of the AfCFTA’s promise: enabling African countries to manufacture, trade and create value together.

For automotive, that means a hub-and-spoke model. Not every country can, or should, assemble complete vehicles. Assembly requires scale, policy certainty, infrastructure, skills and access to large markets. But participation in the industry need not begin and end with an assembly plant.

One hub may assemble vehicles while suppliers elsewhere produce wiring harnesses, upholstery, tyres, glass, batteries or plastic components. Other countries can process minerals for future mobility. Logistics corridors, ports, distribution centres, dealer networks, finance providers and training institutions all form part of the same chain.

The proposed automotive pact between the Southern African Customs Union and Egypt, outlined at Alamein, illustrates this approach. Its emphasis on complementary production and supplier development offers a way to connect industrial capabilities across regions. It remains a proposal, but the principle matters: integration should create viable production networks rather than duplicate small assembly operations.

Scale is fundamental. Africa cannot build a globally competitive automotive industry while its market remains divided by incompatible standards, homologation requirements and cumbersome customs procedures. It must operate as a connected market.

Agreed rules of origin must now be implemented consistently, alongside aligned standards, efficient borders and predictable industrial policies. A component made in one African country should reach an assembly operation in another efficiently.

Stellantis can contribute through its manufacturing operations in Morocco and Algeria and its commercial and dealer presence across African markets. Kénitra in Morocco demonstrates the value of a sustained partnership between government and industry, combining expanded production capacity with supplier development. In Algeria, investment in Tafraoui is supporting the development of another manufacturing ecosystem.

Vehicles for Africa must suit the markets in which they operate. That means coping with long distances, demanding roads, heat, dust, varied fuel quality, and limited charging or service infrastructure

To unlock lasting economic value, manufacturing investments must go beyond vehicle assembly. Deep localisation is essential. This means designing products adapted to local needs, building competitive supplier ecosystems, and developing local talent capable of supporting a modern auto industry. Together, these elements create resilient industrial ecosystems that generate jobs, strengthen capabilities, and integrate African manufacturing into regional and global value chains.

Chinese brands are also reshaping the competitive landscape. Their growing presence creates opportunities for investment in manufacturing, batteries, components and new-energy vehicles. The test should be the contribution each manufacturer makes to productive capacity and sustainable employment.

Africa should welcome fair competition and productive investment while rewarding localisation, supplier development, skills transfer and regional exports.

Vehicle manufacturing is capital-intensive, and investment decisions extend across decades. Manufacturers need policy certainty, competitive energy and logistics costs, workable labour arrangements, efficient ports and reliable access to markets. Incentives should support localisation, employment, skills and exports while addressing market distortions.

Import policy must also balance industrial development with affordable mobility. Pre-owned vehicles provide transport for millions of Africans. The priority should be to phase out non-compliant imports and prevent customs fraud through roadworthiness and emissions standards, accurate valuations and effective enforcement. Where governments introduce broader restrictions to support local production, those measures should be phased and accompanied by credible, affordable alternatives.

Vehicles for Africa must suit the markets in which they operate. That can mean coping with long distances, demanding roads, heat, dust, varied fuel quality, and limited charging or service infrastructure.

Affordability must be measured throughout a vehicle’s operating life. Fuel or electricity, maintenance, parts, finance, insurance, durability, and resale value all matter. A cheap vehicle that cannot be repaired locally is not affordable. Dealer and service networks support consumer confidence through trained technicians, parts availability, warranties, and accountability, while creating local jobs.

Africa’s mobility needs will require several technologies. Efficient internal-combustion vehicles, hybrids and battery EVs will have different roles across markets. That diversity should go hand in hand with investment in African battery and EV value chains. Production for export and adoption in domestic markets may develop at different speeds.

Governments must provide coherent industrial policies. Manufacturers must invest for the long term. Financial institutions must help turn viable projects into operating businesses and expand access to mobility.

If Africa gets this right, automotive manufacturing can connect African minerals to African components, African components to African factories, and African factories to African consumers. That is how the AfCFTA becomes more than an agreement: through goods crossing borders, people gaining skills, businesses joining supply chains, and families accessing reliable mobility.

The opportunity is clear. The next step is to build the capacity, partnerships, and markets that make it real.

• Whitfield is MD of Stellantis South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa

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Hogarth was very worried about the Boss of the ANC. Not because Hogarth wanted Mbaweezy and his Luthuli House cronies to continue dominating most of the country’s municipalities, but because the man was uncharacteristically missing in action. Mr Razzmatazz craves TV cameras and microphones, so it’s unusual for him to be out of public view for so long. Was he crying a river somewhere in the northern suburbs?

And so it was a great relief when he finally made a public appearance yesterday to give a long-winded explanation about why Soweto had turned its back on the party of John Dube, JS Moroka and Nelson Mandela.

Over the next two weeks, Fikile Mbalula has just one job to do if he and Luthuli House are to prevent the City of Gold from falling into Gogo Helen Zille’s hands — be nice to Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA.

He didn’t make a good start yesterday, repeatedly referring to ActionSA’s star Tshwane mayor Nasiphi Moya as Nomoya, even after being corrected by his comrades.

Maybe she’ll forgive him, but if Hogarth were in her shoes, he’d tell Mashaba to blue-tick the ANC boss’s messages.

Gogo’s still got her street smarts

No-one really knows how the ongoing horse-trading over mayoral chains in Gauteng is going to go. All along, Hogarth wasn’t sure it was a good idea to have one of his age-mates as mayor. Old age has made Hogarth wont to sleep through any meeting lasting more than 20 minutes. So he’s wondering how Gogo Zille will survive those interminable day-and-night meetings of the Johannesburg council that involve a lot of singing from the benches by men and women in red overalls.

But after listening to her story about surviving a Johannesburg water crisis in the very week she was fighting to be mayor, Hogarth is having a rethink.

“I’ve been living for two days without water, but I didn’t go to a hotel. There is something in me that doesn’t want to take a clean bottle of five-litre water and pour it into a vaskom, because this is beautiful, pure water,” she told Sunday Times reporters at the elections results centre the other day.

Not bathing for two days? Now that’s the experience of an average Joburger in the northern suburbs. She’s earned her street cred, as the young ones would say.

Dying to win

In the days leading up to the elections, the Red Berets came up with what they thought was a slogan so revolutionary it would awaken the inner Che Guevara in every voter: “Victory or death!” It is loosely borrowed from the famous Cuban revolutionary cry Patria o Muerte, Venceremos! (Homeland or death, we shall overcome).

Having performed dismally at the polls, the EFF’s Marshall Dlamini made an appearance at the Newzroom Afrika studio on Friday.

News anchor Xoli Mngambi couldn’t miss the opportunity: “If you look at your slogan … ‘victory or death’, where are you?”

“We are victorious,” answered Dlamini, somewhat unconvincingly.

Voter antipathy

Another politician struggling to explain what had happened at the polls was ANC national chair Gwede Mantashe. When he was asked why the party was losing votes in the cities, Mantashe played his Transkei card: “Elections should never be about metros. I grew up in Cala — it is not a metro. It is a nine-ward municipality, and I love it. Everyone there is controlled by the ANC. I grew up in Chris Hani district. Every municipality there is controlled by the ANC … I often campaign in rural areas. I enjoy it because it gives you results. People there are genuine — what you see is what you get. In the cities, you must do more. When you do, you give them a house, and then they say, ‘But there is no electricity … we won’t vote for you.’ You give them electricity, but they say, ‘Water is not consistent … we won’t vote for you.’”

In other words, the problem is the voters and not the ANC’s failure to deliver services?

Top-down voting

President Cyril Ramaphosa for some reason thought it was a great idea to ditch his usual Chiawelo voting station in Soweto and cast his ballot in super-rich Hyde Park on Wednesday. He really can’t be accused of being a man of the people.

But the person most excited by this decision was the ANC’s candidate for the ward. He told everyone within earshot he was “the only candidate to be voted for by the president”.

The president didn’t seem to know the candidate that well, and, given that voting happens in secret in the booth, how sure is the politician that McBuffalo put his X next to his name?

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The Witwatersrand Basin has produced nearly half of all gold ever mined. In the 1970s, South Africa accounted for almost two-thirds of global gold production.

This wealth supported the Bank of England, maintained sterling as the world’s reserve currency, and funded imperial trade. However, little of the resulting industrial capability was developed in Africa.

This paradox defines Africa’s resource narrative: it drives global prosperity without delivering proportional benefits at home. The key question is whether the critical minerals boom will change this pattern.

The transition to clean energy, digital technology and AI has raised global demand for minerals such as lithium, cobalt, graphite, manganese, copper, titanium and rare earths, many of which are abundant in Africa.

This demand is long-term, with governments and companies seeking secure supply chains and processed materials rather than raw ore.

This shift gives Africa influence it has rarely held. However, most value is lost before significant industrial development occurs.

Estimates compiled from US Geological Survey (USGS), World Bank and industry data indicate that less than 10% of Africa’s lithium, graphite, copper and gold is processed locally for batteries or other uses.

For instance, Africa processes only 3%-5% of graphite, despite its importance in battery anodes. Cobalt is the exception, at about 20%, achieved only under intense geopolitical and ESG pressure.

Africa’s broader industrial landscape remains challenging. The African Development Bank’s 2025 Africa Industrialisation Index reports that Africa accounts for less than 2% of global manufacturing and only 1.4% of manufactured exports.

Manufacturing value added per person remains below 2014 levels. Even South Africa, once the continent’s leading industrial nation, has declined since 2010 and now trails Morocco.

Commodity dependence is not only a missed opportunity but also a source of instability. For example, copper represents 10%-15% of Zambia’s GDP and 70%-80% of its export earnings.

When prices fell and the pandemic struck in 2020, Zambia’s economy contracted, making it the first African country to default on its debt during the pandemic. Without local processing, downturns are more severe, and upturns fail to deliver lasting benefits.

Beneficiation addresses this challenge: processed products command higher prices, access more stable markets, create skilled jobs and support supplier ecosystems that endure beyond individual price cycles.

Africa already has the blueprint

None of this is new thinking. The Africa Mining Vision, adopted by AU heads of state in 2009, observed that “most of Africa’s minerals are exported as ores, concentrates or metals, without significant value-addition” and called for “downstream linkages into mineral beneficiation and manufacturing”.

The AU’s Agenda 2063 envisages regional manufacturing hubs built around beneficiating Africa’s minerals so that the continent captures a greater share of the rents from its natural resources; its African commodities strategy is a flagship programme for precisely that purpose. The AU’s green minerals strategy, published in 2025, commits to driving “value addition at source”.

Africa’s challenge is not a lack of strategy but of execution, with too few bankable projects translating policy into operational facilities.

Nyanza: from policy to plant

South Africa has the world’s second-largest reserves of the titanium mineral, yet none is processed into pigment or metal within Africa. Instead, the continent imports all its pigment and metal requirements.

Ilmenite, the primary raw material, is mined and exported from the continent for less than $300/t (about R5,000/t), while titanium dioxide pigment, used in paints, plastics, paper and inks, sells for over $3,000/t — more than 10 times higher.

Nyanza Light Metals’ $850m plant in the Richards Bay Industrial Development Zone will address this gap by producing 80,000t of pigment annually as Africa’s first large-scale titanium dioxide facility.

In July 2021, the African Finance Corporation (AFC) became a co-development partner with Afreximbank and intends to participate in the principal investment of the project that will create approximately 3,000 construction jobs and 850 permanent positions, with 45% of the permanent roles targeted for women, along with import savings and increased export earnings.

The project’s financial viability was achieved through a phased approach. The support of South Africa’s department of trade, industry & competition (DTIC), alongside sponsor investment, enabled feasibility studies and the establishment of a testing centre to produce customer qualification samples.

East China Engineering Science and Technology Corporation (ECEC), a leading builder of titanium dioxide plants, was selected as the engineering, procurement and construction contractor.

The sponsors launched the Nyanza pigment brand using product from an existing ECEC plant, securing customers before construction began and incorporating protections in sales agreements to reassure lenders.

In October 2025, the African Development Bank approved its $75m in senior debt participation. The project commenced construction in June, with early civil works such as piling under way, and production expected within 36 months thereafter.

The project also demonstrates the catalytic role that targeted industrial policy can play in building strategic beneficiation capacity.

Early-stage project development support from the government, through the DTIC, helped derisk critical development activities and laid the foundation for subsequent participation by institutions such as AFC, Afreximbank and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC).

Nyanza’s impact extends beyond a single plant. Its by-products, skilled workforce and customer relationships will support a second phase: a battery-grade lithium iron phosphate project for energy storage, electric mobility and AI infrastructure.

A Nyanza for every mineral

This approach is applicable in other countries and minerals as well. It relies on four factors any resource-rich nation can provide: early public investment to reduce risks, special economic zones with strong infrastructure and incentives, early involvement of development finance institutions, and regional markets large enough to absorb output.

Intra-African trade accounts for only 14.4% of the continent’s total, compared to 60% in Asia, according to the AfDB. Full implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) would provide processors with the scale that national markets alone cannot achieve.

Africa requires projects like Nyanza across multiple regions and for various minerals. The Witwatersrand enriched other parts of the world; this time, the benefits should remain where the minerals are sourced.

• Cisse is vice-president, project development and technical solutions at AFC

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There are few things more fascinating in the parenting journey than observing one’s offspring experiencing something new. On Wednesday the missus and I were joined at the polls by our lastborn son, Sihayo, who was voting for the first time.

I made a gallant attempt to breach Sihayo’s wall of secrecy about his voting intentions and failed dismally. Like any normal parent, I have naturally tried to influence my children’s votes. The best summary of their collective reaction is: “Dude, look around at what your generation’s voting record has left us with. Please sit down.” There can be no coherent retort to that.

My first voting experience was in 1994. As I explained to Sihayo, deciding who to vote for was as simple as asking the average black South African to choose between Chiefs and Pirates. Fast forward 32 years and things have become exponentially more complex.

To illustrate this, exhibit 1: the scribbles I made on Samsung Notes on Wednesday.

Perfectly timed arrival there, Ngcobo family — In our infinite wisdom we figured that to avoid the stampede of early birds at 7am and the last-minute tsunami in the evening, 1.30pm would be the perfect time to show up. I reckon at least 60% of folks in our ward had exactly the same thought, leading to a 95-minute roast in the Ekurhuleni sun.

Please don’t stand so close to me, uncle — When we joined the line, the three of us arranged ourselves in a loose conversational triangle. But about 10 minutes in, I realised that when one of us made a good point, an extra head was nodding in agreement. The uncle behind us with sideburns and a jet-black oily slick straight out of Grease had made a positional move, turning our family triangle into a square.

I wonder who everyone else is voting for? — An occupational hazard of writing for a living is the accumulation of life stories one makes up while walking through airports and malls. People watching. I must have assigned ages, nationalities and marital status to at least 50,000 people just by looking at them. On Wednesday I was in my element. About three places ahead of us were two black women whispering in conspiratorial tones. I decided they were conflicted voters; the target market for Eusebius McKaiser’s 2013 book, Could I Vote DA: A Voter’s Dilemma.

Then there were the women in hijabs. “Ah. I guess they’re here to vote for the Al Jama-ah candidate.” One of the voices in my head immediately called my brain out for its stereotyping habit. I can assure the Human Rights Commission that I slapped my own wrist hard enough to not warrant any further censure.

Looking at the experience through my son’s virginal eyes was sobering

Does this look like Diepsloot to you? — This was my favourite moment; in mid-afternoon, a blue van, fully kitted out in subwoofers, loudhailers and all manner of 200-decibel equipment, pulled up in front of the DA gazebo. It spewed out a blue army of mostly young women who launched into a Sarafinesque dance. A few minutes later, the DA mayoral candidate, Khathu Rasilingwane, arrived to much excitement. Blue energy drinks were distributed to those in the queue. The music got louder and more festive. My 25 years in the East Rand has taught me that a scene like this is always followed by someone saying: “Don’t bring that blerry township chaos here, man!” The storyteller in me looked around for a Koos or a Gert or a Piet to yell it out. Nothing. In fact, the disgruntlement came from a source much closer to me; Uncle Mousse. He shook his head and quietly muttered: “Is that noise necessary?”

When I first moved to Boksburg and felt homesick, I would drive to Actionville Hostel to watch Zulu dance competitions. One of the indunas in the hostel was a sexagenarian by the name of Bab’ Nzama. He had never voted in his life. He belonged to the school of thought portrayed in the PJ O’Rourke book, Don’t Vote – It Just Encourages the Bastards. Bab’ Nzama used to tell me voting was a waste of time that served only to give legitimacy to “bandits and scoundrels” to loot the state.

Looking at the voting experience through my lastborn’s virginal eyes was sobering. I have voted dutifully in 12 of the 14 elections since 1994. I wonder what elections will look like when Sihayo takes his children to vote for the first time. And I wonder if my vote has achieved its purpose or just served to encourage the bastards.

The 2026 medium-term budget policy statement (MTBPS) deserves credit for placing infrastructure delivery, structural reform and private-sector participation at the centre of economic recovery. Its proposed reforms of port governance and of the visa system for specialist skills also address constraints on investment. These changes matter because infrastructure investment requires more than capital. It depends on efficient decision-making, access to technical expertise and institutions working towards shared outcomes.

The question is no longer whether reforms are needed, but how quickly they can be implemented. Nowhere is this more urgent than in logistics.

For years, deteriorating freight rail and port infrastructure has constrained exports, raised business costs and undermined the competitiveness of some of South Africa’s most important industries. Restoring the logistics network is not merely a challenge for Transnet; it is a national economic imperative. Recognising this, President Cyril Ramaphosa identified logistics as a priority for intervention in 2023 through the national logistics crisis committee. Supported by the government-business partnership, this work has stabilised the system and placed it on a firm path to recovery.

There are encouraging signs of progress. Transnet’s improving financial performance coincides with reforms taking shape across the logistics sector, including greater private-sector participation. An important milestone is the establishment of Durban Gateway Terminal (DGT) through a 25-year partnership between Transnet and International Container Terminal Services (ICTSI), underpinned by an initial investment of about R10.5bn.

The partnership became operational in January 2026, bringing the capital, expertise and global operating experience of an international terminal operator into one of South Africa’s most strategically important logistics assets.

I have followed the partnership’s performance with keen interest and am well aware of our members’ concerns about challenges at the Durban port. Without minimising the frustrations businesses have experienced, I regard these as teething problems: the partnership became operational only 10 months ago. I remain confident that, beyond these initial difficulties, it will deliver tremendous value for the economy.

Scrutiny is legitimate and necessary. Investors in partnerships involving strategic public infrastructure must be held accountable for their commitments and performance. Port users depend on reliable services, and disruptions affect shipping lines, transporters, exporters and, ultimately, the wider economy. Accountability must, however, be grounded in realistic timelines and a clear understanding of the scale of the operational transformation under way.

Investment requires an environment in which the government, business and labour are prepared not merely to talk about partnership but to make it succeed.

The DGT offers an important case study of what public-private partnerships can achieve — and what they need to let them succeed.

The 25-year concession is intended to build on, rather than diminish, Transnet’s longstanding role. It can strengthen Durban’s container logistics system and reinforce South Africa’s position as a leading gateway for regional and international trade.

The DGT’s investment programme of more than R2bn over the next two years is intended to expand terminal capacity, improve reliability and increase efficiency. Over time, these benefits should extend beyond the terminal to exporters, importers, manufacturers and other businesses that depend on efficient access to international markets.

The success of partnerships such as the DGT also depends on an enabling environment beyond the terminal. Investment cannot fulfil its potential when approvals are delayed, institutional responsibilities are unclear, or co-ordination across the logistics system is ineffective. Good governance is therefore essential. Clear accountability must be matched by well-defined roles and sufficient operational latitude for private-sector partners to deliver the changes for which they are held responsible.

