Former South African president Jacob Zuma.
Simon Maina/AFP via Getty Images.
Opinion polls show that the uMkhonto weSizwe party enjoys significant support in KwaZulu-Natal, Jacob Zuma’s home province.
ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa, left, canvasses for votes in Johannesburg.
Olympia de Maissmont/AFP via Getty Images.
The 2024 elections may be the tipping point that enables opposition parties to portray themselves as viable contenders in forming a national coalition government.
Winnie Madikizela Mandela and Nelson Mandela were mythologised for the greater good.
Shawn Walker/Getty Images
Would South Africa have been torn apart by civil war without the myth of Nelson Mandela?
The April 1994 international mediation team in South Africa, with Washington Okumu sitting between the US’s Henry Kissinger and the UK’s Peter Carrington.
Washington Okumu, reused by Nancy J. Jacobs with permission
In a matter of days, one Kenyan’s intervention helped give South Africa a peaceful transition to its first post-apartheid government.
Nelson Mandela casts his vote in South Africa’s 1994 election.
TT News Agency / Alamy Stock Photo
The first episode of What happened to Nelson Mandela’s South Africa?, a three-part podcast series on The Conversation Weekly. Featuring interviews with Steven Friedman and Sandy Africa.
Nelson Mandela takes the oath as South Africa’s president in Pretoria on 10 May 1994.
Walter Dhladhla/AFP via Getty Images
A lot of good has happened since apartheid ended in 1994. Sadly, 30 years on, the country is in a political and economic crisis. Many are questioning the choices of the past three decades.
Voters cast their ballots by candle light during previous elections in Cape Town, South Africa.
The Times/Gallo Images/Getty Images
As South Africa heads towards elections, there is no quick fix solution to the electricity crisis in the country. What exactly are the political parties promising voters?
Cover detail of the book Guerrillas and Combative Mothers.
UKZN Press
The interviews in this book offer firsthand insights into women’s participation in the armed struggle against apartheid.
Former South African president Jacob Zuma is campaigning for a new opposition party opposition.
Chesnot/Getty Images
Jacob Zuma claims that his new political home, the Umkhonto we Sizwe Party, is the authentic ANC, not the one led by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa, centre, and his deputy, Paul Mashatile, right, help cut the cake at the party’s 112th anniversary celebration at Mbombela Stadium, Mpumalanga.
Dirk Kotze/Gallo Images via Getty Images
The ANC leans heavily on its liberation movement brand. But this will not necessarily be a determining factor in who will sway voters later this year.
A hand painted advertisement for Coke in Arusha, Tanzania.
Derek Hudson/Getty Images
Coca-Cola has often been entangled with key political moments in Africa since its arrival in the early 1900s.
Populist politicians accuse the judiciary of stalling societal changes.
Getty Images
The governing ANC’s indifference to constitutionalism has left the constitution vulnerable to opportunistic attack by politicians.
Apartheid ended in 1994 in South Africa, but ‘race’ remains politically salient.
Photo by DEA / A. Vergani/De Agostini via Getty Images
Critics of the 1994 political settlement largely hail from the black middle class, even though it has been one the principal beneficiaries of South Africa’s social democracy.
The Economic Freedom Fighters marked its 10th anniversary at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on 29 July 2023.
Guillem Sartorio/AFP via Getty Images
Opinions differ widely about the true character of the EFF and what it really stands for since it gained seats in parliament in 2014.
Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi speaks in parliament.
GCIS/Flickr
Buthelezi should not be dismissed as a mere stooge during apartheid. Yet, he deserves little praise as an advocate for human rights and civil liberties.
Nelson and Winnie Mandela, a day after he was released from prison in
1990.
Gideon Mendel/Corbis via Getty Images
The early Nelson comes across as a man consumed by insecurity and ambition, plagued by inner strife and anger.
Getty Images
South Africa needs a new social contract whose core aim is the creation of dynamic economy.
Lilian Ngoyi, one of the leaders of the 1956 women’s march against apartheid, is immortalised on an abandoned building.
Justin Pearce
The sites provide a rare tangible record of the international solidarity that existed during the Cold War.
The African National Congress has lost electoral support but remains dominant.
Phill Magakoe / AFP via Getty Images.
Dissatisfied ANC voters were much more likely to switch their votes if they held positive views of an opposition party. However, the problem for the opposition is that few people held these views.
Presidents Hage Geingob, left, and Cyril Ramaphosa at the Union Buildings in Tshwane.
GCIS
How Swapo and the ANC respond to any further decline in electoral support will define the future of democracy in both countries.