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SOUTH AFRICAN political parties have a fortnight to agree on coalition arrangements in a number of municipalities or submit to fresh elections after final results for last Wednesday’s polls were reported on Saturday.
The results made grim reading for the African National Congress (ANC) although a majority, 53 per cent, of voters backed the former liberation movement across the country.
But the ANC has lost control of key metropolitan areas — Nelson Mandela Bay, which includes Port Elizabeth, Tshwane around Pretoria, Ekurhuleni, formerly known as the East Rand, and the largest city Johannesburg.
The shared path of the South African Communist Party and the ANC to the ballot box has found itself at a junction. SABINA PRICE reports
The charter emerged from a profoundly democratic process where people across South Africa answered ‘What kind of country do we want?’ — but imperial backlash and neoliberal compromise deferred its deepest transformations, argues RONNIE KASRILS
RONNIE KASRILS pays tribute to Ruth First, a fearless fighter against South African apartheid, in the centenary month of her birth
The plan is to stigmatise and destabilise South Africa in preparation for breaking it up while creating a confused and highly racialised atmosphere around immigration in the US to aid in denying rights to non-white refugees, explains EMILE SCHEPERS