Transformation at this scale and pace requires changes to established practices and processes, alongside investment in systems and equipment. Some disruption and adjustment are inevitable. The imperative is to identify problems quickly, act decisively and ensure that corrective measures deliver lasting improvements.

South Africa needs growth. Growth requires investment. And investment requires an environment in which the government, business and labour are prepared not merely to talk about partnership but to make it succeed.

The reforms under way in logistics and other critical sectors must therefore be given every opportunity to deliver, with progress measured in better services, stronger infrastructure, greater competitiveness and more jobs. Their success will not belong to government, business or labour individually. It will belong to South Africa.

• Mathe is CEO of Business Unity South Africa.

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Is it fair to say you’ve done better than anyone expected?

Much better than even our own expectations. By this afternoon (Friday) more than a million votes. We didn’t expect that.

Are you surprised that your party’s involvement in the unchlorinated toxic tap water scandal in Tshwane doesn’t seem to have hurt you?

No. It actually helped us because, I think, of the manner in which mayor Nasiphi Moya handled the matter. Our competitors made a bad mistake by trying to really politicise it, and she went out bravely, taking ownership of the issue. That actually helped us enormously because South Africans are not used to politicians accepting accountability.

What about your participation in the disastrous ANC-led governing coalition that all but destroyed Johannesburg? Are you surprised that that hasn’t hurt you more at the polls?

No, it helped me actually by pulling out when I realised the ANC wasn’t doing the right thing.

Do you think aligning your party with the populist March and March anti-illegal immigration campaign won you a lot of votes?

I don’t know, because in ActionSA’s manifesto illegal immigration is one of many of our offerings to the residents of South Africa.

The fact that your association with March and March was so highly publicised — did that win you a lot of votes, do you think?

Yes, I was every day in the media space.

What are the chances of you putting your hatred for the DA aside and forming a coalition with them in Tshwane, Joburg and Ekurhuleni?

Very slim. Very, very slim.

What would your conditions be?

Our fear and concern is the backstabbing, the dishonesty and the arrogance.

Would you prefer to cobble together another disastrous multiparty coalition with the ANC?

I’ve got my teams looking at the various scenarios. Fortunately, we’ve got options, including being on the opposition benches.

Would your voters forgive you if you refused to form a coalition with the DA to fix these municipalities and provide services?

They’ll punish me if I go into any coalition for the wrong reasons.

Didn’t your supporters make it clear in an election poll that they want an ActionSA-DA coalition?

Which supporters? Not my supporters. That’s why they punished me in 2024 for getting into that moonshot pact with the DA.

Is that why you did so badly in 2024?

Yes, absolutely.

Are you closing the door to a coalition with the DA?

We’re not closing the door to any political party. What we take serious exception to is for anybody to try to push us into the DA camp to be measured. If ever we do a deal with the DA, then they must deal with the atomic bombs they’ve got against ActionSA. Otherwise we’ve got other options.

You’re not telling me what these atomic bombs they’ve got against you are?

They want to destroy us.

Are you saying they’ve got evidence that would destroy you?

No, it’s in the public domain. Look at the court case they had with us before the elections, where they came out with a ridiculous case in the electoral court to disqualify us from putting forward our PR candidate list.

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Well, well. Washington has pulled the Agoa card, and South Africa has not quite fallen off its chair.

For once, perhaps we should resist our instinct to panic whenever the US clears its throat. The Donald Trump administration has terminated South Africa’s preferential access under Agoa (African Growth & Opportunity Act) from January 2027. It is a serious development, but the response from Pretoria deserves something we do not always readily offer the government: a little credit.

The department of trade, industry & competition (DTIC) says South Africa offered additional concessions and attempted to address US concerns while protecting its constitutional obligations and legitimate regulatory requirements. Pretoria did what a government is supposed to do: negotiate, make reasonable compromises without abandoning its principles, and prepare for an unfavourable outcome.

Of course, we must not confuse a negotiating effort with a diplomatic victory. But South Africa should not be expected to surrender its policy independence simply because a powerful trading partner has become displeased. There is a difference between being commercially sensible and being politically available for blackmail.

The DTIC says Agoa exports amounted to about $1.7bn (about R28bn at this week’s exchange rate) in 2025, down from about $4bn in 2024. The 2025 figure represented roughly 10% of our exports to the US and about 1% of our total global exports. That is not pocket change. Businesses and workers in exposed industries could suffer. But neither is it the collapse of the South African economy, nor does losing preferential access mean our goods are automatically barred from the US.

This is where a little econometric discipline would be useful. National averages can be comforting, but they can also conceal pain. A trade flow representing 1% of total exports may be critical to a particular producer, factory or community. We must establish precisely who is exposed, which industries can redirect their exports, what the employment implications are and how much adjustment businesses can realistically absorb.

The interesting question is why we behave as though the US is the principal gateway to our economic salvation. It is an important trading partner. We should retain that relationship, negotiate where possible and pursue a sensible commercial settlement. But the US is a market, not our economic guardian.

Export growth is important, but it does not automatically translate into development

South Africa has spent years talking about trade diversification. We have the African Continental Free Trade Area, Sadc, and commercial opportunities across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Brics and Latin America. Perhaps the time has come to move beyond the diplomatic vocabulary and actually sell something. A trade mission is not a market. A memorandum of understanding is not an export order. A ministerial photograph is certainly not a job. The government should now tell us how many businesses have entered alternative markets; how much additional trade has been secured; and how many jobs have been created or protected.

Of course, finding new buyers is not as simple as changing a destination on an export document. Standards, logistics, financing, distribution and established commercial relationships matter. But these are precisely the capabilities we should have been developing all along.

South Africa’s vulnerability is not simply that the US can withdraw a trade preference. It is that we have not developed enough productive depth, market diversity and commercial resilience to make such decisions less consequential. Trade diversification without industrial development is merely the redistribution of dependence.

We need businesses capable of producing competitively, infrastructure that moves goods efficiently, reliable ports and railways, skilled workers and domestic supply chains that retain more value within our economy. We must also ask: how much employment and domestic value are exports actually generating?

Export growth is important, but it does not automatically translate into development. This is why the government deserves credit for its engagement with the US. But it must now be judged on delivery. The test is not how many alternative markets appear in a presentation. It is whether South African businesses can access them, compete in them and create sustainable economic activity.

There is no need to turn this into an anti-US crusade. Mature trade relations require negotiation, mutual benefit and respect for the sovereignty of both parties. If a mutually acceptable arrangement can be reached, excellent. But we should not negotiate from the assumption that losing preferential access is the end of our economic possibilities.

If this episode persuades us to stop renting our economic confidence from Washington and start building it at home, perhaps we will have learnt something valuable. We need the US as a trading partner. We do not need it as the permanent reference point for our economic self-esteem.

• Koka is a PhD candidate in econometrics, a researcher in the cultural industries and a social commentator

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As stronger regulatory interventions to improve online safety emerge worldwide, South Africa appears to be moving backwards towards an ineffective self-regulatory model it had previously abandoned.

The death of a 17-year-old last month following serious online abuse and humiliation is a painful reminder of the consequences of digital harm, and why online safety requires more than voluntary safeguards. Many cases go unreported across Africa, including South Africa.

OS Lab’s report in February this year, Digital Safety in Schools, noted that children as young as nine have social media accounts despite platforms’ age restrictions.

Despite concerns, policymakers have made clear that South Africa should not pursue a minimum-age restriction preventing children under 16 from accessing social media platforms. Communications & digital technologies minister Solly Malatsi argues that there is no irrefutable evidence that a general ban would prevent young people from remaining digitally active. He instead favours digital literacy, stronger platform safeguards, responsible industry self-regulation and greater parental supervision.

Such measures are necessary, but have proved insufficient amid escalating online harms. Justifying inaction because irrefutable evidence is lacking amounts to policy inertia and a denial of voluntary safeguards’ limitations. Socio-economic challenges in developing countries can undermine parental controls and supervision.

South Africa gained a head start through the 2019 amendments to the Films and Publications Act, moving away from an ineffective self-regulatory model. The reforms required commercial online content distributors to register with the Film and Publication Board (FPB). The act empowers the FPB to issue takedown notices, handle complaints and impose fines through an enforcement committee. Prohibited content includes propaganda for war, incitement of imminent violence and hate speech.

South Africa has the foundations for platform regulation: laws, regulators and a statutory enforcement committee. Yet the administrative and political will to enforce them — supported by rigorous parliamentary oversight — appears to be lacking.

Imperfect as it may be, this framework gave South Africa a pioneering role and paved the way for the FPB’s admission to the Global Online Safety Regulators Network (GOSRN) in 2022, creating opportunities to help shape international approaches and standards.

Why, then, is South Africa regressing towards weaker enforcement and voluntary measures when its citizens, particularly children and women, remain exposed to serious online harms?

South Africa has the foundations for platform regulation: laws, regulators and a statutory enforcement committee. Yet the administrative and political will to enforce them — supported by rigorous parliamentary oversight — appears to be lacking. In fast-moving digital markets, what matters is not simply the number of laws on the statute book, but a coherent, adaptive and enforceable regulatory system that translates statutory authority into action and measurable impact.

Debates about online safety often conflate technology education (TechEd), educational technology (EdTech) and social media. This fuels the claim that regulating social media would restrict children’s access to technology. Yet social media is not synonymous with technology education, and not all digital tools serve an educational purpose. Preparing children for future work requires communication, collaboration, critical thinking and problem-solving, not simply increased screen time.

South Africa’s online safety landscape spans several laws, including the Cybercrimes Act, the Films and Publications Act and the Protection of Personal Information Act (Popia). Further policy development includes the draft white paper on audiovisual services and online safety, in circulation since 2018. In May this year, the department of basic education (DBE) told Parliament it was developing screen-time guidelines for children aged two to six.

This proliferation reflects disparate policy paths within the government of national unity (GNU), whose constituents hold diverse positions. The result is incoherence and discontinuity. The Films and Publications Act, draft white paper and proposed screen-time guidelines illustrate the need to align legislation and policy. Parallel initiatives risk inconsistent standards and unclear accountability. South Africa needs an integrated national framework with common outcomes, defined institutional roles, a shared implementation plan and public reporting.

Stronger platform regulation can also help develop a local trust-and-safety industry. Implementation creates demand for content moderation, child-safety design, digital forensics, risk assessment, compliance, research and user-support services. With high youth unemployment, South Africa can build regional capabilities rather than import them. Clear rules, combined with public procurement, research funding, skills development and start-up support, can enable African entrepreneurs to develop locally relevant safety technologies.

South Africa’s legal foundations, institutional experience and human capital provide a basis for leadership in online safety. Realising this potential requires coherence, continuity, and administrative and political will. Digital literacy and parental support remain important, but they should complement enforceable duties rather than substitute for them. Linking platform duties, capable institutions, citizen education and trust-and-safety investment can turn online safety into public value, economic participation and continental influence.

South Africa should pursue three linked priorities: adopt an integrated online safety framework; invest in collaborative, regulatory capacity through the recently established Information, Communication Technologies and Media Regulators Forum of South Africa; and develop a domestic trust-and-safety economy through skills development, research, start-up support and deliberate public procurement.

• Boloka is the chief executive of Online Safety Lab (OS Lab)

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A top official in women, youth & persons with disabilities minister Sindisiwe Chikunga’s ministry is appealing an interim court order that he cough up R40,000 in monthly maintenance for his two children.

The official, whose take-home pay is alleged to be more than R170,000 a month, spends up to R21,000 a month on restaurants and takeaways, according to papers filed in the Johannesburg high court. But he says he can’t afford the maintenance payments.

He and his estranged wife may not be named to protect the identity of their children.

The interim maintenance order, made by the high court last November, kicked in on December 1. However, the adviser’s wife claims he only made one payment.

She claims he told her that he couldn’t make the full monthly payment, as he had to pay R17,000 in monthly instalments for his BMW and could therefore only contribute R23,165 to the children’s expenses.

In February, he appealed the interim order. He maintains in his heads of argument that it should be set aside, arguing that his circumstances should be properly assessed by the maintenance court.

He says any concerns about affordability can be addressed through court proceedings. “At best, the applicant’s complaint is that he cannot afford the maintenance order,” reads his heads of argument.

The couple separated at the end of July 2025. His wife acknowledges in her submission to the court that her husband continued contributing towards the children after the separation but alleges that he reduced his contributions towards the end of October, leaving her struggling to meet their expenses.

She calculates the children’s monthly expenses at R116,588, of which she says her husband’s share should be R70,401. She bases the figure on the fact that he earns significantly more than she does.

According to her calculations, his proposed contribution of R24,149 leaves a monthly shortfall of R46,251.

The wife, a professional who holds a top job, is asking the court to grant a permanent order directing him to pay a minimum amount of R40,000 should it find that he is not financially liable for R70,000.

In her affidavit, she says she earns half the amount he does and argues that their respective financial means should be taken into account when determining their contributions towards the children’s maintenance.

“The respondent’s own figures, when measured against the children’s actual expenses, reveal a glaring shortfall that cannot be ignored,” she states.

These figures are her calculations presented in the litigation and have not been established as judicial findings.

A central point of contention is the family home in Sandton, which the wife describes as the children’s primary residence. She argues that its running costs should form part of the maintenance calculation because the property provides the children with accommodation and stability.

She says expenses include water, electricity, rates, refuse removal, insurance and therapy.

“These are not optional luxuries but essential costs of providing the children with a home, stability and proper care,” she states.

The affidavit also challenges her husband’s financial disclosures.

She says that his monthly departmental salary is R123,695, supplemented by allowances of about R46,821. She claims his bank statements reflect additional, undisclosed income averaging R71,075 a month, bringing his estimated average monthly income to R241,591.96. She argues that the figures demonstrate that he has substantially greater financial means than he has disclosed to the court.

She disputes several of the household expenses he allegedly claimed, including R52,000 a month for accommodation and R4,000 for petrol for an au pair he employs.

She describes these expenses as inflated and unsupported, arguing that he provided no lease agreement or proof of payment for the accommodation. She also says the bank statements reflect lower fuel spending and suggests the au pair expense was manufactured to reduce his disposable income.

She also points to his restaurant and takeaway transactions reflected in the bank statements, which she says amounted to R14,316 in September 2025 and R21,383 in October that year.

“His own records confirm he has the means but not the willingness to discharge his duty,” she alleges.

The financial dispute has also affected the children’s day-to-day expenses, according to her affidavit. The breakdown of costs for the children includes schooling, accommodation and extracurricular activities such as music, pottery, dance and gymnastics.

The wife also refers to outstanding costs for swimming and coding lessons and says her mother helps cover household expenses, including R9,010 monthly for groceries and R1,525 monthly for the children’s haircare.

She acknowledges that her husband made certain additional payments after her application was launched and that he requested details of extracurricular service providers and indicated that he would take responsibility for the school-fee debit order.

However, she argues that these steps do not resolve the alleged shortfall or answer questions about earlier payments.

“Maintenance cannot be paid in advance or selectively apportioned according to his preferences,” she states. “It must be consistent, adequate and directed toward the children’s actual needs.”

Approached for comment, the official told the Sunday Times: “Thank you for reaching out. I elect not to participate in this story. Please proceed as you see fit.”

His estranged wife could not be reached for comment. She did not respond to multiple calls sent over a week as well as a detailed WhatsApp message.

• According to the Maintenance Act, both parents have a duty to contribute towards their children’s maintenance in proportion to their respective financial means and the reasonable needs of the children. In determining an appropriate contribution, the maintenance court may consider evidence of their income, bank statements, school fees, household expenses and other supporting documents.

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ActionSA’s Tshwane mayor, Nasiphi Moya, believes the way she ran the capital city propelled the party to its most impressive electoral performance since its formation, making it one of the kingmakers in the Gauteng metros as parties begin horse-trading to form coalition governments.

This comes after ActionSA was a big winner in Gauteng across the metros — emerging as the second-biggest party in Tshwane and the third-largest in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni.

Moya says her delivery record in Tshwane is what delivered the votes for her party.

“Tshwane was the only government we were participating in, and we had the mayor. We didn’t do badly in turning around the city and communicating while staying with the residents throughout the journey. We became the blueprint in saying, ‘If you want a mayor and leadership like Tshwane, just look at the city and see for yourself.’

“Through my communications and daily updates, it actually spread across the country, proving this is how a mayor is supposed to function and work. People even complained, asking, ‘Why is this mayor always on the ground? When is she in the boardroom making important decisions?’ I said, ‘I am structured, there is time to make decisions, there is time to go and fetch data so that you can come and make those decisions.’”

Moya said it was her direct interaction with communities that made all the difference. “That is why it was easy for colleagues to say, ‘We already have a blueprint that’s working in Tshwane, and if you want that, let’s get ActionSA elsewhere.”

She added that her party breaking ranks with the DA after entering into a coalition with it in 2021 had been strategic.

“When we joined the City of Tshwane in 2021, we got into a coalition with the DA. Things happened that complicated things going into the 2024 elections. One of the things we had to do was think of the renewal of ActionSA. During the ‘moonshot pact’ era, we were called DA lite. When did you last hear anyone calling us that? It was a strategic decision that we wanted to take out of the learnings of the 2024 campaign, saying, ‘How do we reposition ourselves?’”

Moya said one of ActionSA’s bold decisions was to change the composition of its Tshwane coalitions.

“Our first condition was that we wanted to serve all communities. One of our biggest gripes in the other coalition was that they are only serving a few; there are other areas that are not getting the services. From day one, we were in communities. We devised different programmes to reach out to the forgotten communities. We did less public meetings to discuss challenges; we just came to communities to respond to challenges. Engagement with residents was clear. We said, ‘When we come back, don’t expect public meetings again. We will come back to make sure we deliver services to you.’”

From day one we were [on the ground] in communities. We devised different programmes to reach out to the forgotten communities

Nasiphi Moya, Tshwane mayor

According to Moya, her priority was not just interaction with communities but also making important decisions in council.

“We wanted to build that institution, that was on its knees, whether through the issue of building the finances of the city. We communicated loudly; for example, the agreement to pay Eskom the signing of the 3.5% wage increase, not just for the morale of the staff but also in terms of the impact on service delivery.

“We even did things that were exciting. The buying of our own equipment showed the people of Tshwane that this person doesn’t want to just farm out her responsibilities and outsource. We have more control when there is equipment to empower officials who are already getting paid; we are in charge of the service-delivery schedule because we don’t have to depend on the rates of a service provider.”

Moya said her accessibility and responsiveness to crises won her the support of the people of Tshwane.

“This was to the dissatisfaction of politicians, who started saying, ‘But this is a social-media mayor.’ I told them, ‘But this was not for you politicians — this was for residents.’ I would communicate about four different activities in one day to report on what I was doing. It was also to educate society about our intentions — what we’re trying to do and why we’re doing what we are doing. I think residents appreciated it a lot that they can just bump into me in their communities without a public meeting or bodyguards.”

If she returns to govern Tshwane for another five-year term, Moya says infrastructure development will be priority number one.

“Our challenges remain on infrastructure, and … you cannot just put a Band-Aid on. You need to deal with the issues and backlogs. There are communities that have not had that post-democratic feeling and experience. We need to deal with current demand and build infrastructure for the future.”

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The Sunday Times’s findings on nearly R70bn in government contract extensions and expansions should alarm every South African.

Thousands of contract changes raise legitimate questions about transparency, accountability and whether taxpayers are getting value for money.

Investigative journalists deserve credit for exposing practices that demand scrutiny.

There is always the danger, however, that we become so focused on identifying procurement failures that we overlook the system that produces them. South Africa does not have the luxury of treating every procurement scandal as an isolated incident, responding with outrage and moving on until the next one breaks.

The real questions we need to ask are: what is fundamentally wrong with our procurement system and what are we going to do to fix it?

