Nearly two decades after he was anointed by Nelson Mandela as his successor, Cyril Ramaphosa has at last taken office as the president of South Africa. But the country Ramaphosa has inherited is very different from the rainbow nation that Mandela led in the 1990s. The South Africa of 2018 is divided and caught in a web of state capture, corruption, poverty and despair. The Zuma years have left the country and its institutions battered and bruised. Can Ramaphosa pull South Africa out of the...
When Jacob Zuma retires to Nkandla, what will be left behind? South Africa has been in the grip of the ʻZunamiʼ since May 2009: Scandal, corruption and allegations of state capture have become synonymous with the Zuma era, leaving the country and its people disheartened. But Jacob Zuma’s time is running out. Whether he leaves the presidency after the ANC’s national conference in 2017, stays on until 2019, or is forced to retire much sooner, the question is: what impact will his departure have on...