The 2016 local government elections will be surely be heavily contested. Already in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Nelson Mandela Bay, the ANC, DA and EFF are gearing up for tough electoral battles. No doubt too, all the political parties will pour large sums of money into these areas. But quite how much political parties will spend on campaigning, no one knows, because of a complete lack of transparency in the funding of political parties.
Judith February
Opinion | 27 August 2015
Constitutional Court judge Edwin Cameron delivered the Bram Fischer Memorial Lecture at Oxford University on 16 June. While much longer than pieces we normally carry, the speech is relevant to vital current issues and we present it here in full.
Edwin Cameron
Analysis | 17 June 2015
Stellenbosch shack fire survivors have expressed anxiety about the involvement of the ANC dominated Kayamandi Development Forum (KDF) in their new government housing development project.
Mandla Mnyakama and GroundUp Staff
News | 25 May 2015
On Friday 1 May South Africa will celebrate Workers’ Day. In the first of three articles on the current state of the labour movement, Leonard Gentle explains the history of this holiday.
Leonard Gentle
Opinion | 29 April 2015
Four years after President Jacob Zuma promised sanitary towels for poor women, there is no sign that his promise has been kept.
Mary-Anne Gontsana
Brief | 10 March 2015
Langa residents are asking why a man accused of fraudulent plot sales to dozens of poor people has still not been arrested, while the activist who exposed him fears for her life.
Daneel Knoetze
Feature | 4 March 2015
President Zuma's State of the Nation Address was thin on detail. Here are a list of questions that we suggest Members of Parliament could ask, so that people living in South Africa will be better informed.
GroundUp Staff
Analysis | 13 February 2015
GroundUp asked four immigrants to South Africa what they would like President Jacob Zuma to say in his State of the Nation Address tonight.
Zintle Swana. Photos by Masixole Feni.
News | 12 February 2015
A Cape Town magistrate has convicted ten activists from the Social Justice Coalition (SJC) for convening an illegal gathering. Although they were discharged with a caution, the group has vowed to appeal the conviction, and to have the Regulations of Gatherings Act declared unconstitutional by a higher court.
Daneel Knoetze
News | 11 February 2015
'Twas the night before the SONA, when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse ...
Stacey Stent
News | 11 February 2015
The Q’uran and the Prophet Mohammed cannot be held responsible for the Jihadi atrocities of Boko Haram or the Islamic State groups any more than can the Christian Gospels and Jesus be held responsible for apartheid or the Ku Klux Klan. To claim otherwise is simply illogical.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 2 February 2015
Draft regulations for drone usage in South Africa do not have safeguards against the use of the devices by the state as weapons or to invade people’s privacy, activists have warned. But the sub-committee in charge of compiling the regulations has said Constitutional rights will not be violated.
Daneel Knoetze
News | 27 January 2015
The brutal kleptocracy of Equatorial Guinea hopes to gain a measure of international acceptance by hosting the African Cup of Nations (Afcon) soccer spectacle that kicked off this weekend, writes Terry Bell. The oil and gas wealth generated by this “Kuwait of Africa” provides the economic wherewithal for the ruling elite to buy favours while the bulk of the population wallows in repressive poverty. Bell was the only foreign journalist to cover the independence of Equatorial Guinea more than 46 years ago.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 19 January 2015
Once again, there is a furore about plans to name a major Cape Town street after former apartheid president FW de Klerk. As well there should be, although there is considerable support for the proposal.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 19 January 2015
Charlie Hebdo journalist Laurent Leger is no stranger to South African newspaper readers. Over the last ten years or so, as a freelancer, Laurent has written several reports for South African newspapers on the French connection in the arms deal, and also on failed attempts to find the killers of ANC Paris representative Dulcie September.
Alide Dasnois
Opinion | 13 January 2015
The question of whether Prophet Muhammad can be depicted in Islam is something that perhaps most Muslims have failed to explain. With every cartoon or drawing, most people wonder why Muslims are in such an uproar – and admittedly, in some cases in a manner that is frankly unbefitting of the Prophet himself.
A’Eysha Kassiem
Opinion | 13 January 2015