The answers require us to look beyond the final contract, beyond the official who signed an extension and beyond the compliance report. We need to examine the entire process, from planning and tender design to supplier financing, project delivery and payment.

Procurement does not begin when a tender is advertised. And its success cannot be measured by whether the paperwork is in order.

We are measuring the wrong things

The question is not whether irregularities should be exposed. They should. It is whether exposing them, without addressing the conditions in which they occur, will change anything.

Our procurement system places considerable emphasis on compliance. That is necessary, but compliance alone does not tell us whether a project has achieved its intended outcome, whether its original scope was realistic or what the consequences would be if a contract were allowed to lapse.

Consider a call-centre agent instructed to complete every call within five minutes. If performance is measured primarily by the time taken to close a call, the agent will inevitably face pressure to prioritise speed over quality.

The metric shapes the behaviour.

In our haste to point fingers, we sometimes forget that many procurement professionals themselves operate under similar pressures. They must follow prescribed processes, meet delivery deadlines, manage budgets and ensure projects progress. When a project stalls, the consequences can be immediate and highly visible. When a contract is extended, the decision attracts scrutiny.

Yet the consequences of allowing a critical project to stop may receive far less attention.

This does not excuse misconduct. It does, however, demand that we understand the incentives, constraints and decisions that lead to it.

The auditor-general plays an indispensable role in monitoring compliance and public-sector accountability. But we also need to evaluate procurement against delivery, value for money, and the broader economic outcomes it is supposed to achieve. We cannot expect better results if we measure only whether the rules were followed, without examining whether the system enables people to deliver.

The failure often starts before the tender

One of the most overlooked aspects of procurement is what happens before a tender is issued. Are questions like, “What work is actually required?” “Have the necessary technical assessments been completed?” or “Were the right experts consulted?” being asked?

In our business, we have seen first-hand how weaknesses in the initial assessment of a project’s requirements can undermine everything that follows. If the original study miscalculates what is needed, the tender may be flawed before it reaches the market.

An unrealistic scope can lead to cost increases, delays, additional work and requests for contract variations. The subsequent extension may become the most visible symptom of a problem that began much earlier.

We must therefore scrutinise not only the final decision to extend a contract, but also the planning, technical assessments and consultation processes that preceded the original tender.

You cannot demand delivery without addressing liquidity

The financial conditions under which suppliers are expected to deliver are another critical part of the picture. A supplier awarded a government contract must often pay employees, secure materials, arrange insurance, establish a worksite and meet other operating costs long before receiving payment for completed work. That requires working capital.

Yet access to affordable finance remains a major obstacle for SMMEs. Many cannot secure funding on equitable terms, particularly when they lack substantial assets or a long credit history. Late payments make this worse. This is where procurement policy, payment practices and the financial system collide.

Imagine a state-owned entity with 10 suppliers on its panel. If eight cannot sustain delivery because they lack working capital or are paid late, the procurement official faces a difficult choice. The project must continue, deadlines must be met, and failure to deliver carries consequences.

The financially stronger suppliers may consequently receive more work, even when the intention was to broaden participation and create opportunities for smaller businesses.

The official’s decisions may then attract scrutiny for repeatedly favouring the same suppliers. Yet the underlying financial constraints that shaped those decisions may remain outside the official’s control. This is how a system can undermine its own objectives.

Three practical steps towards reform

We need solutions that improve accountability while making successful delivery more achievable.

First, we must use the opportunity presented by the Public Procurement Act’s return for reconsideration to engage meaningfully with the public and strengthen the framework.

The process should clarify when changes in project scope or cost trigger additional scrutiny, particularly when increases exceed defined thresholds. The objective must be a system that is transparent, proportionate, and practical to implement.

Second, every contract extension should be recorded in a public registry. The registry should disclose why an extension was necessary, how much additional expenditure it involves, who approved it, and whether the original contract had expired.

Such a registry would make patterns easier to identify, enable earlier intervention, and give citizens a clearer view of how procurement decisions are made.

Third, we must use technology and better data to identify risks before they become failures. Early-warning systems could flag repeated extensions, significant cost increases, recurring awards to the same suppliers, or projects showing signs of planning and delivery problems.

Procurement teams should be able to investigate these warnings while there is still time to act. Equally important, procurement decisions should be assessed alongside supplier payment performance and the financial capacity needed to execute contracts.

This means connecting information that is too often kept in separate silos: tender specifications, contract changes, invoices, payment records and project outcomes.

The question is what happens next

South Africa needs investigative journalism, rigorous auditing and consequences for wrongdoing. None of these should be diluted.

But responsible citizenship demands more than pointing at a broken system and waiting for someone else to repair it.

We must be prepared to ask whether our procurement rules remain fit for purpose, whether projects are properly planned, whether suppliers can access the working capital they need, and whether our measures of success encourage the outcomes we actually want.

We already know that something is wrong. The real test is whether we are willing to change it.

• Zama is the founder and CEO of Momula

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The Thabo Mbeki Foundation is facing a hefty claim from an event management company that alleges it was left in the red after the foundation cancelled its flagship African Peace and Security Dialogue (APSD) weeks before it was due to take place.

The Sunday Times has established that True North Events & Communications is suing the foundation’s trustees for R637,371, claiming it spent about seven months preparing for the 2026 dialogue before being informed that the event would no longer go ahead.

The company says the cancellation came despite the foundation having instructed it to proceed with preparations, requested changes to successive budgets and engaged with it over arrangements for the event.

In particulars of claim filed at the Johannesburg high court on October 23, True North says the event was scheduled for September 2-5 at the Mount Grace Hotel & Spa in Mogale City but was cancelled on August 3.

In a statement at the time, the foundation said the cancellation was due to “fewer financial partners being available this year”.

True North is claiming R637,371 in damages, alternatively R732,976 with interest and legal costs.

At the centre of the dispute is whether the parties had concluded a binding agreement, despite the final cost estimate not having been physically signed by both parties.

True North says its relationship with the foundation dates back to 2024, when it was appointed as the management company for the annual dialogue. It was also appointed for the 2025 dialogue.

Discussions about the 2026 event allegedly began in February, when the foundation’s COO, Lukhanyo Neer, instructed True North to proceed with planning and preparations.

The absence of a signature did not prevent the parties from concluding and acting upon their agreement.

True North

The company says it submitted its first cost estimate on February 27, followed by several revisions after the foundation requested changes to the budget and scope of work.

The fifth and final version was submitted on July 13.

Although the estimate was not signed, True North argues that the parties’ conduct demonstrated that an agreement had been reached.

“The absence of a signature did not prevent the parties from concluding and acting upon their agreement,” the company states.

It alleges the foundation continued to engage with it, requested amendments and gave instructions on the planning and delivery of the event.

“The parties’ conduct, viewed in the context of their established contractual relationship in relation to the preceding APSD events, demonstrates that the parties had reached agreement regarding the appointment of True North and the delivery of the 2026 APSD,” the particulars state.

In preparation for the event, True North says it undertook a range of work, including project leadership, staffing and service contracts, guest and crew travel arrangements, accommodation sourcing, venue visits, stage design and technical co-ordination.

It also says it was involved in supplier negotiations, financial and budget tracking, production scheduling, safety and security planning, and securing personnel and resources.

The company describes the work as “substantial”, listing project support, administration, logistics, design, technical co-ordination and supplier negotiations. It alleges that the cancellation was communicated through a WhatsApp message from Neer.

True North argues that the foundation’s decision amounted to a repudiation of the agreement because it had already performed work and incurred costs in preparation for the event.

The company says it accepted the alleged repudiation and treated the agreement as terminated, holding the foundation liable for the resulting losses.

Its claim is made up of R517,485, excluding VAT, for its own work and cancellation-related commitments, and a further R119,886.25 in supplier-related costs.

The supplier costs allegedly include technical, design, stage management, food and beverage management, logistics management and RSVP management.

True North says it ”took reasonable steps to mitigate its loss, including negotiating reductions in supplier cancellation costs where possible".

The proposed budget for the full dialogue was approximately R13.67m, excluding VAT.

True North says it issued a tax invoice on August 7, demanding payment within 30 days.

After the alleged failure to pay, its attorneys sent the foundation a formal letter of demand on September 18, giving it 10 working days to settle the amount.

The company claims the foundation failed or refused to make payment despite the demand.

Approached for comment this week, the foundation said it had committed to settle the outstanding amount by November 13.

Speaking through its communications company, Joe Public Engage, it said the parties had agreed to “resolve the dispute amicably”.

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Escalating tensions between the board of directors of the Community Schemes Ombud Service (CSOS) and human settlements minister Thembi Simelane, over the appointment of an acting chief ombud, internal rifts and unresolved investigations into past executive conduct have erupted into the dissolution of the board.

In a letter sent on Friday to CSOS chair Busisiwe Nzo, Simelane said because the board rejected a report that highlighted board deficiencies, and also failed to present a plan to address them, she dissolved the board with immediate effect.

“Your response denied me an opportunity to work with you to resolve the deficiencies that were mentioned in the report and failed to convince me otherwise. “As a result, I resolved to dissolve the entire Board of CSOS with immediate effect, or upon receipt of this letter,” she said in her letter.

On October 24 Simelane had asked the board to “show cause” within seven days why it should not be dissolved under section 28 of the CSOS Act.

In response on November 3, the board rejected the minister’s intent to dissolve it, arguing that her letter was procedurally and substantively unfair and premature under Section 28 of the CSOS Act.

The board contended that the minister failed to follow statutory steps, which require issuing a formal directive detailing specific deficiencies and granting up to six months to implement remedial action before taking steps to dissolve it.

The minister’s intervention represents the boiling point of a months-long confrontation rooted in conflicting interpretations of statutory authority in the appointment of an interim chief ombud, allegations of financial overreach, and severe factionalism within the board.

The board prefers CSOS corporate services head Lesiba Seshoka, while the minister prefers organisational strategy & performance head Kedibone Phetla, who was suspended this week over actions during her previous stint as acting chief ombud last year.

Allegations against her include allegedly ignoring internal advice and signing a R50m ICT tender that the CSOS had no cash to fund. She has referred all questions to CSOS.

The CSOS has been without a permanent chief ombud, an accounting officer position, since August 2024, and various executive committee members, including Seshoka and Phetla, have acted in the position for periods ranging from three to 13 months. The organisation is in the process of permanently filling the post.

On October 1, Nzo and her deputy, Marina Dumakude, wrote to Simelane requesting her concurrence to appoint Seshoka as acting chief ombud for six months, following the expiration of the previous incumbent’s term on September 30.

In the letter, they explained that they had passed over Phetla because she had already acted in the position and because “a matter relating to her previous acting arrangement remains under consideration and may give rise to a conflict of interest should she be appointed to act in the position at this time”.

Two days later, Simelane withheld concurrence for Seshoka’s appointment and instructed the board to appoint Phetla instead.

“It is noted that the board has not provided a sufficient basis for departing from the rotational principle that has informed acting appointments within the organisation,” Simelane said. “Accordingly, it is my considered view that Ms Kedibone Phetla should be appointed as acting chief ombud.”

She added: “Based on the information before me, no reasons have been advanced to justify her exclusion from consideration.”

Simelane further criticised the board for submitting the request after the leadership vacancy had already occurred, raising concerns about “succession planning, continuity of leadership, and governance oversight”.

The CSOS is a national regulatory and alternative dispute resolution body operating under the department of human settlements. It is the primary statutory watchdog overseeing community schemes across South Africa, including sectional title developments, homeowners’ associations and share-block schemes. With more than R500m in annual revenue raised from stakeholders, it has been shrouded in controversy and allegations of executive malfeasance.

The board relies on section 17(1) of the CSOS Act, which empowers it to make acting appointments without legally requiring ministerial concurrence. Simelane, however, cites the shareholder compact — the formal governance agreement between CSOS and Simelane’s department — which requires concurrence.

Phetla also served as the acting accounting authority and acting chief ombud between March 7 and July 31 last year, under an appointment letter issued under the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA).

The board does not characterise its engagement with the minister as a standoff. The board sought concurrence on a proposed acting appointment, and the minister requested clarification of the reasons for that request.

However, the board’s legal advisers subsequently informed it that her appointment had strictly excluded the statutory functions of the chief ombud under the CSOS Act, rendering all decisions taken by her in that capacity unlawful. At an in-camera board meeting on July 30, the board demanded a consolidated schedule of all contracts concluded during Phetla’s tenure and asked her to make written representations before it decided whether to institute a formal disciplinary investigation.

Phetla’s handling of the 2024 procurement of the CSOS’s enterprise content and document management solutions system - an off-the-shelf solution designed to digitise, manage and secure records and content across the entity - also came under scrutiny.

Internal records show that in October 2024, the CSOS’s bid adjudication committee (BAC) formally recommended cancelling the five-year tender, explicitly noting that the allocated R50m budget was not cash-backed.

Despite the BAC’s warning, as well as another warning from CSOS CFO Masaswivona Nhlungwana in January last year, Phetla went ahead and signed the contract, thrusting the CSOS into financial difficulty. The organisation is now struggling to meet all its commitments, an insider said.

The board’s standoff with the minister has also unfolded against a backdrop of severe internal disarray among the directors.

In her letter of intention to dissolve the board, Simelane revealed that it had become deeply divided, culminating in a motion of no confidence in Nzo passed by board members in June. Following the vote, Simelane commissioned an independent investigation led by her adviser, Dan Mashitisho.

According to Simelane, the investigation report uncovered extensive institutional breakdown, including board committee chairs appointed without proper written confirmation; investigations — including one into sexual harassment — closed prematurely because of alleged poor report quality; and deep “factional practices within the board that are negatively affecting functionality”.

Simelane said these findings led her to conclude that the board had failed in its fiduciary oversight responsibilities, justifying her decision to initiate dissolution proceedings under section 28 of the CSOS Act.

Approached for comment, the board downplayed allegations of a standoff, saying: “The board does not characterise its engagement with the minister as a standoff. The board sought concurrence on a proposed acting appointment, and the minister requested clarification of the reasons for that request.”

On Phetla, the board said it would not comment on employee matters and appealed for internal processes to be allowed to run their course.

Simelane’s spokesperson, Tsekiso Machike, said the minister would not comment on the matter while internal processes were under way.

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The hardest test of respect for the ballot comes when voters deny a party the power it believes it deserves. Nelson Mandela’s acceptance of the electorate’s choices in 1994 expressed a democratic principle that must outlive the ANC’s dominance: no party owns the people’s mandate. Respecting an election means accepting not only victory or defeat but also the limits voters place on the authority to govern. In the aftermath of this week’s municipal elections, that principle should govern every negotiation over municipal power.

The ballot authorises representatives to govern; it does not release them from that obligation. Across South Africa’s 213 municipalities, the task is to translate electoral choices into councils that can make lawful decisions and meet public obligations. Each municipal council has its own political composition, community priorities and institutional demands. These mandates belong within one sovereign democratic state and are not interchangeable pieces on a national party-political chessboard.

South Africa’s constitutional architecture matters precisely because power is dispersed. National, provincial and local government are distinctive, interdependent and interrelated spheres, not simply superior and subordinate tiers. A municipality’s executive and legislative authority vests in its council. Its distinctiveness is neither a licence to disregard national and provincial law nor a shield against accountability. Equally, co-operation must not become a pretext for political subordination. Where intervention is constitutionally warranted, its purpose must be to restore lawful government, not to substitute a preferred party arrangement for the electorate’s choices.

Where no party secures the seats it needs to govern alone, negotiation is not a betrayal of democracy. It is a necessary response to how political authority is distributed. A council without an outright majority does not lack a mandate — it contains several mandates that must be reconciled into a workable programme. The distinction is between negotiating how to govern and bargaining over who will benefit from government. The former respects the ballot. The latter risks turning municipal office, influence and resources into the price of political support. A national agreement between party leaders cannot, by itself, answer the particular needs of every municipality.

Gwede Mantashe’s reading of declining ANC support as a sign of democratic maturation poses an important question: what, exactly, constitutes maturity? The weakening of a dominant party may widen competition, but more parties do not automatically produce a more accountable state. The test is whether competing representatives can exercise shared authority without weakening the institutions they seek to lead. Neither the largest party nor a smaller coalition partner possesses an entitlement beyond its lawful authority. When the ability to collapse an administration becomes more valuable than the ability to improve it, political leverage has displaced public purpose.

A council without an outright majority does not lack a mandate — it contains several mandates that must be reconciled into a workable programme

The same distinction must govern our approach to identity politics. Minority rights, cultural belonging and regional concerns are legitimate elements of democratic life. They are not the problem. The danger arises when leaders turn communal fears into rigid political boundaries and portray compromise as betrayal. As the advantage of party size diminishes, narrowly defined interests may gain greater bargaining power. But a municipality governs a shared jurisdiction. No party’s constituency exhausts the community, and no coalition should make equal citizenship conditional on political, ethnic or regional allegiance.

Residents should therefore judge coalition bargaining by what it makes possible, not merely by who emerges as mayor. Governing agreements should set out public priorities, credible budget choices, responsibilities and procedures for resolving disputes. Administrative appointments and procurement must not become rewards for keeping an alliance intact. Nor should stability become an excuse for protecting failure: a coalition deserves to endure because it governs accountably, not simply because its partners have agreed to preserve one another in office.

This is where the preoccupation with power can cause decay. Parties may retain enough influence to remove leaders while losing the capacity to sustain decisions. Each threat of withdrawal may strengthen a negotiator’s hand while weakening the council’s authority. If residents come to see elections as the opening round of a contest for positions rather than a route to responsive government, the legitimacy of the democratic order — not merely a coalition’s reputation — is at risk.

The people have made their choices. Political parties must now respect those choices by making government work. They need not surrender their differences, but they must stop treating public institutions as instruments of permanent electoral combat. A mandate is not ownership, a coalition is not a licence to divide the spoils, and bargaining power is not an end in itself. The ballot must determine who may govern; constitutional obligation must determine how. Anything less honours the arithmetic of the election while betraying its democratic purpose.

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A spurned Gauteng man has accused his estranged wife of stealing a company they co-owned — and stealing millions from the City of Johannesburg.

The wife, Mashudu Ndou-Ndlovu, is facing charges of fraud, corruption and false identity in two separate cases involving millions of rand.

Some of the funds were allegedly syphoned from City of Johannesburg entities, including waste management company Pikitup.

Ndou-Ndlovu, who was allegedly born Ratidzai Zhou in Zimbabwe, is also accused of fraudulently acquiring a South African identity.

On Tuesday, she appeared briefly in the commercial crimes court in Palmridge, where her case was postponed to February. She remains in custody.

She is accused of defrauding Pikitup of millions of rand through Velman Construction, a company she co-owns with her husband, Elliot Ndlovu, who is the complainant in the two cases against her investigated by the Hawks.

Ndou-Ndlovu is jointly charged with City of Johannesburg employee Samantha Pather, who was granted R10,000 bail this week after her arrest.

According to the provisional charge sheet seen by the Sunday Times, Ndou-Ndlovu allegedly assumed her new identity in 1998 with the assistance of her stepmother.

She married Ndlovu in 2013 and subsequently became an authorised signatory on Velman Construction’s Nedbank account.

The charge sheet further alleges that she submitted fraudulent proxy and company documents to Nedbank and the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC), including backdated resolutions and forged signatures, resulting in Ndlovu allegedly being unlawfully removed as a company director.

Among the allegations is that she submitted a fraudulent resolution to Nedbank on May 31 2021, requesting an increase in the company’s daily withdrawal limit from R500,000 to R5m, according to Ndlovu. The document was purportedly signed by Ndlovu and Ndou-Ndlovu.

She is also accused of using intermediaries to deliver money to officials in Johannesburg at various locations, including a McDonald’s restaurant on Beyers Naudé Drive, Pikitup premises and corporate governance offices.

