Category: Rational Perspective

Johannesburg’s local government election on 4 November could reshape South African politics. DA mayoral candidate Helen Zille needs about 490,000 votes, more than double the party’s 2024 total, to win an outright council majority. Falling short would mean another coalition, a scenario blamed for ten mayors in ten years and stalled service delivery. The ANC,…

DA chief whip Glynnis Breytenbach plans a private member’s bill to repeal the IDAC legislation, signed into law weeks before the 2024 election. Because IDAC was created by ordinary legislation, only a simple majority is needed to scrap it, unlike a Chapter Nine institution, which would need two-thirds. Evidence at the Madlanga Commission has exposed…

XA Global Trade Advisors Director Donald MacKay argues South Africa’s sector masterplans, far from reviving struggling industries, are entrenching decades-old monopolies at consumers’ expense. With 69.5% of SA sectors highly concentrated according to the Competition Commission, MacKay says government-backed protection (anti-dumping duties, safeguards, and a maze of 110 import rebates) shields inefficient incumbents rather than…

South Africa’s foreign policy rhetoric and its tourism numbers tell two different stories. New Stats SA data shows nearly 190,000 Americans visited SA in the first half of 2026 — almost double the combined total from Brazil, Russia, India and China, SA’s own BRICS partners. The UK and Germany added further evidence: together with the…

This article was first published by The Common Sense The sharp Common Sense editorial below argues that Washington has South Africa exactly backwards. The White House’s Afrikaner refugee policy assumes black South Africans are besieging a white minority, but the real fault line, the piece argues, runs between the ANC state and citizens of all races…

The US Federal Reserve’s new task force on AI is examining jobs and inflation, but glaringly ignores financial stability, writes Brian Judge of UC Berkeley. AI data-centre debt is set to overtake mortgage debt by 2030, with hyperscalers needing trillions in revenue just to break even. For South African investors watching Wall Street’s AI-fuelled rally…

By Paul Hoffman* The good reason for closing down IDAC is not the resignation of its leader and her underwhelming showing at the Madlanga Commission. It is that IDAC is not a constitutionally compliant body and has none of the qualities required of it by the rulings of the Constitutional Court. Our anti-corruption machinery of…

Ambassador Roelf Meyer wants Trump’s refugee order for Afrikaners revoked, and says as much on radio. Terence Corrigan argues he’s chasing the wrong target: the order is a symptom, not the disease. The real rupture is South Africa’s foreign policy, its expropriation law, its ICJ case against Israel, its warming ties with Iran and Russia,…

Researchers spent a year at Somabula Nature Reserve in Gauteng, testing over 500 dung samples from impala, zebra, wildebeest and giraffe to see whether tourist traffic raises stress hormones. The answer: mostly no – three of the four species barely noticed visitors, with breeding cycles and dry-season food scarcity driving stress far more than game…

A potential Marine Le Pen presidency in France could reshape Europe’s political landscape, with consequences that extend beyond the continent. As Germany worries about instability in its most important EU partnership, South Africa must watch how shifting European priorities affect trade, investment and global diplomacy. The EU remains one of South Africa’s biggest economic partners,…

What began as a march has become a test of state authority. While 30 June avoided the label of a national shutdown, its economic and social impact told a different story. Behind the headlines lies a deeper shift: a civic movement with no electoral mandate has secured political attention, institutional concessions, and the ability to…

Amazon’s plan to launch LEO satellite internet in South Africa through Herotel, rather than going it alone like Starlink, shifts the debate beyond Musk and BEE compliance, argues Dr Joan Swart. The real question, she writes, is what governance model best serves South Africa as more foreign satellite providers, including China’s SpaceSail, enter the market.…

This article was first published by The Common Sense David Ansara argues that South Africa’s official foreign policy apparatus is failing (literally), in the case of a decaying, urine-reeking South Africa House in London requiring a R70 million taxpayer-funded refurbishment, and ideologically, as DIRCO aligns with Iran, Venezuela, and anti-Israel positions that have pushed relations with…

Writing for the Daily Friend, columnist Ivo Vegter takes aim at Daily Maverick’s “Power Guzzlers” coverage and a Foxglove-backed objection to a Cape Town Equinix data centre, arguing that activists are conflating zoning applications with licensing processes to obstruct investment South Africa badly needs. He points to Actom, Hitachi Energy and Eskom’s transmission build-out as…

Ousted agriculture minister John Steenhuisen has accused former DA leader Tony Leon and his firm, Resolve Communications, of engineering his sacking over the foot-and-mouth disease response, dubbing agricultural lobbyists “AfriMaga.” Daily Friend columnist Jonathan Katzenellenbogen argues the real driver was DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis’s political calculation, not Leon’s influence, and that lobbying (including Resolve’s work…

From the UK’s “trustworthy news” green paper to the EU’s private-message scanning and Washington’s equity stakes in AI firms, Ivo Vegter tracks a global drift toward state control of information, justified everywhere as protection from misinformation. South Africa is no exception: the Films and Publications Board, an apartheid-era institutional descendant, already vets online content, while…

When cabinet ministers Mamoloko Kubayi and Ronald Lamola suggested Israel and allied states were behind South Africa’s anti-immigrant protests, they revived a familiar tactic: deflection. Political scientist Kenneth Moeng Kgwadi traces a pattern stretching from Mbeki’s economic policies to the 2008 xenophobic violence, the Zuma-era scandals and Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala controversy – moments where the…

Dr Anthea Jeffery argues SA is on the verge of repeating Europe’s costly mistake. As new environment minister David Maynier takes office, draft regulations under the 2024 Climate Change Act threaten to impose mandatory carbon budgets, steep fines, and even jail terms for directors at firms emitting above a low 30,000-tonne threshold — potentially forcing…

South African youth have historically skipped elections — 90% of 18-19 year-olds didn’t register for 2021’s local polls, citing disillusionment, inaccessible voting stations, and a belief that parties ignore their concerns. Sara Gon, in this piece for The Daily Friend, argues the deeper cause is low voter literacy: many don’t grasp that voting is the…