President Jacob Zuma dropped a major political bombshell yesterday when he recalled his arch-nemesis, finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, and his deputy, Mcebisi Jonas (who had allegedly previously refused a bribe from the Gupta brothers), from their international roadshow promoting South Africa in the UK and US. Speculation is rife around …
The Public Protector’s office released its report into alleged ‘state capture’ of the South African presidency and various state-run enterprises at the end of October 2016. The report was a political and social bombshell that outlined uncomfortably close and ethically (not to mention potentially legally) fraught relationships between our president, Jacob …
[UPDATE 1: The South African Council of Churches released their “Unburdening Panel” report into state capture in May 2017. It is an incredibly succinct summary of state capture and I highly recommend reading it as a companion piece to the below article] [UPDATE 2: The Public Affairs Research Institute has …
In this post I’m going to look at 180,000+ tweets mentioning the Public Protector. The dataset includes mentions of the Public Protector’s office in general as well as specific mentions of Thuli Madonsela or the various candidates for her replacement, including her eventual successor, Busisiwe Mkhwebane. The data covers more than two months, …
I’m currently looking at a Twitter dataset around the Public Protector. It’s so weird how Andile Mngxitama’s Black First Land First (BLF) party and the Gupta media entities, ANN7 and The New Age, are always so closely tied together on Twitter (here’s a previous example that I posted about). They seem to …
Andile Mngxitama and his “Black First, Land First” party really intrigue me. I can’t work out where they are coming from. First he joins as a senior member of the EFF but is kicked out. He then pops up as a talking head on Gupta-owned news station, ANN7. He/they espouse perhaps the …