Further allegations include that she fraudulently removed Ndlovu from CIPC records and company bank accounts, obtained a restraining order preventing him from accessing company premises and instituted divorce proceedings against him amid a dispute over a divorce decree.

But the criminal case has also exposed a bitter dispute between the couple over multimillion-rand payments made to their company by Joburg Market and Pikitup.

All I wanted was an explanation, as I had not signed any tender documents or requests for quotations from Joburg Market that would warrant us being paid that money.

Elliot Ndlovu

Ndlovu told the Sunday Times that an unexpected R7.8m payment from Joburg Market in May 2021 sparked a dispute that eventually saw him removed from the company he co-owned with his wife.

He said he had previously run Velman Construction with Ndou-Ndlovu, jointly signing company documents, and was shocked when he learnt of the payment, which he believed was for services that had not been rendered.

“All I wanted was an explanation, as I had not signed any tender documents or requests for quotations from Joburg Market that would warrant us being paid that money,” he said.

He alleged that when his wife could not provide a satisfactory explanation, the disagreement escalated, resulting in him being kicked out of their matrimonial home and served with a protection order.

Joburg Market, however, denied any irregularity. It told the Sunday Times the payment was for four M20 sweeper and scrubbing machines that had been delivered to its premises.

On May 31 2021, two days after the Joburg Market payment, R10m was paid to the company from Pikitup, which he also claimed to know nothing about.

He said around the same time, he was removed as a signatory on the company’s Nedbank account through a proxy document he disputed, leaving Ndou-Ndlovu as the sole signatory.

A subsequent payment of R4.5m was allegedly made from the account by Ndou-Ndlovu, with the reference “cleaning equipment”.

Approached for comment, Pikitup confirmed making the R10m payment to Velman Construction but said it was for the provision of trucks on an ad hoc basis.

“The entity had a contractual relationship with the service provider [Velman Construction] to provide trucks as and when required,” Pikitup spokesperson Anthony Selepe said.

The number of trucks supplied varied according to the operational department’s requirements, and there was no fixed number of trucks contracted for the duration of the agreement.

“The [R10m] payment was made through the normal process of the entity. According to documentation that the entity has, this payment was for a service rendered by the service provider,” Selepe said.

He added that plant hire services had been rendered and that the invoice was dated April 30 2021.

“The documents that were submitted to the company from the service provider had supporting documents required to verify the service and authorise for payment processing,” he said.

Joburg Market spokesperson Tshegofatso Maakwe also confirmed that the entity had procured cleaning equipment from Velman Construction for R7.8m.

“According to Joburg Market records, we can confirm that payment was made to Velman Construction. The payment is related to the appointment for the supply and delivery of four M20 sweeper and scrubbing machines to the Joburg Market,” Maakwe said.

She said the machines had been delivered and remained at the market, where they were still in use.

Maakwe said a letter of appointment was issued to Velman Construction on February 21 2021 for the supply and delivery of the four machines.

Delivery arrangements were confirmed for May 6 to 10 2021, with a delivery notice submitted confirming that the machines had been supplied and delivered in South Africa during that period.

She said the payment included transportation and delivery costs.

“An invoice in the amount of R7,806,237.95 was submitted on May 18 2021 from Velman Construction, which was subsequently paid as per official records,” Maakwe said.

Ndlovu, however, maintained that he was not party to the disputed transactions, claiming he had already been removed as a signatory to the company’s bank account.

He said he was seeking justice and hoped the legal process would establish what had happened.

The Hawks confirmed that Ndou-Ndlovu had been arrested in connection with two separate cases, both of which remain under investigation.

Hawks spokesperson Katlego Mogale confirmed that the cases were still being investigated.

Mogale said the fraud and corruption matter, which had been under investigation for more than three years, had recently been assigned to a different investigating officer.

“The matter is before court with the accused in custody after bail was successfully opposed,” Mogale said.

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At first glance, Killarney Road in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs appears to be just another exclusive, leafy street that is home to some of the city’s wealthiest people. The high walls, guardhouses and surveillance cameras tell a story.

But a closer peek reveals a community bristling with some of the country’s most powerful players.

At just 155m long, Killarney Road borders Hyde Park and Sandhurst and is home to President Cyril Ramaphosa. He rubs shoulders with an assortment of neighbours, including EFF leader Julius Malema; Bellarmine Mugabe, the son of Zimbabwe’s late president Robert Mugabe; and cigarette tycoon and self-confessed tax cheat Adriano Mazzotti.

But perhaps the most notorious person associated with the road is businessman Hangwani Maumela, whose alleged involvement in the R2bn Tembisa Hospital corruption scandal has thrust his property empire into the spotlight.

Ramaphosa’s relationship with Maumela was revealed last year after the Asset Forfeiture Unit seized vehicles and art at Maumela’s home. The president says he hardly knows him but admits he was married to Maumela’s aunt 47 years ago; however, he divorced her decades ago.

Ramaphosa says he bumped into Maumela twice outside his house while on walks. In the first incident, in 2024, Maumela emerged from his home and Ramaphosa asked him, “So you are the Maumela who is putting my name into disrepute?” After which Maumela smiled and Ramaphosa walked away.

Later that year their paths crossed again. Ramaphosa was walking with his daughter when Maumela asked him to greet his mother, Moneni Maumela, who was a former classmate of Ramaphosa’s at Papuri High School.

The MHR Maumela Family Trust acquired substantial prime property along the road, including 41 Killarney Road, a sprawling 6,547m² property bought in 2022 for R16m. The erf has since been combined with an adjoining R70m Oxford Avenue property to create a vast compound.

Images and videos showcasing the lavish lifestyle and luxury properties amassed by Maumela and his family have fuelled public outrage, particularly against the backdrop of the alleged looting of funds intended for public healthcare.

Another name linked to Killarney Road is businessman Bejani Chauke, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s former principal political adviser, who reportedly owns a neighbouring or adjacent stand.

This week, Chauke was served with a rule 10.6 notice by the Madlanga commission of inquiry, which is examining historical WhatsApp exchanges between him and the late taxi boss Jotham “King Mswazi” Msibi concerning illicit high-grade surveillance equipment.

In February, Bellarmine Mugabe and his bodyguard Tobias Tamirepi Matonhodze were arrested at a property linked to the Mugabe family in Killarney Road.

During an appearance in the Alexandra magistrate’s court, Mugabe pleaded guilty to firearm and immigration charges. He was fined, detained and deported to Zimbabwe in April.

Zimbabwe media reported in 2017 that his mother, Grace Mugabe, bought the property for R45m and was negotiating to buy another.

Then there is Mazzotti, director of cigarette manufacturer Carnilinx, whose property became the subject of controversy in 2018 when it emerged that Malema’s wife and children were living there, with the EFF leader joining them when he was in Johannesburg.

Mazzotti and Malema defended the arrangement, saying there was nothing untoward about it and that the family paid market-related rent. But the arrangement attracted considerable scrutiny because of Mazzotti’s history of financially supporting the EFF.

Another property dispute involved DNG Energy founder Aldworth Dzunisani Mbalati and a R35m mansion at 39 Killarney Road. After extensive renovations, he was ordered to vacate following a payment dispute with the developer. The legal battle ran between January 2021 and December 2022.

For all its colourful residents, however, Killarney Road is also a serious property address. Property analytics firm Lightstone consistently places it among Gauteng’s most expensive streets, with its combination of sprawling free-standing homes, tight security and exceptional privacy making it particularly attractive to wealthy buyers.

Identifying who owns what is not always straightforward. Many properties are held in trusts, while residents generally prefer to keep their affairs behind the imposing walls and guarded entrances.

Some homes are known by names such as The Janette, The Hyde Park and The Gables. The Chinese consulate, marked only by a modest sign, is also on the road, opposite a palatial property called Paradise, complete with a prominently displayed South African flag.

Nora Morekhure, sales manager for developers Limestone Properties, says the road’s residents include some powerful international figures.

“Two of the owners at number 42 are high-level politicians from African countries,” she said.

Limestone bought the property and developed 10 high-end units, all of which sold within eight months for between R6.5m and R7m each. Transfers were completed in July 2024.

“We had one investor-buyer who rents out the unit. But most of the people who live in the road like their huge free-standing mansions with lots of space and privacy,” she told the Sunday Times.

A four-bedroom, en-suite cluster with staff accommodation and “a very small garden” fetches about R65,000 a month in rent, excluding utilities.

Jodi Frankel of Auction Inc, who is active in the area, confirmed that the street attracts some big names, although ownership structures can make it difficult to establish exactly who lives where.

“It’s not easy to see who owns what because a good number of the properties in this league are held in trusts,” she said.

Frankel auctioned an unfinished mansion at 10 Killarney Road for R38.5m in May. The property was intended to become a family home once the transfer was completed.

“It’s another world. I recently got the fright of my life when I went to one of the properties to ask if it was for sale and a security guard came out with a rifle,” she said.

Lightstone data, which categorises the road under Sandhurst rather than Hyde Park, records 72 property transfers in the broader area between November 2025 and October 2026, with a combined value of R562.7m. Nine transfers were recorded in the most recent three-month period, at an average sale price of R7.82m.

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You have to appreciate, sometimes, Fikile Mbalula, secretary-general of the ANC. “It is a miracle,” he told a press conference yesterday, trying to explain the catastrophic collapse of the ANC vote in Wednesday’s local government elections, “that we still have wards where people voted for us when they have refuse on their doorsteps.” Imagine, he asked, what it must be like for an election volunteer going house to house when they first have to step over sewage to knock on the door.

Indeed. The candour was appropriate because there was just no place else to hide. The ANC finished the vote count with a smidgeon over 30% of the national vote, a political catastrophe foretold, perhaps, but still a profound moment in our democracy.

The ANC is in free-fall and it will be lucky, later today, when official results are announced, to be still the biggest party in the country. Its collapse has been a little like going bankrupt — it starts slowly, and then it’s lightning fast. After today, it will no longer control a single metropolitan municipality in the country.

The strengthening of Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA, meanwhile, is also unmistakable. It was well behind the DA in Johannesburg but, with more than 16% of the vote behind it, it will be near impossible to form a government in the country’s biggest metro without it.

I’m not a fan of Mashaba, a shallow populist who has latched on to the soft target of illegal immigrants. He was an indifferent DA mayor of Joburg 10 years ago and — astonishingly for an entrepreneur and former head of the Free Market Foundation — made political capital out of insourcing municipal services rather than outsourcing them and encouraging the small businesses that might have supplied them.

ActionSA also made a strong showing in Tshwane, the capital, where it will also be kingmaker in any coalition. And while former DA leader Helen Zille easily outperformed both the ANC and ActionSA in Johannesburg, she fell well short of the 40% she once reached for.

For the DA, the election has been good and bad. It will have improved on the relatively miserable 21.6% overall share of the vote John Steenhuisen achieved in 2021 but will not match the 26% Mmusi Maimane won in 2016. It is too early to pin this on the new leader, Geordin Hill-Lewis, but the general elections in 2029 will be entirely his.

Every party in the country wants a piece of the DA, but with the ANC on current trend looking at less than 30% in 2029, it’s Hill-Lewis’s job to become leader of the biggest party in the country. That’s a doable 33% now, provided he has some magic in him. As it is, he cruised through to yet another whopping absolute majority in Cape Town this time, making fools of the opponents, analysts and commentators who swore the DA would fall below 50%. I’m a big believer in humble pie being eaten in public.

With Jacob Zuma’s MK Party taking close to 40% in eThekwini (Durban), the future of that city will be an enormous worry to businesses there (and in Gauteng, for which it is the port). And though the DA has run in second, it is unlikely to find itself in government, even in the unlikely case it wanted to. But easily the biggest coalition quandary is going to fall to the DA and ActionSA in Joburg and Tshwane.

Like Zille in Johannesburg, her colleague Cilliers Brink won the most votes in Tshwane, with ActionSA and its current mayor, Nasiphi Moya, about 10 points adrift. But even if you start from the fair point that a coalition should always include the party most people voted for (that would include the MK Party in Durban), there’s just no way Mashaba is going to facilitate DA mayors in both Joburg and the nation’s capital.

Hill-Lewis, for his part, will have to play King Solomon. It would be absurd to deprive Zille of the chance to run Joburg if he could secure that by asking Brink to stand aside in Tshwane and support another term for ActionSA’s Moya as her coalition partner. But that’s the equation, assuming, possibly against the odds, Mashaba goes along with it. And even then he would not come cheap — and certainly not quietly.

The other choice for both Hill-Lewis and Mashaba is to talk to the ANC. The danger for both there is that the ANC chooses a new leader at the end of next year, and the likelihood is surely that whoever it is will try and turn the party’s fortunes around with a return to radical politics. Politics is, first, about party unity and second, survival.

Probably the luckiest person in this whole story is John Steenhuisen, who may soon not have to worry who is who here. I hear he is about to become our new ambassador to Australia.

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The ANC’s devastating showing in Wednesday’s local government elections has led President Cyril Ramaphosa and other senior leaders to discuss the possibility of falling on their swords and resigning from top party posts.

According to several ANC national executive committee (NEC) members, the president raised the prospect of resigning as party leader after the ANC’s poor election performance, triggering an extraordinary discussion among the party’s top officials about who should take responsibility for its electoral collapse.

ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu said she was “not aware of such a discussion by national officials”.

The conversation was reportedly prompted by the ANC’s head of elections, Mdumiseni Ntuli, who said in media interviews that the NEC — the party’s highest decision-making structure — should reflect on the ANC’S electoral outcomes.

In a podcast interview with The Political Arena, Ntuli said it would be “inconceivable that in the leadership of the ANC [someone] would stand up and say please elect me to be the next president of the ANC despite its performance”.

At least five senior NEC members have told the Sunday Times that Ramaphosa suggested he should step down, arguing that the party could not suffer two successive election defeats under his leadership without consequences.

What I’m hearing is that the president felt that under him and the officials, the party had lost two elections and there needed to be consequences.

ANC NEC member

His proposal was reportedly met with resistance from second deputy secretary-general Maropene Ramokgopa, who urged him to calm down and instead consider an early national conference in April.

“What I’m hearing is that the president felt that under him and the officials, the party had lost two elections and there needed to be consequences,” one NEC member said.

So serious was the discussion, according to NEC members who were briefed, that Ramaphosa even said that if the ANC’s top seven national officials were not willing to vacate their posts, he could resign on his own.

“I’m told that he told them that if they are not supportive of his suggestion for all the top seven members to resign, he can resign alone,” said another ANC NEC member.

Asked what Ramaphosa’s resignation would mean for the government of national unity (GNU), this NEC member said it would spell the end of it.

“He can’t resign as ANC president and still lead the GNU. It means the GNU collapses. Because, anyway, who supports this arrangement at this moment? How is it assisting us?”

These are the second consecutive elections in which the ANC, under Ramaphosa’s leadership, has lost its majority.

I’m told that he told them that if they are not supportive of his suggestion for all the top seven members to resign, he can resign alone.

ANC NEC member

In the 2024 national and provincial elections, the ANC dropped from a comfortable 57.5% in 2019 to 40.2%.

In this week’s local elections, the ANC has lost its majority in all the Gauteng metropolitan municipalities and Nelson Mandela Bay in the Eastern Cape to the DA, and in eThekwini in KwaZulu-Natal to the MK Party.

The ANC’s national footprint in the local polls has also dropped significantly, from 49.9% in 2021 to 36.9% in 2026.

However, Ramaphosa’s call is said to have been rejected by several ANC leaders, including the party’s deputy president, Paul Mashatile and Ramokgopa.

“Paul [Mashatile] said no, let’s not resign, there’s no need, let us take time and reflect and that they should not be emotional. He basically was saying that resigning is not an option,” said a senior NEC member aware of the discussions.

Another NEC member corroborated this, saying Ramokgopa rejected the suggestion because she was “thinking about her deployment”.

“Maropene [Ramokgopa], I hear, was saying that we should go to an early conference and not resign, and that the conference could be held as early as April. She was also suggesting that we don’t do the whole branch process and that we just ask the branch leaders to send two delegates each,” the NEC member said.

Ramaphosa is said to have insisted that the national officials could not escape accountability for the ANC’s disastrous showing, even if the party opted for an early conference.

Another insider said the exchange was initially between Ramaphosa and Ramokgopa before Mashatile and secretary-general Fikile Mbalula intervened to persuade the president against what they viewed as a drastic move.

“I think it was an emotional response. I don’t think it’s thought through. Yes, the NEC as a collective must take responsibility, but a decision for the president to step down would be catastrophic for the ANC,” the insider said.

Treasurer-general Gwen Ramokgopa also reportedly weighed in, arguing that if the national officials were to be held accountable for the election outcome, they should not resist if the NEC called for them to step down.

This is the second time Ramaphosa has threatened to resign as ANC president. The first was in 2022, on the eve of the party’s national conference, after a parliamentary panel led by former chief justice Sandile Ngcobo found that he had a case to answer over the Phala Phala scandal.

Ramaphosa summoned his allies to Tuynhuys — his official residence in Cape Town — where he announced that he intended to step down.

Mantashe, who was seeking a second term as ANC chair as part of Ramaphosa’s faction, subsequently reached out to other NEC members close to the president in an effort to persuade him to reconsider.

The episode, which had been the subject of years of media speculation, was confirmed last year by Mbalula at a party event.

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How is it that ANC leaders can see that their train, the party of Nelson Mandela, is heading for derailment and a devastating crash, and simply sit on their hands and watch, as if paralysed? We know now that the party was long aware, from its own internal polling, that support was running at about 30%-34%. “We knew this disaster was coming,” ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said yesterday.

The obvious question is, what did the party do to avert the looming catastrophe? It certainly did not behave like a party facing existential crisis.

This is one of the most surprising things about this election. Right up to the end of September, you would not have known it was just over a month away — there was no kaleidoscope of colour on lamp posts, nothing on the streets to indicate a watershed even was imminent. It was business as usual.

To an outside observer, it seemed that either the ANC didn’t care much about its own survival, or its head honchos were frozen like rabbits in the headlights. Even the choice of mayoral contender for the key metro, Johannesburg — Frank Chikane would have been the obvious candidate — was mired in indecision. It’s inexplicable.

In the past three weeks, Mbalula and his team ran a full-court press. But it was too little, too late. They ran out of runway. They had misread the nation’s mood. Head of elections Mdumiseni Ntuli said the party organised a “roll call” with councillors to get them to shape up. It is at this event that President Cyril Ramaphosa told them they could learn a thing or two from the DA, a monumental PR disaster.

Then the ANC deployed senior leaders to go door-to-door in townships where support was haemorrhaging. It even tried recruiting popular candidates from outside its structures, deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane said. But this tactic also failed.

What this means is that the ANC knew there was a disaster around the corner but did not know how to save itself. I can’t think of anything more damning. This is the party of Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu, which popularised “strategy and tactics” and what it termed “the national question” — a deep dive into how to unite South Africa’s various diverse groups into a single nation. Still, the party failed.

And yet, in spite of all this, the party faithful still turned out in their millions. That’s the beauty of the ANC. If led properly, it could still be revived. The party received more than 9-million votes this year, compared with 6.4-million in the 2024 national election. This still was not enough to save it from losing control of all but one of the country’s metros. That is where the big budgets to change people’s lives are.

Asked how the ANC ended up a loser in the metros, Mbalula said the party needs to do a diagnosis beyond media statements. He’s probably correct. The problems are deep. They may be beyond the grasp of many in its leadership structures. And this “diagnosis” process may result in protracted inaction at a time when other parties have already started preparing for the 2029 elections. Meanwhile the ANC’s Titanic, for all intents and purposes, is already sinking.

The problems are deep. They may be beyond the grasp of many in its leadership structures

The party’s decision to partner with ActionSA in Tshwane was a strategic error, given the similarities between their constituencies. The ANC lost the plot by focusing on service delivery without communicating its successes. ActionSA is adept at showcasing the achievements of its mayor, Nasiphi Moya. The basic lesson here is simple: politics is about spreading hope through delivery and communication. That’s it. To complain after the election that potholes were fixed in Pretoria by the ANC but credit was given to Moya is to miss the point.

