By-election review
The three by-elections held on Wednesday confirm the long-term trend of PA growth in the Western Cape at the expense of both the DA and the ANC. The other trends established over the last three and a half years provoke a more fundamental question: what is the point of by-elections? A deeper, more philosophical question […]
Nelson Mandela Bay: winning all the wrong prizes
Nelson Mandela Bay is often overlooked when we analyse the metro municipalities. Before 2011 it was the smallest of six metros, in population, in economic importance and in political significance. It probably suffered a bit from middle-child syndrome after the 2011 local government election (LGE), when Buffalo City and Mangaung joined the metro family. A […]
The North West has gone south
Most of our political discourse centres on coalition politics and the relationships between different parties. Our electoral system supports multi-party democracy and the African National Congress’s (ANC) loss of a national majority in 2024 has opened up the space for different parties to contest. But what happens in the provinces and municipalities where the ANC […]
MTBPS review: growing pains
Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana presented his fifth Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) on Wednesday. It was a much easier presentation than the previous five years, when the aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic could be felt in the ballooning national debt and a runaway debt-to-GDP ratio. Debt is expected to stabilise this year and […]