What Mbalula gets right, though, is that the middle class — dismissed as “clever blacks” during the Jacob Zuma years — shifted its support from the EFF to Helen Zille in Johannesburg. Its initial alignment with the EFF was an anti-ANC protest, rather than a question of principle.

And so when Zille avails herself to lead Johannesburg, and seems to have a reasonable chance of victory, the clever blacks vote for her. They’re not confused about Zille and how polarising a character she can be. They’re just too insulted by the ANC’s sheer incompetence, its inability to provide the most basic of services. They’re insulted that they must keep propping up an organisation that seems clueless about how to help itself.

The final straw was subjecting Johannesburg’s middle class to the usual water crisis on the eve of the election. It became a choice between another five years of dry taps, or backing a right-winger with troubling beliefs about colonialism. It’s not rocket science. The clever blacks made their choice and I am certain they have no regrets.

Somewhere in the deeper recesses of their hearts, they hope this moment will spur the ANC to think deeply about its relationship with them. These are people who pay for private medical aids because hospitals don’t work; who pay for private security because the police can’t be depended on; who pay for private education because public schools are hit and miss; who pay to install solar power; and the list goes on. All they want are municipalities that function.

What are the chances the ANC will learn and stage a dramatic recovery? Zilch.

You might expect that at last the ANC hierarchy will realise the outcome of the national election in 2029 promises to be even worse. You might think the ANC will approach that election with greater urgency and a smarter strategy; sadly, that doesn’t necessarily follow. This is how the ANC digs its own grave, one catastrophe after the next.

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I’ll level with you: my most demanding social-whirl workout usually entails a canapé curl with one arm and a bubbly-to-the-lips lift with the other.

However, this week I found myself close to breaking a sweat — first by unpacking a whole lot of charcuterie, olives and cheeses onto a platter and opening a bag of, I kid you not, sparkling-wine-flavoured potato chips (the jury’s out as to whether they’ll be added to my online shopping cart), and then by getting right down close to gravel-kissing level to throw a rather heavy silver ball at a target known by the French word for a piglet.

If truth be told, it was a welcome distraction from the political horse-trading that will determine who runs this and many other towns across the nation — and I enjoyed every minute of it.

It was on a rather balmy Friday afternoon that I found myself at Le Parc Polofields (one of the newest concepts that clever restaurant gal Natasha Sideris, of Tashas fame, is rolling out around the country) for the opening of the French-neighbourhood-café-inspired Midrand eatery’s new Moët & Chandon boules court.

Boules is a bit like English lawn bowls, but without the grass or the starched whites

Boules (pronounced “bulls”), also known as pétanque, is much loved by the French of all ages. It’s a bit like English lawn bowls, but without the grass or the starched whites, and you can play the game wherever you find a patch of dirt big enough in which to throw a few balls around.

And though in the French countryside you’d probably enjoy indulging in the pastime while sipping on pastis, we had tulip-shaped glasses of bubbly to quaff instead.

Upon arrival at the garden stretch to the side of the restaurant, we were each handed a red-coloured fruity champagne cocktail sporting a creamy head of foam (which was a tad tart until you gave it a good stir with a straw).

There I met Chris Engelbrecht, the affable owner of the restaurant, who I learnt is a former chartered accountant who found his calling after snapping up Natasha’s first Tashas franchise in Atholl Square back in 2011.

Though Chris no longer owns that restaurant, he hasn’t looked back since doing that deal — along with Le Parc, he now owns two restaurants nearby and a Tashas in Bryanston.

While it was slim pickings when it came to opportunities for celebrity spotting this week (event organisers probably opted to avoid being overshadowed by the municipal elections), among those who showed up were Nambitha Ben-Mazwi, who is celebrating 10 years in the entertainment biz (it’s impressive to witness how much this UCT business science graduate has flourished since she dipped her toes in the acting pool), and the always-bubbly K Naomi Phakathi.

I asked K whether she would be giving boules a go, but the TV-personality-turned-fashion-and-lifestyle influencer merely pointed to her slinky gold heels and shook her pretty head.

“I might break my legs,” she replied.

Someone who got in on the game was creative director and digital content creator Gemaén Taylor, who, along with another content creator, Eddie Vilakazi, duelled against me and Sowetan S Mag editor-in-chief Emmanuel Tjiya.

Boules involves each side aiming to throw a metal ball as close to a small target ball called a cochonnet. If your boule lands further from the cochonnet than your opponent’s, you need to keep throwing until it does or you run out of boules.

I’m chuffed to say that by sheer fluke we won our game, but our streak of luck didn’t continue into the next round.

On to those feed-yourself picnic baskets placed on wooden tables dotted around the grounds.

Perfect for those who love grazing, our hamper included a bottle of Moët Brut Imperial, a long baguette, an assortment of spreads, a jar of seasonal fruits, as well as macarons.

It was, though, an awkward Emily in Paris moment when I struggled to open the bag of unusually flavoured chips.

Garçon, another glass of champers, s’il vous plaît!

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After its surprising performance in the local government elections, the South African Communist Party (SACP) says it will impose tough conditions before lending support to the ANC in hung municipal councils that need coalition governments.

The SACP clinched an unexpected 230 municipal seats in councils across the country after its decision to go it alone due to differences with its ANC ally.

The ANC needs all the help it can get to form coalition governments in more than 100 municipalities where there was no outright majority winner in the watershed elections on Wednesday.

SACP central committee member Alex Mashilo said the party’s campaign in this election was not about advancing the interests of any other party.

“What we were doing was to introduce a new campaign in South Africa’s election, one that was never there before,” he said. “This is a vote for the SACP, for the workers and the poor; it is not a campaign for another political organisation, no, never. We didn’t resolve to contest elections for another political organisation.”

The ANC will need the support of other parties after losing majority control of the Buffalo City metro for the first time, garnering only 42% of the vote while 18.7% went to the UDM. The SACP emerged as the fifth-largest party in the metro with 4.46% of the vote.

Mashilo said the SACP’s recent differences with the ANC would influence their approach to coalitions.

“We have our historical mission, which is to achieve liberation, social emancipation and socialism. When we formed the alliance, it was because we had common objectives, but there are reasons why we contested the elections. We are not going to undermine those reasons.

“We will engage those that are willing to engage with us based on good-faith negotiations. It is not a subordination negotiation, and this is our general principle.”

This is a vote for the SACP, for the workers and the poor; it is not a campaign for another political organisation, no, never. We didn’t resolve to contest elections for another political organisation.

SACP central committee member Alex Mashilo

Mashilo said the party’s red lines ahead of coalition talks included the scrapping of tenders, and there were non-negotiables that they were not willing to compromise on.

“We can’t have a government that is hollowed out and empty; whenever it says that it will do something, it prefers to go the route of the private sector. The government must build its own capacity, including productive capacity.

“We need to build a developmental state with its own capacity. We are not here to campaign only to refer our people to the private sector after we have won elections. There must be a distinction between the government and the private sector.

“The government is duty-bound to develop internal capacity to serve the people. Once the government is just a bunch of people whose work is to outsource their work, things will go wrong the way they have gone wrong, and we don’t want that.”

While he acknowledged its impressive electoral results as a first-timer, ANC head of elections Mdumiseni Ntuli said the SACP’s latest stance was unfortunate.

“The comments are predicated on the wrong assumption that the ANC is so desperate to cling on to government in certain municipalities even where it did not do well in terms of these election results,” he said.

He added that the ANC was assessing developments with an open mind.

“We are very clear that we are not determined to go into power without a plan. There’s no need for them [the SACP] to be outlining certain conditions under which they can participate as yet; we have not approached them.”

Mashilo said the SACP campaign had been financially constrained because donors snubbed them.

“There were donors who were told not to donate anything to us; they were threatened,” he said. “As a result, we were running an unfunded campaign. We had to run the campaign from our own pockets, the little we could derive from our membership and some few good Samaritans.”

Mashilo suggested that the parties that benefited from funding would be obliged to provide favours to their benefactors once in office.

“Capitalists have no free lunch. The question is, how are they going to recover that money? If a party tells you that [it] will no longer purchase electricity from Eskom but from private power producers, you should know that it is part and parcel of the conditions of the political party donations they received.”

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South Africa fought hard for the right to vote. Three decades into democracy, an uncomfortable question is emerging: what happens when the generation that inherited that freedom no longer believes in the power of the ballot?

As older generations continue to queue at voting stations, the absence of younger voters raises concerns about political representation, accountability and the future of South Africa’s electoral democracy.

In the 2021 local government elections, 168,040 people aged 18-19 were registered to vote, compared with 693,913 this year.

However, in the 20-29 age group, 4.3-million registered in 2021, compared with 4.8-million this year.

But during Wednesday’s seventh local government elections, it was predominantly older people who were seen at voting stations, while many young people appeared to have treated election day as a holiday.

A 2023 voter participation survey by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) found significant levels of disillusionment among voters, particularly those aged 18-19.

The decline is also reflected in voter turnout figures. Participation among registered voters aged 20-29 dropped by 15 percentage points, from 50% in the 2016 local government elections to 35% in 2021.

For Nosakhele Mbona, 67, the lack of interest among younger people was evident in her own home. She said she had left a house full of young adults when she made her way to Sivuyiseni Primary School, one of the voting stations in Khayelitsha, outside Cape Town.

Mbona said the young people in her household had shown little interest in voting.

Khanya Ndabambi, 21, said he saw little excitement around the elections and questioned whether his participation would make any difference.

“I did not even know when voter registration was taking place. Honestly speaking, I don’t know how my vote will change anything,” he said.

However, Sinalo Siduna, 24, an African Transformation Movement (ATM) party member stationed outside the Joe Slovo voting tent in Langa, believes young people lack political education and do not fully understand the power of their vote.

“They treat voting like group work. They don’t understand the power of voting. We also have several young people who are unemployed and spend their time smoking drugs and drinking alcohol,” she said.

I know this is often described as political apathy, but in a country where the economy seems to be neglecting young people, what do you expect them to do?

Kuhle Zwakala, Stellenbosch University senior lecturer and political analyst

Stellenbosch University senior lecturer and political analyst Kuhle Zwakala said young people’s growing disillusionment with the political system was understandable, given the country’s high youth unemployment and persistent inequality.

“I know this is often described as political apathy, but in a country where the economy seems to be neglecting young people, what do you expect them to do?” he said.

“We have one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world. Young people keep voting, yet they don’t seem to benefit. It makes complete sense that they would become discouraged, because they feel they are a forgotten section of society.’

However, Zwakala said he disagreed with the narrative that little had been achieved in South Africa since the advent of democracy 30 years ago.

“I think that is a very short-sighted view,” he said. “Thirty years must be considered against what came before. A democratic government cannot be expected to overturn hundreds of years of colonialism and apartheid in just three decades.

“However, basic human services and rights, such as access to water, electricity, clinics and sanitation, should not take even a decade to address.

“Service delivery failures are real, and there are communities that feel ignored by the government. In impoverished areas, people no longer see the point of voting because it appears that nobody is paying attention to their needs.

“The political system is the vehicle through which people can voice their concerns and potentially influence change. Unfortunately, that is the main avenue available to them. However, civil society has an equal responsibility. Political parties should not be the only way of bringing about socioeconomic change. Civil society organisations and the business sector also have a responsibility to help advance society.”

Zwakala warned that continued disengagement among young people could have long-term implications for representative democracy, particularly if their concerns were not reflected in political decision-making.

He said political parties needed to do more to make themselves relevant and attractive to the younger generation, while young people also had a responsibility to participate in shaping the country’s future.

“Political parties should largely be formulated and constituted by young people. Equally, young people have a responsibility to take an interest in moving this country forward.

“That participation must start now. We understand that they are disgruntled and discouraged, and that is understandable. But they also have a responsibility to participate in the systems that will ultimately determine their future because they are, indeed, the future.”

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Tumisho Masha has gained legions of fans playing characters such as Dumisani from Isidingo, Jackson from Isibaya and Phil from Champions — but has angered many others for his no-holds-barred political views.

Last month he faced public backlash for referring to EFF Johannesburg mayoral candidate Tlaleng Mofokeng as a “straatmeit” — a derogatory Afrikaans term — on social media.

And this week he was in hot water for posting a photo of his thumb and his ballot paper, which showed he had voted for ActionSA. Taking photos of marked ballot papers is illegal, according to IEC regulations, and can carry a fine or imprisonment for up to a year.

But Masha is unrepentant.

“I won’t keep quiet. I won’t stop talking,” he told the Sunday Times this week. ”I care very deeply about South Africa.”

He admitted that his straight talk has cost him work. “People are having conversations in boardrooms, not wanting to use me in television and films because they say that I’m outspoken. They say that it could harm their personal brands.”

On social media, he has frequently expressed his opposition to illegal immigration, slamming Julius Malema and other EFF leaders over their stance on border control and municipal governance.

Last month he posted a public video message directed at President Cyril Ramaphosa, questioning the government’s level of urgency regarding violent crime and community safety.

My mother has been sworn at by members and supporters of the EFF. I’ve been sworn at. Every family member of mine has basically been sworn at

“I’ve always been vocal, even before we had social media. When South Africa goes through a tough time, I feel it very deeply and find it hard not to say anything,” Masha said.

“How can I now turn my back on people I’m just a generation from? They cry that these low-paying jobs are paying lower because we have poor people who come from other countries, squeezing them out of the job market because they are willing to get paid less.

“It’s been quite a road. It’s cost me a lot. But I cannot watch things happening in my country and not say anything.”

He said his comments had attracted “vitriol” from EFF members and their supporters. “I did ask some hard questions of their leadership. But we have a constitution that protects us when we criticise EFF leadership or any party’s leadership.”

Masha said Malema “likes to do the questioning, but he doesn’t like to be questioned on what he’s done. His alleged corruption, his latest conviction, his leadership style. It’s a bit like a dictatorship. That is a value system that has permeated the entire party.

“My mother has been sworn at by members and supporters of the EFF. I’ve been sworn at. Every family member of mine has basically been sworn at. That is an intimidation tactic of harassing you on social media and hoping that you cower.”

He says his support for ActionSA is not “guaranteed for life”.

“They will get the same heat from me if they start running Johannesburg and run it badly.

“Between the ANC, the DA and the EFF ... they’ve done a terrible job of it. For me, it’s important that people vote those three political parties out, so we can send a strong message to all political parties that your time to govern is not guaranteed. It is at the whim of people who will vote you in, or vote you out. To make a statement to all political parties that they are not guaranteed seats if they do not do the work.”

Masha said he is determined to continue speaking up on matters that affect his country.

“Being a big public figure comes with a lot of responsibility. Even though things might cost me work, if I don’t speak up for the people of this country, then why am I a public figure? What do I stand for? How am I doing right by the people of this country? And if I don’t speak up for them, they must stop watching my shows.”

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A senior uMngeni-uThukela Water official — whom the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) alleges was involved in a R270m scheme of kickbacks and money laundering — is still on the utility’s payroll, six years after he was referred for prosecution by the SIU in 2020.

The Sunday Times can reveal that Nishal Harribarran, an asset manager at uMngeni-uThukela Water, and 60 others referred alongside him have never been charged.

This week, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) told the Sunday Times that a docket had been registered regarding these cases. Hawks spokesperson Col Katlego Mogale said an investigation into the alleged corruption at the water board was under way.

“It is alleged that [uMngeni] officials deliberately manipulated the entire procurement process to gain financial benefit for themselves.” — Special Investigating Unit report.

A source with knowledge of the matter said Harribarran had also never faced an internal disciplinary hearing, as recommended by the SIU in 2022. Responding on behalf of Harribarran and his father, Rooplal Harribarran, who has also been implicated, lawyer Evashan Pillay said his clients had not been arrested and that no court had made any finding of criminal wrongdoing.

Calling itself the largest bulk potable water supplier in KwaZulu-Natal, uMngeni-uThukela Water did not respond to questions from the Sunday Times that were sent nine days ago.

The details of how, according to the SIU, Harribarran helped steer contracts to a network of companies and middlemen, with money flowing back to him, are contained in the unit’s final report to President Cyril Ramaphosa, dated June 2023.

The report alleges that:

• Businessman Raven Govender allegedly built an extra R2m into the costing of a pipeline project in Ugu District Municipality for Harribarran’s benefit, in what amounts to an alleged kickback;
• Harribarran benefited from R966,034 that flowed from a company indirectly linked to the water utility to Sunmac Trading, a company registered to his pensioner father;
• Harribarran engineered a closed tender for filter slabs to “control and determine the outcome”. Two men who colluded with him priced all four bids at one office. The R48.9m contract grew to more than R124m, of which R59.7m was over-expended;
• Harribarran and a colleague pushed Klomac Engineering’s chlorine contract up from R75m to R131.2m without an open tender. Klomac’s deal grew to nearly R200m, of which R132m was over-expended, and it paid R5.19m to two companies that did no work to facilitate payments to Harribarran; and
• An emergency drought-relief project for uMkhanyakude’s communities lost an estimated R41m after Harribarran forced his acquaintances on a contractor appointed without a tender as subcontractors, even though none of them were borehole specialists.

The report states that in April 2014, the Ugu municipality approached uMngeni Water (now uMngeni-uThukela Water) to carry out urgent replacement of ageing pipelines. The R26.4m project was split across three contracts, a procurement process that the SIU alleges was manipulated to bypass an open tender.

According to the report, Govender was brought in by the district municipality’s manager to help steer the procurement process for the project. One of the contracts was earmarked for Madakeni Water Solutions, owned by Ian Buitendach, with Govender allegedly arranging with Harribarran for the company to get a R5.7m contract. Buitendach later told the SIU that his quote for the job was actually R3.3m.

SIU investigators found that Govender, while assisting Buitendach with the project’s quotation and costing, allegedly padded the price with an extra R2m for Harribarran. The SIU report says the amount constituted an alleged kickback, noting that Harribarran was allegedly handed a “once-off cash payment”. Contacted by the Sunday Times, Buitendach’s lawyer, Justin Forster, said his client would need to see the SIU’s report before responding. Govender declined to comment on the allegations but claimed he was responsible for blowing the whistle to the SIU.

The SIU uncovered a R5.19m money trail involving two entities that allegedly had no contract with the water board. The two entities received R3.4m and R1.7m from a contractor appointed by uMngeni Water, with their directors alleging to investigators that the money was meant for Harribarran. The report details how the water company paid Klomac Engineering R84.2m for repairs to three shaft pumps after a fire at its Durban Heights Water Treatment Works, a project that the parastatal’s own officials had initially estimated would cost R11m. Klomac also allegedly paid R5.19m out of its uMngeni contract to the same two entities, whose directors told the SIU that the funds were for Harribarran.

The SIU found that instead of putting the work out to tender, in January 2016 officials allegedly loaded it onto Klomac Engineering through a variation order, piggybacking on the company’s existing contract to upgrade chlorine systems at the Durban Heights facility.

According to the report, the utility’s officials estimated that repairing the fire-damaged pumps would cost R11m. Yet the variation order awarded to Klomac Engineering was worth R66.4m, or R75.7m with VAT. Yet the utility paid Klomac Engineering R84.2m.

“It is alleged that [uMngeni] officials deliberately manipulated the entire procurement process to gain financial benefit for themselves,” says the report. The SIU’s quantity surveyors found that uMngeni ultimately blew R132m on excessive costs for the shaft-pump repairs and chlorine-system upgrades.

Responding on behalf of Colin Paton, Klomac Engineering’s director, lawyer Yahya Hassan said his client had co-operated fully with the SIU investigation. “Neither Mr Paton, nor Klomac Engineering, nor any other officials of Klomac Engineering have been charged by the NPA, as there has been no wrongdoing on their part,” he said.

The SIU allegedly traced R966,034 from a contract to supply control valves to uMngeni Water through a chain of intermediary companies to Sunmac Trading. Investigators allege that Harribarran ultimately benefited from money received by Sunmac. Harribarran, the SIU found, also lives in a house bought by his father in Westville, Durban.

The SIU alleges that Harribarran, Bucebo General Trading director Priscilla Mhlongo and former Telegenix 799 director Dayanund Pakraj manipulated a programme meant to advance black contractors. Investigators said they abused the Contract Participation Goal (CPG) programme “through fraudulent methods for the purpose of illicit financial gain”.

In December 2014, officials resolved to award a R55.9m contract to Mitech Control Valves to supply specialised valves. Bucebo was brought in as a CPG partner and subcontracted to assemble and test all the valves supplied by Mitech in return for 30% of the value of the contract.

According to the report, Bucebo ”did not perform any work related to the terms set out in the contract".

“When Mrs Mhlongo was interviewed, she did not know what a control valve was or what the nature of the contract entailed ... Bucebo did not have the set of skills required for such specialised work ... Bucebo was brought in solely for the purposes of manipulating the CPG programme for the purposes of illicit financial gain,” the report states.

Investigators found that Bucebo passed the work to Telegenix and paid it 75% of its share of the contract, despite investigators finding that Telegenix had allegedly done no work.

Ultimately, uMngeni paid Mitech R55.9m to supply the valves, of which Mitech channelled R15.3m to Bucebo. Bucebo paid R10.2m to Telegenix, which allegedly paid R1.5m into the personal account of Mitech’s chief executive, the late Lambertus Alberts. Telegenix also paid Sunmac Trading R966,034.

Mhlongo’s lawyer, Robinson Manzi, said her client had been interviewed by the Hawks and gave them her “full explanation”. Bucebo did the work, he said, adding that Mhlongo was never involved in any nefarious or corrupt dealings.

Pakraj’s lawyer, Ryan Dukhi, said his client did not contract directly with the water utility and denied any wrongdoing. Mitech’s director, Anna-Marie Alberts, did not respond to requests for comment.

In yet another contract, the SIU found that Harribarran and a colleague allegedly bypassed tender processes for a R48.9m filter-replacement project at a water treatment plant in Durban.

Govender and Robert Neill, whom the report described as an agent for the company that won the contract, allegedly supplied the names of the four bidders invited to compete for the project and calculated the prices for all of them in what investigators described as “cover quoting and inflation of prices”.

The company appointed, Eddy Current Testing SA, trading as Cornet and Kingsbergen, had Neill’s son, Gareth, as one of its directors. The contract ultimately ballooned from R48.9m to R124.5m after three variation orders were approved.

Neill’s lawyer, Helena Badenhorst, said: “Our client denies any allegations of wrongdoing in the strongest possible terms. In particular, the report on which your allegations are said to be based has never been given to our client ...”

Lastly, the report accuses Harribarran of circumventing procurement processes in the appointment of Agri Industrial Services to drill boreholes in uMkhanyakude District Municipality.

Investigators found that after he and two colleagues motivated Agri Industrial Services to be appointed without a tender, Harribarran allegedly instructed its sole member, Thiloshini Naidoo, to subcontract the work to four entities, some of which were owned by his acquaintances. Naidoo did not respond to requests for comment, despite promising to do so.

The original contract was worth R33m, but the water board ultimately blew about R51.5m on the project, with the SIU estimating R40.9m in wasteful and irregular expenditure.

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The MK Party is challenging the vote count in Durban, as preliminary results show it falling short of an outright majority, giving its rivals the opportunity to shut it out of government for the second time in two years.

In an objection submitted to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) on Friday, the MK Party asked the IEC to freeze processing and declaring results in eThekwini to allow an independent audit to investigate the matter.

The party alleges electronically captured vote totals differ from signed results slips completed and countersigned by its agents at voting stations. It also accuses the IEC of serious failures at its eThekwini results operations centre. It claims a system breakdown during live results capture and transmission disrupted data streams and altered visible audit trails.

The MK Party has further raised concerns about discrepancies between figures displayed on the IEC’s electronic leaderboards and those recorded on the certified physical results slips (the NP041 forms).

The party faces falling short of the majority it had hoped to secure in eThekwini. IEC projections put its support at about 39%, leaving it dependent on smaller parties or a larger coalition partner to govern the metro.

The possibility of rival parties joining forces to keep it out of office has echoes of the 2024 national and provincial elections, when the MK Party secured 47% of the vote in KwaZulu-Natal but was elbowed out of the provincial government by the ANC, the DA, the IFP, and the National Freedom Party, which formed a governing coalition.

The MK Party has not abandoned hope of assembling a majority with smaller parties, but an arrangement with the ANC could prove more complicated. Divisions are emerging in both parties over whether they should work together.

MK Party insiders told the Sunday Times that some in the party were open to an arrangement with the ANC in eThekwini, though they doubted party leader Jacob Zuma would approve it.

At a media briefing on Saturday, MK Party national disciplinary committee chair Dali Mpofu said no agreement could be concluded or signed on behalf of the party without the explicit approval of its presidency.

“All provincial, regional and local structures are directed to operate strictly within the national negotiating framework and to subject themselves to the leadership and guidance of the [national high command] … All structures are directed to co-operate fully with the national negotiations team and ensure disciplined implementation of this framework.

“The party must approach coalition negotiations with unity, discipline and a clear understanding that our participation in government must advance the interests of our people and not the selfish interests of any person,” he said.

MK Party acting secretary-general Lindiwe Mtshali Makhubu said the party’s natural inclination is to work with parties that share its values and vision for South Africa.

“But other than that, we are talking to various people — to all the players who are willing to talk to us.”

The ANC is equally divided over whether to negotiate with Zuma’s party or take up the opposition benches.

We are talking to various people — to all the players who are willing to talk to us.

Acting MK Party secretary-general Lindiwe Mtshali Makhubu

The party’s coalition task team met on Friday to discuss its options. Some national leaders favour remaining in opposition over entering into a power-sharing arrangement with the MK Party.

One national leader argued that the ANC should allow the MK Party to govern, pointing out that the ANC would still qualify for an executive committee seat, even from the opposition benches.

“I think to do otherwise would be irresponsible. In my view, we must give a nod to the MK Party. KZN is different — we [automatically] qualify for [an] exco seat [even if] we are in opposition. So to get into a deal to govern with them, it would be a deal where they take mayor and we take speaker, but [it wouldn’t be] a wise one. We must leave these people to take charge,” the leader said.

ANC chair Gwede Mantashe has indicated his personal view that the party should consider going into opposition under certain circumstances.

But the national leadership faces pressure from the ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal structures to engage the MK Party, with regional leaders pushing for discussions with Zuma’s entity.

One regional leader said the ANC paid a price in some of its traditional strongholds for sidelining the MK Party after the 2024 provincial elections.

“We can’t repeat the same thing. We ignored the MK Party during the provincial elections, and we can’t do that again. The challenge is whether Baba will want an arrangement that includes the ANC.

“The people are giving us a strong mandate to work with the MK Party. We can’t ignore that, because the people who suffer are the regional structures, not national. We have to have a discussion with national, and they must listen to us and take what we say seriously,” the leader said.

Mike Mabuyakhulu, the ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal convenor, said it was too early to speculate about an agreement with the MK Party. Provincial leaders will handle negotiations in hung municipalities under national guidance.

Meanwhile, at least two MK Party insiders said there was growing support within the party for nominating former eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede to lead the metro if it secures a governing coalition.

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Former South African Football Association (Safa) vice-president Ria Ledwaba faces the prospect of having her assets attached and sold to recover more than R8.3m in outstanding tax debt owed to the South African Revenue Service (Sars).

In a final demand issued to Ledwaba, the revenue collector warns that failure to settle the outstanding amount could result in a civil judgment against her, paving the way for a warrant of execution to be issued and the sheriff attaching and selling her assets to recover the money.

The demand, dated October 7 and filed in court on November 2, gives Ledwaba 10 business days to make full payment or approach Sars with alternative arrangements.

Approached for comment this week, Ledwaba referred the Sunday Times to her accountant, Mahier Tayob, who said they intend to approach Sars for a resolution.

“We are in the process of filing a section 200 application (compromise) to Sars and will simultaneously record a suspension of payment,” Tayob said.

He said the objection process had been exhausted and that no objection or appeal remained active, as this would disqualify Ledwaba from pursuing the section 200 process.

“We are hopeful that this matter will be resolved,” he said.

The revenue collector says its records show that Ledwaba has failed to meet her tax obligations for one or more tax years or periods.

The demand warns that a civil judgment could be entered against her, in which case a warrant of execution may be issued for the sheriff of the court to attach and sell her assets.

We are in the process of filing a section 200 application (compromise) to Sars and will simultaneously record a suspension of payment.

Mahier Tayob, Ria Ledwaba's accountant

However, the demand itself does not establish that a civil judgment has already been granted or that the sheriff has commenced execution against her property.

Sars spokesperson Siphithi Sibeko said the institution was prohibited from divulging confidential taxpayer information to the media.

“I am prohibited by law from divulging confidential taxpayer information, so Sars will not be commenting on your questions,” he said.

But the revenue collector has also outlined several avenues through which Ledwaba could seek to resolve the matter without immediately paying the entire amount.

Taxpayers who cannot afford to settle their liabilities in full may apply for payment arrangements, while those disputing the amount can seek suspension of the debt pending the outcome of a formal dispute.

The accompanying certified statement provides further details of the outstanding liability, identifying personal income tax and administrative penalties among the accounts reflected in the document.

Ledwaba is a familiar figure in South African football administration, having served as Safa vice-president and occupied influential positions in the country’s football structures.

Her involvement in South African football stretches back decades, beginning with grassroots football in Seshego township, Limpopo, where she was involved with local club Seshego Naughty Boys before establishing her own team, Ria Stars.

It became one of Limpopo’s prominent football clubs and attracted several established players, including former Kaizer Chiefs footballers Frank Makua and the late Thabang Lebese.

In 2002, Ledwaba sold the club to the Premier Soccer League (PSL) as part of a restructuring exercise aimed at reducing the number of teams in the top division. The PSL also bought Qwa Qwa Stars, with each club reportedly receiving R8m.

Ledwaba subsequently became involved in football administration, serving on the PSL executive committee before rising through Safa’s structures.

In June 2018, she made history when she was elected as Safa’s first woman vice-president, securing 28 of the 29 votes cast at the association’s national council meeting. She served alongside Xolile Nkompela and Gay Mokoena, with PSL chairman Irvin Khoza occupying the fourth vice-presidential position.

Catch up with the latest on the elections

• Ramaphosa considers quitting as ANC reels: The ANC’s devastating showing in Wednesday’s local government elections has led President Cyril Ramaphosa and other senior leaders to discuss the possibility of falling on their swords and resigning from top party posts.
• ActionSA moves to block Zille in Joburg: ActionSA, buoyed by its strong showing in Tshwane, Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni, will push the DA to drop Helen Zille as its mayoral candidate for Joburg and give the post to its leader, Herman Mashaba, instead.
• MAKHUDU SEFARA | The ANC saw the iceberg, but it couldn’t even rearrange the deck chairs in time: Internal polling warned party leaders of the looming disaster, but it seems they were powerless to stave it off
• MKP files dispute, claims it’s being shut out of governing eThekwini: The MK Party is challenging the vote count in Durban, as preliminary results show it falling short of an outright majority, giving its rivals the opportunity to shut it out of government for the second time in two years.

November 7 2026, 17:03

IEC orders recounts in five wards as it deals with 197 election objections

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has ordered recounts in five wards as it continues to process objections lodged by political parties and candidates after the 2026 local government elections.

IEC chairperson Mosotho Moepya said the commission had received 197 objections by 3pm on Saturday.

Of these, 54 had been dismissed, while others had been withdrawn.

After 99% of the votes counted, the ANC has the most votes nationally at 30.8%, with the DA lying second on 24%.

“Two [objections] have been upheld. In other words, these two have been found to have an impact or to be material to the outcome of the result,” Moepya said.

IEC orders recounts in five wards as it deals with 197 election objections

November 7 2026, 17:02

Buffalo City in the Eastern Cape is the 4th hung council in the country. The results for three other metros are still outstanding. The ANC is the leading party with 41.93%, followed by UDM at 18.39% and the DA got 16.85% of the votes. Report: Sibongile Mashaba
Download our App,… pic.twitter.com/ZD66iWRzwQ

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 7, 2026

November 7 2026, 16:42

WATCH | ‘We will not beg for mayorship’: Mbalula says ANC performance in polls ‘catastrophic’

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has described the party’s performance in the 2026 local government elections as a “catastrophic outcome”, despite the ANC still leading nationally with just over 30% support.

Mbalula said the ANC was aware that the election results would be difficult, with internal polling having suggested the party could receive at least 34% support.

“We knew this outcome was coming,” he said.

WATCH | Mbalula said at his point collation talks are not their priority and they don’t even mind staying back an opposition. This is as he adds that the results of the votes in the election have been catastrophic. pic.twitter.com/oxRmABRcnr

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 7, 2026

He added that the party would not rush into coalition negotiations as it assessed the results across municipalities.

WATCH | ‘We will not beg for mayorship’: Mbalula says ANC performance in polls ‘catastrophic’

November 7 2026, 16:26

Cape Town has become the first metro in the country with a majority. The DA received 56.42%, followed by the ANC with 13.95%. Report: Sibongile Mashaba
Download our App, stay tuned to our WhatsApp channel for the latest news. pic.twitter.com/M1FUwJ0tRB

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 7, 2026

November 7 2026, 16:10

WATCH LIVE | The Political Arena looks at the results as they sit at 99%

Arena Holdings’ journalists are coming to you live from the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s results centre at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, Johannesburg, to unpack the election results as they come in and discuss what they mean for municipalities.

WATCH LIVE | The Political Arena looks at the results as they sit at 99%

November 7 2026, 15:56

😲😤 99% of the voting results are in. The ANC is still the leading party with 30.91% support nationally, followed by the DA at 24.59%. MKP has 9.6% of the votes. The leaderboard shows that the EFF has no control of any councils in the country. However, the party has secured 495… pic.twitter.com/IXbtxZHc5X

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 7, 2026

November 7 2026

WATCH | ANC SG Fikile Mbalula says coalition negotiations are not a priority for the party at the moment, adding that the organisation doesn’t mind being in opposition. Mbalula also admitted that the 2026 LGE results have been catastrophic for the ANC.

WATCH | ANC SG Fikile Mbalula says coalition negotiations are not a priority for the party at the moment, adding that the organisation doesn’t mind being in opposition. Mbalula also admitted that the 2026 LGE results have been catastrophic for the ANC. pic.twitter.com/uOfgYi3RTS

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 7, 2026

November 7 2026, 15:30

Mbalula says the 2026 LGE results reveal a larger political message

WATCH | ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula says the ANC is still in the lead with more than 30% of support, but that they are aware of what these elections reveal. pic.twitter.com/4yVSazHEt4

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 7, 2026

November 7 2026, 14:14

WATCH LIVE | IEC updates the media on progress of vote counting

November 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.

‘We’re down but not out,’ says Malema

November 7 2026, 12:47

Tshwane has no outright winner. Results for other metros still outstanding. Download our App, stay tuned to our WhatsApp channel and join the conversation. pic.twitter.com/OvGd3lr9Hq

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 7, 2026

November 7 2026, 12:45

WATCH | UDM national chairperson Yongama Zigebe says the party focused 80% of its resources on the Eastern Cape in these elections, prioritising communities he says were neglected by the ANC. He says the goal was to build people-centred pic.twitter.com/H6vVExjtZz

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 7, 2026

November 7 2026, 12:34

BREAKING | The City of Tshwane is also hung. It has become the third metro in the country to be hung. More to follow. Report: Sibongile Mashaba Download our App, stay tuned to our WhatsApp channel for the latest news.

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 7, 2026

November 7 2026 12:10

WATCH | ATM leader and Johannesburg mayoral candidate Vuyo Zungula highlights the party’s growth, pointing to ward wins in Nyandeni in the Eastern Cape and parts of KwaZulu-Natal. He thanks members and voters for their support, saying the party is pleased with its progress. pic.twitter.com/42CESxhAtI

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 7, 2026

November 7 2026, 12:00

WATCH | ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba spoke to the media about his party's plans after the elections. pic.twitter.com/nKaMPObKqW

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 7, 2026

November 7 2026, 11:28

VOTE COUNTING ENTERS FINAL STAGES | 98% of the voting results have come in at the NROC in Midrand, Joburg. Arena Holdings’ Sinazo Kos gives an update.
Video: Paul Mashia pic.twitter.com/ukJu7DuhK6

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 7, 2026

November 7 2026, 10:40

WATCH | Arena Holdings caught up with ActionSA mayoral candidate for Tshwane, Nasiphi Moya, and asked her about the lighter side of being a political figure. pic.twitter.com/dN9wk4HMEs

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 7, 2026

November 7 2026, 09:50

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

VOTE COUNTING ENTERS FINAL STAGES - 7.47AM | 97% of the votes have been counted. The leaderboard shows that 122 councils are hung. This includes two metros - Mangaung and Nelson Mandela Bay. The IEC will officially announce the results on Sunday. Report: @smashaba
For live… pic.twitter.com/5aKdeccyBO

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 7, 2026

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.

WATCH | Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie says that despite his dislike of the DA, he is willing to work with the party in a coalition government to deliver on the promises made to voters. pic.twitter.com/zZpuhw2lF1

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 6, 2026

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

WATCH | With around 75% of the votes counted, all eyes are on the major metros as the election picture begins to take shape. Senior industrial engineer at the CSIR, Carike Karsen, unpacks some of the key predictions for these metros and what the emerging results could mean for… pic.twitter.com/GPKRB4y6bW

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 6, 2026

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

WATCH | ActionSA’s Tshwane Mayoral Candidate Nasiphi Moya says she is grateful to the residents of Tshwane for supporting her during her tenure as mayor pic.twitter.com/ih0lLerB6p

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 6, 2026

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.

ActionSA’s national chair Michael Beaumont lists the wards they’ve won in the City of Tshwane and explains what it means for the party.
Video: Koena Mashale pic.twitter.com/JAYCvWlmVS

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 6, 2026

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

ActionSA’s national chair Michael Beaumont lists the wards they’ve won in the City of Tshwane and explains what it means for the party.
Video: Koena Mashale pic.twitter.com/JAYCvWlmVS

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 6, 2026

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.

WATCH | SACP national spokesperson Mbulelo Mandlana reflects on the party’s performance and what led to them entering the electoral space to represent the working class. The party so far has 78 seats, 9wards and 69PR totaling to 2,53%.

Video: @MimieShana pic.twitter.com/vYHxw6D1is

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 6, 2026

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

DA Joburg mayoral candidate Helen Zille tells the Political Arena team that the ANC's failure to deliver services helped her party in the municipal elections. Watch the interview live: https://t.co/wBWk8cfSe3
Click here to join our WhatsApp channel: https://t.co/qyEp3yeHxK pic.twitter.com/paXPkB9Fkh

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 6, 2026

November 6 2026, 12:45

WATCH | DA’s Johannesburg mayoral candidate Helen Zille has weighed in on concerns about property affordability in Johannesburg, saying falling property prices would be a sign of a failing city. pic.twitter.com/ML8Qe4A6Sv

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 6, 2026

November 6 2026, 12:33

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 | Former president Jacob Zuma says the MK Party is open to coalitions and was happy to be proven right about the party’s performance in KwaZulu-Natal. pic.twitter.com/sNdgSdG2Gd

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 6, 2026

WATCH | Jacob Zuma says MK Party open to coalition talks

November 6 2026, 11:53

WATCH | On the sidelines at the National Results Operations Centre, where LGE vote-counting is taking place, Arena Holdings multimedia journalist Sinazo Kos caught up with DA leader, Geordin Hill-Lewis, on what impact the elections have had on his sleeping patterns and eating… pic.twitter.com/VPvmTmS85K

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 6, 2026

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

WATCH | Arena Holdings multimedia journalist Sinazo Kos reporting at the Results Operations Centre, in Midrand, on day 2 of vote counting, giving a brief overview of how the numbers stand so far pic.twitter.com/4lDsbrvHHY

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 6, 2026

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.

WATCH | ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba outlines the conditions his party wants met before entering into a coalition with another party. He was speaking on the sidelines of the national results centre in Johannesburg. https://t.co/6kSCAPEMYC

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 5, 2026

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.

WATCH | ANC’s Nomvula Mokonyane says the results show the party is being renewed and that voters still have confidence in the ANC. https://t.co/6svA0qvl0c

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 5, 2026

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.

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. https://t.co/jyVXiRXXBp

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 5, 2026

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

WATCH | IEC anticipates results collation process will be completed by the weekend. https://t.co/kHjpX1mN8l

— Business Day (@BDliveSA) November 5, 2026

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

WATCH | ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont joined the Political Arena applauding the party on the number of wards it has “captured” from the ANC. pic.twitter.com/lxTGwjBnjl

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 5, 2026

November 5 2026, 17:24

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

November 5 2026, 17:20

WATCH | MK Party deputy president Duduzane Zuma says potential coalition partners should not be concerned about the party’s frequent reshuffling of positions, arguing that they should be prepared to do the same for “people who are not performing”.
Asked whether President Cyril… pic.twitter.com/uyPuKngM0P

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 5, 2026

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

WATCH | Despite the Electoral Court dismissing the MK Party’s 2024 vote-rigging claims, deputy president Duduzane Zuma says the party remains suspicious of the electoral process. pic.twitter.com/qefdH3x3qB

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 5, 2026

NOVEMBER 5 2026, 14:55

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.

WATCH | The DA celebrates a major milestone, claiming one million black votes as it overtakes the EFF. Ashra Sarapan weighs in on the party's growing support, election gains, and coalition prospects. pic.twitter.com/MEWN40xnnj

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 5, 2026

November 5 2026, 14:46

WATCH | ActionSA is gaining ground across Gauteng, with growing electoral wins putting the party in a potentially influential position in coalition negotiations. Michael Beaumont reflects on the party's performance and political ambitions. pic.twitter.com/5x3YjUf6eN

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 5, 2026

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

WATCH | The DA has moved swiftly to claim victory in the City of Cape Town. Party leader Geordin Hill-Lewis addressed supporters outside the IEC results centre in Century City. pic.twitter.com/li81bdC2d6

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 5, 2026

November 5 2026 12:40

WATCH | Arena Holdings reporter Koena Mashale gives an update on progress made in early vote-counting at the National Operations Centre in Midrand. pic.twitter.com/I5pbQLkQ0G

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 5, 2026

November 5 2026, 12:16

WATCH | Political Arena’s Thando Maeko and Sisanda Mbolekwa sat down with the DA’s Karabo Khakhau to discuss the DA’s campaign for the 2026 local government elections. Watch the full interaction here: https://t.co/4CaZ3l36JI pic.twitter.com/BMM4bNu20q

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 5, 2026

November 5 2026, 12:05

WATCH | Vote counting is underway, and DA Johannesburg mayoral candidate Helen Zille says she is feeling positive about the results so far.
The DA is currently leading in Johannesburg. pic.twitter.com/tdQSZ5NH4C

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 5, 2026

November 5 2026 11:47

VOTE COUNTING | ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe arrives at the results center in Midrand, Joburg, and says he’s glad the ANC is leading in [some] wards.
Video: @Koena_xM pic.twitter.com/tV4vcjwBXR

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 5, 2026

November 5 2026 11:40

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

WATCH | The IEC has outlined the safeguards in place to ensure the accuracy and transparency of the election results, including double-blind capturing of results slips, scanning, and independent auditing of the entire population of results slips. pic.twitter.com/z0qFWmGtGN

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 5, 2026

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

In Ekurhuleni, with 9% of the votes counted, the DA is currently leading the race, followed by the ANC.

Counting continues….@Sowetan1981 pic.twitter.com/2uVZHJwbSd

— The Journalist (@Moloi_Herman1) November 5, 2026

November 5 2026 08:32

VOTE COUNTING - 08:28am | Here's a look at the metros across the country. The ANC has secured one of 51 seats in Mangaung, Free State. The results for other metros have not come in yet.
Report: @smashaba
Download our App, stay tuned to our WhatsApp channel and get the latest… pic.twitter.com/E2rpijoznv

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 5, 2026

November 5 2026 08:29

With only 2% of the votes counted and captured in Emfuleni, the DA is leading the race, followed by the VF Plus.

Counting continues…@Sowetan1981 pic.twitter.com/XrkrKdaX5J

— The Journalist (@Moloi_Herman1) November 5, 2026

November 5 2026, 07:21

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

• 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

WATCH | The NPA head, Andy Mothibi, says they are prioritising cases relating to elections to ensure speedy prosecution in order to protect the integrity of the polls. Some of the cases being investigated and prioritised include that of a celebrity posting their ballot paper on… pic.twitter.com/ikfviR4981

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 18:39

WATCH | Siboniso Bhengu, a resident of Nomzamo informal settlement in Soweto, said he arrived at the voting station at 7am but found that IEC officials had not opened. After returning from work at 3pm, he went back to cast his vote but was still waiting in a long queue,… pic.twitter.com/2IJgX76tgK

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 18:23

‘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

WATCH | DA Emfuleni mayoral candidate Kingsol Chabalala says coalitions are not part of the party’s plans, insisting it is campaigning for an outright majority. He says the ANC should start clearing its offices, as the DA is confident of taking over the municipality. pic.twitter.com/6U3Q2NOU2G

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 17:40

Bontle Mavuka, 22, cast her vote at The New Brethren Apostolic Church in Thokoza, Ekurhuleni. She spoke to our reporter Michelle Banda about why she made her voice heard. pic.twitter.com/cUuokPdT3s

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 17:38

WATCH | On coalitions, the IFP’s Johannesburg mayoral candidate Mlungisi Mabaso addressing the media at Dube hostel said the party is sober and outcome-driven, able to work with everyone. He said the IFP is expanding beyond KwaZulu-Natal and is contesting to win Johannesburg, not… pic.twitter.com/BmkwB5CrXq

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 4, 2026

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

WATCH | Tensions flared between DA and ANC supporters outside Orange Grove Primary School, north of Johannesburg, where ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula voted. pic.twitter.com/BopEs3Q6Dz

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 17:17

Some elderly voters in Ekurhuleni say they were unaware of the special voting process as they join other residents to cast their ballots on Wednesday.
Video: @MimieShana pic.twitter.com/vdvm13xOMv

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 17:05

Nompumelelo Mosibudi had spent three hours waiting for her turn to vote when it was time for her to do so, she was told she has to go cast it at a polling station 15kms away. She spoke to our reporter Koena Mashale about her frustration. pic.twitter.com/iTw73vTzJv

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 17:04

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

WATCH | Emfuleni residents from Bophelong, Sebokeng, Hostel and Everton have called for better service delivery as they voted in the local government elections. They want the incoming leadership to address sewage problems, potholed roads, unemployment and growing youth… pic.twitter.com/AAlda3G4Iu

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 4, 2026

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

WATCH | Young people sit outside a spaza shop in Evaton, Emfuleni, highlighting the unemployment crisis facing residents. Despite having gone to school, they say they remain without jobs and are forced to ask passers-by for as little as R2. pic.twitter.com/jsLzTVSUQz

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 16:29

Residents of Ga-Chokoe near Lephalale in Limpopo boycotted voting, apparently over a demarcation issue and complaints over candidates. They claim the candidates won't have their best interest at heart. Matlhora Primary School was empty as no one showed up to vote.
Video: Sontaga… pic.twitter.com/e1AIDW2EoY

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 16:26

‘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

WATCH | "We have done what we were supposed to do; now we wait for the results", MK Party leader Jacob Zuma tells journalists after casting his vote. pic.twitter.com/L2LqWPYokk

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 15:14

WATCH | Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane is urging communities to vote in large numbers. Speaking after casting his ballot at Deberha Multipurpose Centre, he emphasised that every vote has the power to shape the future of local communities. pic.twitter.com/Mwtn3d0IH5

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 4, 2026

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

WATCH | ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula says the party will announce its mayoral candidates in two weeks after analysing the results. He added that any coalition negotiations will be led by the national officials, not regional structures. He was speaking after voting in… pic.twitter.com/NcEYPKkQyE

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 14:23

WATCH | ANC Secretary general Fikile Mbalula has cast his vote at the Orange Grove Primary School in the north of Johannesburg.

Video: Kgothatso Madisa pic.twitter.com/BazIL50aU6

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 14:14

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

WATCH | Former President and MK Party leader Jacob Zuma casting his vote at Ntolwane Primary School in Nkandla during the 2026 local government elections. pic.twitter.com/FIj7OVhGMG

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

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

WATCH | Correctional services minister and FF Plus co-founder Pieter Groenewald says the party is creating new hope for the future as South Africans vote on Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/n934YgxctE

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 4, 2026

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

President Cyril Ramaphosa says more money will be allocated to deal with gender-based violence. He was speaking in Hyde Park, Joburg, after casting his vote. pic.twitter.com/ELdgENEc6M

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 12:45

WATCH | Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi voted at Maokeng voting station in Tembisa, saying he still votes in the community that raised him. He is confident in the ANC’s performance in the province. pic.twitter.com/8tSPlyN0KE

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 12:38

‘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

WATCH | MK Party member Dali Mpofu says the aim should be to take government away from the "ANC of Ramaphosa". pic.twitter.com/7a7txm0ENV

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

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

WATCH | Ntyatyambo Zwelimangele Volsaka, deputy chairperson of the South African Students Congress (Sasco) in Johannesburg, said it was important for young people to exercise their democratic right to vote and choose leaders they believed could best represent them.

He said those… pic.twitter.com/xKzmREX7TD

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 4, 2026

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

WATCH | BOSA leader Mmusi Maimane speaking after voting in Dobsonville. pic.twitter.com/1LItCdtS5L

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

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

WATCH | Freedom Front plus leader Dr Corne Mulder speaking following his vote. pic.twitter.com/fr1voRn5eZ

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 12:00

Young and elderly voters are making their way to the polls at the Old Mutual Sports Hall at Wits University amid water and electricity challenges on campus. pic.twitter.com/eW7N7PmSMI

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 11:56

WATCH | ANC deputy President Paul Mashatile greets party volunteers at the gazebo outside the St Johannes Lutheran church in Kelvin and signs their register. pic.twitter.com/X0IFCrw53i

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 11:55

WATCH | Young people sit outside a spaza shop in Evaton, Emfuleni, highlighting the unemployment crisis facing residents. Despite having gone to school, they say they remain without jobs and are forced to ask passers-by for as little as R2. pic.twitter.com/cyW93mCR6X

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 11:53

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

WATCH | City of Johannesburg resident Mr Masango from Emmarentia hopes his vote will bring morality but wonders what will be left for the next generation. pic.twitter.com/S4daeCNKq3

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 11:28

WATCH | Former president Kgalema Motlanthe says he understands South Africans’ frustrations with local government, adding that this is where the state ought to be most efficient. He was speaking after casting his vote at Killarney Country Club. pic.twitter.com/8BgsePXQy3

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 11:21

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

Piet Kekana, 63, from Hammanskraal, Tshwane, says he voted for a party that will bring change and fight crime in the area.
Video: @Moloi_Herman1 pic.twitter.com/zAbDL6yxSd

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 4, 2026

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

WATCH | Former president Kgalema Motlanthe casts his ballot at Killarney Country Club pic.twitter.com/IIAhy2493n

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 11:02

WATCH | Limpopo premier Dr Phophi Ramathuba arrives at Mokopane Primary School in Mogalakwena Local Municipality, where she is expected to cast her vote. pic.twitter.com/HhQUcS9Dlc

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 206, 10:51

WATCH | DA mayoral candidate, Helen Zille, arrives at Emmarentia Primary School. She says the DA hopes for an outright majority, but if they don’t achieve it, then they’ll look at the different coalition options and take the least bad option. pic.twitter.com/CjbhrG6bmK

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 10:44

WATCH | President Cyril Ramaphosa has cast his vote in Hyde Park, Johannesburg. pic.twitter.com/j6LpHZj5cH

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 10:42

WATCH | ActionSA mayoral candidate Xolani Khumalo, who voted in Thembisa on Wednesday, urges young people in Ekurhuleni to vote. pic.twitter.com/wdjZOtvFJ2

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 10:35

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

WATCH | IEC chair Mosotho Moepya has urged South Africans to be vigilant against misinformation and disinformation on voting day. pic.twitter.com/eAniDdA3Vi

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 10:29

WATCH | DA leader and Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis cast his ballot at his alma mater, Edgemead Primary School, in Milnerton. He’s called on DA supporters in Cape Town to come out and vote in large numbers. He says a high voter turnout among blue party supporters is the only… pic.twitter.com/yjiUVuikvs

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 10:17

WATCH | Action SA leader Herman Mashaba encourages South African’s to vote in their numbers. He was speaking at the Sandton Fire Station voting station pic.twitter.com/pNFh1HPvwa

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 10:05

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

WATCH | EFF’s Johannesburg mayoral candidate Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng reflects on her campaign journey just moments before she voted in Parkmore, Johannesburg. She urged young voters to show up at the polls and make their mark in order to decide their own future. pic.twitter.com/5WyiIyWQtr

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 09:52

WATCH | Eighty-four-year-old Linah Kwinika from Hammanskraal, who voted for a government that will provide clean tap water. pic.twitter.com/xNKX5vSByS

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 09:50

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

City of Johannesburg deputy mayor and ANC regional chair Loyiso Masuku says she’s casting her vote for the ANC in order to defend the gains of democracy. Masuku, who is also the ANC’s mayoral candidate in Johannesburg, was casting her vote in Mulbarton Primary School.… pic.twitter.com/F7QqVKNE45

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026, 09:00

WATCH | Voting is underway at Mandisa Shiceka School of Specialisation in Kagiso, Ward 7, with voters arriving in numbers. First voter Benard Kunene says he doesn’t want to complain about service delivery without playing his part. He wants the streets repaired and the electricity… pic.twitter.com/rdU657lvit

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026 8:42

JUST IN | The voting station at Kanana primary school in Midrand opened more than an hour late. Some residents said they had been queueing since 5am. Our reporter Koena Mashale has more details for you.
Download our App, follow our WhatsApp channel for the latest news. pic.twitter.com/G0zEn2qaXQ

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026 08:11

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

The DA and the ANC supporters have already set up heir stations at the Mulbarton Primary School voting centre in Johannesburg South. The City of Johannesburg deputy mayor Loyiso Masuku is expected to cast her vote at this station. #Elections2026 pic.twitter.com/ranmDJRoAu

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

November 4 2026 08:02

Voters have already started queuing at Mulbarton Primary School in Johannesburg South. pic.twitter.com/dCaz8Cs3hS

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

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

Your X has a reason. Is it the pothole that rattled your car, the tap that ran dry, the uncollected waste, or the lights that went out? Let us know which municipal service guarantee or concern will carry the most weight when you cast your vote. The comment section belongs to you. pic.twitter.com/MUQEiTw7KV

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

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.

ELECTION DAY | Make your vote count. You could be voting because you want to reward council officials who have done a great job in your area or maybe you want change. Sowetan would like to hear from you. Cast your vote and send Sowetan a voice note, video or images sharing your… pic.twitter.com/1JUlzuqTYf

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 4, 2026

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

Today, the ballot box takes centre stage. Cast your vote, then join The Political Arena for live conversations, exclusive interviews and real-time answers on what this election means for you. Every cross counts, and we’re watching every count. Live on the Sunday Times, TimesLIVE,… pic.twitter.com/OHbHNh9Shp

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 4, 2026

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

WATCH | MK Party’s Bongani Baloyi casting his vote in Sandton on Tuesday. https://t.co/C0rQjkUsGV

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 3, 2026

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.

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.

— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) November 3, 2026

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

MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS | It is a quiet morning at Lapeng child and family resource centre, a voting station in Joubert Park, Joburg. The voting centre is relatively empty, with very little activity as the special voting process gets under way for the second day. Download our App,… pic.twitter.com/JqGEzEBo0e

— Sowetan (@Sowetan1981) November 3, 2026

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.

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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’

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One of the most revealing images to come out of Washington this week was that of President Donald Trump, in the middle of the electoral rout for his Republican Party, waxing lyrical about how he is refurbishing the White House ballroom.

It was telling, though perhaps unsurprising, given the historic drubbing his party received at the hands of the Democrats, who wrested control of both the House and the Senate.

Trump has, for two years since his re-election, been drunk on power. His focus on the ballroom is an attempt at escapism for a leader unwilling to acknowledge his grip on power is growing ever more tenuous.

South Africa must move with speed to reset its relationship with Washington, keeping doors open to both Republicans and Democrats

The rebuke he received from voters in the midterms on Tuesday was not simply the emasculation of a brute, but a stern message that growing numbers in the US are fed up with his leadership, including his unnecessary war against Iran that has driven up inflation at home and across the globe. Importantly, they want Washington to reset and repair its relationship with the rest of the world.

Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the powerful House oversight & government reform committee, has issued a two-word warning to the Republicans following their loss: “Lawyer up.” Garcia, who will become the committee chair in January, has announced four areas of focus for investigations that will start when Congress convenes that month — including a probe into the handling of the Iran war, and further dissection of the Epstein files.

Trump’s headaches are multiplying. South Africa must move with speed to reset its relationship with Washington, keeping doors open to both Republicans and Democrats. The US is too important a global actor and a market to leave to chance. The extent to which exclusion from the Africa Growth & Opportunity Act harms South Africa depends not so much on Trump anymore, but on how Pretoria rises to the occasion.

Let us be honest about the history of the Springbok emblem. For many black South Africans, it was once a powerful symbol of white minority rule and exclusion. During apartheid, black South Africans were denied the opportunity to represent their country in international rugby. The Springbok jersey was therefore not simply a sporting symbol, it carried a political history.

Nelson Mandela made a remarkable contribution towards changing that perception when he embraced the Springboks during the 1995 Rugby World Cup. But reconciliation must not become an excuse for avoiding the difficult questions that remain.

Mutisi has raised a straightforward question: “Does the composition of the Springbok team adequately reflect the demographics of the country it represents?”

No, it does not. South Africa has a population in which black Africans constitute the overwhelming majority. Yet the national rugby team continues to attract criticism over its predominantly white composition. It is an issue that South African rugby administrators themselves have acknowledged.

In May 2024, reports on an internal South African Rugby transformation audit revealed that the Springboks had failed to meet their transformation targets during the 2023 Rugby Championship and World Cup. The audit called for interventions throughout the rugby development system.

The 2024 South African Rugby annual report acknowledged that some schools do not reflect the country’s demographic diversity and that disparities remain between provincial development pathways and senior teams. It reported that URC and European professional club teams contracted only 35% black players on average.

Where is the transformation happening? What is happening in township schools? What investment is going into rugby facilities, coaching and scholarships? How many young black players are receiving professional contracts? What accountability measures exist for provincial unions that consistently fail to meet transformation objectives?

There is also a need to examine the concentration of rugby development in traditionally established rugby schools. Talent is not the exclusive property of a particular race, school or social class. South Africa must create an environment where a talented child from a township has the same opportunity to pursue professional rugby as a child attending an elite private school.

It is not enough to identify talented black youngsters and expect them to compete against established structures without addressing the inequalities in those structures.

South Africa has had more than three decades since the end of apartheid to make meaningful progress. It cannot continue postponing this conversation. Stop attacking the messenger. Address the message.

- Andrew Harrison, via e-mail

Black vs white in the green & gold

The reaction to my comments about the racial composition of the Springbok rugby team (Sunday Times November 1) has been interesting. Some South Africans have taken offence, questioned my nationality and even suggested that I have no business commenting on South African rugby.

Let me put one thing straight. I am 100% Zimbabwean and proud of it. I attended Prince Edward School in Harare, an institution where rugby is more than just a sport. It is part of the school’s culture. I grew up appreciating international rugby and remain a passionate follower of the game. I have followed the Springboks, the All Blacks, England, Wales and other international sides for many years.

My concern is not about denying any player the right to represent South Africa. Every player who earns a place through talent, discipline and hard work deserves respect. Rugby must remain competitive and nobody should be selected simply because of skin colour.

But I have a bigger question that South African rugby administrators must answer.

How many black players are playing at club level? How many are represented in provincial rugby? How many have secured professional contracts with the four South African United Rugby Championship (URC) franchises? And how many are progressing through the development structures towards the Springboks?

These are important questions because national teams do not simply appear overnight. They are products of school rugby, university, clubs, provincial competitions and professional development programmes.

I am particularly interested in the school system. South Africa has some outstanding rugby schools, but we must examine whether opportunities are equally accessible to young black players. Are we developing talent across all communities or are we continuing to depend heavily on a relatively small group of established rugby schools?

There is also the question of migration, which I understand very well. Talented young South African players may choose to pursue opportunities overseas rather than remain in an increasingly competitive domestic system. South Africa must examine why it is losing some of its promising black young talent and whether its development structures are doing enough to retain them.

I am not asking South Africa to select an inferior player over a superior one. I am asking whether the structures that identify, develop and promote rugby talent are giving every community a fair opportunity.

To those who have attacked me personally, let us debate the facts rather than the nationality of the person raising the issue. Sport has no borders when it comes to passionate supporters.

I will continue to support good rugby, applaud outstanding players and respect the Springboks when they perform well. But I will also continue to ask questions about representation, opportunity and transformation.

The Springboks belong to South Africa, not to one racial group, one school or one social class. The jersey should represent the entire nation.

- Engineer Jacob Kudzayi Mutisi

Should Arsenal be 96% white?

One reads Jacob Kudzayi Mutisi’s letter of November 1 (“Springbok team is still too white”) with the mild fascination reserved for arguments that undermine themselves early on.

What the piece cannot conceal is the editorial hand behind it. The photograph chosen to accompany this 2026 lament depicts the Springboks slumped in a 2017 defeat — nine years ago, prior to two further Rugby World Cup victories under Siya Kolisi’s leadership. Presenting the world champions via an outdated image of failure is a curious way to illustrate an argument about a failing status quo.

Mutisi argues a national team must reflect its population. Living in London offers a useful parallel: England’s population is roughly 4% black, yet over half its international football squad is black. No reasonable person suggests Bukayo Saka or Jude Bellingham should stand aside for demographic symmetry. Merit remains the only principle making sport worth watching.

Transformation is a legitimate debate, but it requires current evidence. A nine-year-old photograph is not evidence. It is atmosphere — and in journalism, atmosphere is another word for bias.

- Helga Leith, South African expatriate, London

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The Stade de France is French rugby’s national fortress, but the Springboks have made themselves rather comfortable in Paris.

South Africa have won nine of their last 10 Tests against France, including their last four at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, on the outskirts of Paris.

France last beat the Springboks at their national stadium in 2001.

The Springboks have made a habit of winning the biggest matches in Paris, most memorably Jacques Nienaber’s 2023 World Cup champions, who beat France by a point in an extraordinary quarterfinal before winning the semifinal against England and the final against the All Blacks by the same margin.

Rassie Erasmus’s Boks returned last year and won 32-17, despite playing 30 minutes of the second half with 14 men against 15.

It’s the most difficult challenge this current generation has ever faced: playing these world champions Springboks — Fabien Galthié, France coach

The scoreline suggested comfort, but the contest was anything but. Any win in Paris is earned.

France are the reigning Six Nations champions, consistently Europe’s strongest rugby nation and, arguably, the only country that can rival South Africa for quality and depth beyond their strongest match-day 23.

Their depth evident

The French demolished Australia 42-26 in July’s Nations Championship, and their depth was again evident in the selection against Fiji last Saturday, with just 11 survivors from the match-day squad that overwhelmed the Wallabies.

There were only seven survivors from last year’s defeat against the Springboks: five in the starting XV and two among the replacements.

The most significant addition is scrumhalf and captain Antoine Dupont, whose injury absence last year deprived France of arguably the most influential player in world rugby.

Erasmus has consistently acknowledged France’s quality, from the build-up to the 2023 World Cup quarterfinal through to last year’s victory. “I‘ve always been impressed by their size; they obviously have special playmakers, but they can also physically hurt their opponents,” he said.

“Playing at the Stade de France is always special for us. We have had great results there; we love the noise of the crowd and the energy of the crowd. It is a pressured environment, and our players, like the French, feed off that energy.”

France coach Fabien Galthié has been equally complimentary of the world champions. “They still have the same strengths — their pack, their aerial kicking game — which they’ve developed even further, the same power,” said Galthié.

“It’s the most difficult challenge this current generation has ever faced: playing these world champion Springboks.”

Best team in rugby

A year ago, Galthié described the Springboks as “perhaps the best team ever in the sport,” and his admiration has only grown. “They were exceptional in beating the All Blacks in three successive Tests.”

Erasmus selected his strongest available 23 for yesterday’s 66-7 victory against Italy in Turin and is unlikely to make significant changes for Paris.

Sixteen of those selected against Italy featured in last year’s 32-17 victory, with loosehead prop Boan Venter the only fit player from that winning combination omitted. The other six are unavailable through injury.

For Springbok scrum coach Daan Human, France, as a rugby nation, carries particular significance.

Human, a four-Test Springbok in 2002, joined Toulouse in 2004 and made 169 appearances before retiring in 2012.

He has often said he learned to scrum in France and retains enormous affection for Toulouse, French rugby’s passion, and the country’s appreciation of the set piece.

That mutual respect extends to both coaching staffs and playing groups.

Erasmus and captain Siya Kolisi have repeatedly emphasised that South Africa’s dominance in Paris disguises how little has separated the teams.

“In most cases, there is just one score between us. They are a very good side, and in Fabien they have an exceptional coach.”

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And there endeth the lesson. Voters have pronounced their verdict on the bewildering array of parties that set out their stalls for local government elections this week. The parties will now spend the next two weeks putting their own spin on the outcomes, as they seek to negotiate coalition arrangements in as many as 110 hung councils out of a total of 213 councils nationally.

Taken as a whole, voters may be divided among themselves as to which single party, if any, best represents their interests at local level for the next five years. What they’re certain about, though, is that they expect a much better performance than that to which they’ve become accustomed.

Old certainties died an unlamented death at the polls. The ANC, which for three decades has rested on its liberation laurels, took a hammering. Voters who routinely made their crosses next to the party of Mandela and Tambo have had enough. High-sounding promises count for nothing when the lights are off, sewage is running down potholed streets, and public facilities have been allowed to go to ruin. A younger generation is making its voice heard.

In an election that eschewed grand ideologies in favour of nothing more complex than running municipalities frugally and with integrity, service delivery became the holy grail.

Now the hard bargaining begins.

For the DA it’s largely a choice between the ANC and ActionSA, led by maverick businessman Herman Mashaba, which made a particularly strong showing in Tshwane. Mashaba and Zille are enemies from way back, and although anything is possible in politics, a DA-ActionSA coalition in Tshwane or anywhere else appears unlikely, although not impossible.

With the ANC and the DA being key partners in the GNU, ANC-DA coalitions would make sense, on paper at least

The obvious choice for a DA coalition partner would be the ANC. Although it fell well short in the eight metros, the ANC retains enough broad support across the country to make it a credible coalition partner. In addition, with the ANC and the DA being key partners in the GNU, ANC-DA coalitions would make sense, on paper at least.

Much of what happens will be determined by how the ANC intends to position itself for the years ahead. With the party being on the receiving end of a resounding hiding, there will be those in its leadership who are loath to give the DA what they see as a platform on which to portray itself as the party of good governance.

Both the DA and the ANC will have to decide if a partnership with each other will benefit or hinder their prospects in the 2029 national elections.

Does the ANC abandon the idea of working with the DA in favour of seeking allies among the militant parties, among them MKP and the EFF? The latter’s “open borders” outlook seems to have found little favour among sections of the voter base, who have taken on an anti-illegal immigration stance, especially among the urban poor.

As the parties flirt with each other in coming weeks, the electorate — which showed up in numbers at the ballot box — can, along with the IEC, take a well-earned bow for another successful, peaceful, election that has further consolidated democracy. We proved to ourselves and the world at large that democracy works in South Africa.

Voters will expect their trust to be repaid in honest and accountable local government that puts their needs, and not those of the politicians, first.

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South Africa’s ferrous scrap regime was sold as industrial policy. A 30% price preference system (PPS) discount was meant to give local mills first call on scrap. A 20% export tax was later added.

Together they were presented as the way to keep feedstock at home and revive steel. They have done neither. They have collapsed the price that makes collection possible and handed a captive supply to a handful of buyers.

This is not a recent error. The Competition Tribunal has found that four prominent domestic consumers of scrap operated as a buyers’ cartel, fixing the purchase price of scrap metal between 1998 and 2008.

Two settled. Scaw received corporate leniency. Cape Gate was found to have contravened the Competition Act. Export of scrap was brought under permit control from 2012. The PPS followed in 2013 and has been described as a model based on the blueprint of cartel conduct.

The double burden was not the original design. An investigation by the International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa found the PPS ineffective and recommended that it be replaced by an export duty. The National Treasury told the standing committee on finance in October 2020 that the duty should replace the PPS.

Then a scrap working group, whose membership was not disclosed to the recyclers, and which included interests that had sat in the buyers’ cartel, secured the extension of the PPS so that it ran with the duty. That reversed the agreement with the department of trade & industry and the Treasury. Since August 2021, the two instruments have operated together.

On the ferrous side, the fallout is measurable. In the PPS summaries for the third quarter of this year, grades 200, 201, 210, 211 and 214 — the carbon grades on which collection depends — accounted for 56 applications and 17,132t. Every file drew an offer from Scaw, Cape Gate, or both.

None was approved for export. Of that tonnage, 13,522t were declined for non-engagement or unreasonable engagement. The instrument released what two mills left alone and locked what they chose to touch, without the offer being performed.

The companies that benefit have not changed in 30 years. Scaw and Cape Gate dominate the offers on carbon scrap

Two mills cannot consume the scrap South Africa generates, and the same file shows they did not consume the scrap they blocked. An unperformed offer that still kills the export permit removes the residual price that keeps collection open.

Stacked on the 30% discount and seller-pays delivery, the origin bid for processed sub-grade falls to roughly R1.48/kg at the yard gate. A bakkie must still buy the steel at origin and carry a driver and a helper. When the price no longer makes sense, the yard stops sending the vehicle.

The cruellest effect is at the bottom of the value chain. Hundreds of thousands of wastepickers live on daily loads, but 90kg at a suppressed price is about R130 a day — below the food poverty line for a household. The concurrent PPS and export tax cut the daily earnings of the people who walk the material to the gate.

The companies that benefit have not changed in 30 years. Scaw and Cape Gate dominate the offers on carbon scrap. In February, the competition commission raided these and two other scrap-purchasing companies on suspicion of co-ordinated purchase-price announcements. That file sits on top of the tribunal’s finding that the same firms ran a buyers’ cartel for 10 years.

This is a redistribution of wealth upward, running for more than a decade under the PPS and longer under the cartel before it, and doubled since the duty was added instead of replacing the PPS.

On November 13, 2025, the DTIC presented findings from a review of the PPS and the scrap duty that recommended suspending the PPS pending an investigation into manipulation of the policy by consumers and recorded a R4.9bn transfer from formal and informal scrap metal collectors to a handful of mill owners. Despite the department acknowledging the harm to the poorest, both policies continue.

South Africa cannot afford a policy that penalises the people who collect the material in order to subsidise the firms that process it. The government must dismantle this failed experiment, scrap the export tax and allow the market to determine the true value of scrap metal.

The preference system should be suspended pending the recommended investigation — one that takes account of the buyers’ cartel the tribunal has already found and of how a working group reversed the decision to replace the PPS with the duty. Growth in this chain is built on a price that makes the bakkie leave the yard, not on a shield that manufactures private margin from scrap left in the veld.

• Borrajeiro is chair of the Recycling Association of South Africa

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At last a little light seems to be flickering at the end of what has been a dark tunnel. Elections in countries such as Brazil, Serbia, South Africa and the US in past weeks have produced results that are largely gratifying.

The bad guys got a bloody nose. Even Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, a consummate political survivor, could yet be dislodged from power. But don’t bet on it. He’s confounded his enemies before.

Brazil set the tone a few weeks ago. President Lula da Silva, given up for dead after he lost in the first round, made a dramatic comeback to defeat his right-wing challenger, Flavio Bolsonaro.

Lula, the former trade unionist who seems to have inherited Fidel Castro’s mantle as the icon of the left, had his supporters in quite a state when he surprisingly trailed his youthful rival. Gleeful obituaries were written by his gloating enemies.

They were counting their chickens before they hatched. The old codger simply refused to lie down and die. A lot rode on the outcome.

Lula’s legacy was not merely on the line. It was going to be turned on its head. For Bolsonaro, it was about more than just running for office.

He was taking up the cudgels on behalf of his father, Jair Bolsonaro, the man Lula trounced four years ago and who was sentenced to 27 years in jail for his role in an attempted coup after his defeat. The son winning would obviously have meant freedom for the father.

Hovering over the wrestling for political supremacy in Brazil was the brooding figure of Donald Trump, a strong ally of Jair Bolsonaro. Trump reacted to his imprisonment by imposing a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods and cancelled visas for judges who presided over the case.

The US president has, since coming into office, seen to the emergence of right-wing governments in Latin America. Countries such as Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Peru and Argentina are now led by Trump-like figures. Having like-minded leaders running these countries makes it easier for Trump to accomplish one of his key policy objectives: stemming the flow of illegal immigrants to the US. Corralling Brazil, by far the largest economy in the region, would therefore have been the icing on the cake. Instead, it turned out to be the one that got away. The younger Bolsonaro, who was being investigated as he sought high office, has fled to the US.

The ANC is dying too slowly. People are impatient to bury the carcass and move on with their lives.

Of course, the story of the week, if not this generation, is the unprecedented bloodbath in the US midterm elections, with Trump’s Republican Party almost wiped off the face of the earth. It was a decimation richly deserved.

The source of Trump’s woes can be summed up in one word: Iran. He blundered into a war with Iran without any idea of how he was going to win or get out of it. He thought it was going to be easy. It was going to be another Venezuela, where he could walk in, take out its leader, and confiscate its oil.

It didn’t turn out that way. He has no clue how to extricate himself from this quagmire — and the rest of us are paying dearly for this imbecility.

American voters have the power, and they used it this week to punish him — and atone for the mistake they made in electing him.

Everyone is relieved that he didn’t interfere in the elections, which in itself is a serious indictment of where the US is at the moment.

It’s going to be fascinating to watch how Trump moves on from here.

It’s often said a US president who loses one chamber becomes a lame duck; losing both chambers, he’s a dead duck. But Trump is cut from a different cloth. He may ram through as always, oblivious of the fact that he doesn’t have a sycophantic Congress anymore.

South Africa has become such a pleasurable plaything for him that, even as his party was being buried in an avalanche, he still found the time to give us yet another kicking. But his ejection of South Africa from Agoa was not met by the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth here, probably because we knew it was coming. And, also, the country was otherwise engaged in a far more important undertaking.

For those of us who hoped for a modicum of stability after these elections, I’m afraid we’re going to be disappointed. The ANC has been such a behemoth in our politics and in our lives for so long that its disintegration was always going to leave a vacuum and therefore create instability.

The comrades are now crying into their beer.

There’s no way back or to recapture the devotion of scorned supporters. It is hard to overstate the sadness and the sense of betrayal that many feel that the party — which for more than a century had been the embodiment of not only their sacrifices but also their dreams and aspirations — would turn into a rapacious monster run by and for the benefit of hoodlums.

The ANC is dying too slowly. People are impatient to bury the carcass and move on with their lives. But not even death would be punishment enough for the enormous damage the party has inflicted on the country and its people. It will take more than a generation to repair the destruction.

But the instability is also a function of the system. It encourages the proliferation of too many small parties by people who are interested in serving themselves, not the public.

What is required is a formula that makes politicians more accountable to the public they claim to represent. Electoral reform has never been more imperative.

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The Proteas remain wary of Bangladesh ahead of next Sunday’s first Test, but there’s a sense that the Tigers have wasted the momentum and confidence from their seismic victory in Australia.

That nine-wicket win in Darwin three months ago, only Bangladesh’s second in the SENA (South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia) countries, was seen as a potential catalyst for the Asian sub-continent team.

But since then, they’ve lost a subsequent Test in two days to the Australians, drew against Afghanistan, and then lost at home to the West Indies. “Since Darwin, we haven’t batted well,” Bangladesh coach Phil Simmons admitted.

“We showed what we’re capable of if the determination to bat is there; but since that Test, we’ve not batted well in the formats we have played.”

We showed what we are capable of if the determination to bat is there – Phil Simmons, Bangladesh coach

Bangladesh were dismissed for less than a hundred in both innings by the Australians in the second Test of that August series; with several of their batters failing to turn starts into innings of substance against Afghanistan and against the West Indies, they were spun out by Jomel Warrican and Roston Chase.

They will not find spinning pitches at either the Wanderers or SuperSport Park, which will host the two-match Test series.

Seam-bowling resources

It may be that the fast, bouncy pitches at the two Gauteng venues are not to their batters’ liking — given they will have to face Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen and Anrich Nortje — but they will have the seam-bowling resources to trouble a Proteas batting line-up that is still finding its feet.

So close to a hat-trick! 😱🔥 Hasan Mahmud strikes twice in two balls but narrowly misses out on a hat-trick! What a thrilling moment in Sylhet! 🇧🇩🎯

Dutch-Bangla Bank Bangladesh 🆚 West Indies Test Series 2026, Powered by Rocket, Co-sponsor: NexusPay

Official Transportation… pic.twitter.com/arbwNXS0k9

— Bangladesh Cricket (@BCBtigers) November 6, 2026

Taskin Ahmed, Hasan Mahmud and Shoriful Islam have shared 45 wickets between them this year, with Hasan’s match figures of 9/111 in Darwin one of the stand-out performances of 2026.

Shoriful, who wasn’t selected for the second Test currently underway against the West Indies, took 7/48, the third-best figures of all time for Bangladesh in the Mackay Test against Australia.

Taskin, the most experienced of the seamers, says communication between the group has been crucial to their recent success.

“As a fast-bowling unit, we make it a point to share our success stories with one another. Discussing the processes has led to our success and the factors that have helped us maintain consistency. We genuinely believe that a single piece of advice from one of us could prove beneficial to a teammate,” he said.

Heavy favourites

India and South Africa are the only two nations against whom Bangladesh have not recorded a Test win, so they won’t be short of motivation for the series.

The Proteas, off the back of the sensational series win against the Australians, will be heavy favourites for the two-match series, but need to be careful of looking too far ahead.

The England series in December is obviously keenly anticipated, but part of the journey towards qualifying for next year’s World Test Championship final includes taking care of business in the next few weeks.

The main frontline bowlers — including Jansen and Rabada — will be rested for the ODI and T20 series that follow the Tests.