> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://goodoil.news/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Report on Politics - URL: https://goodoil.news/the-report-on-politics/ - Published: 2026-09-09T22:30:15.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-09T22:30:14.000Z - Description: Is South Africa on the cusp of something really significant? - Author: Reproduced with permission - Tags: World Politics, History [**Peter Williams**](https://peterallanwilliams.substack.com/p/tour-report-politics) *Writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines although verbalising thoughts on www.reality* [*check.radio*](http://check.radio/?ref=goodoil.news) *three days a week* Because of our relationship through rugby and cricket, New Zealanders have long carried an interest in South African politics. For the first 35 years of my life, many New Zealanders actively protested against the apartheid regime of South Africa’s National minority government, culminating in the unprecedented but not repeated actions against the 1981 Springboks. Political leaders like Hendrik Voewoerd, BJ Forster, Pik Botha and PW Botha became familiar names to us as the anti-apartheid campaign became New Zealand’s most enduring news story during the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. But I also knew of Helen Suzman, a vociferous white anti-apartheid politician whose work opposing the staunch National Party policies of the 1960s was recognised around the world. Our bus took us down a street in Cape Town named in her honour. As international opposition to apartheid ramped up in the 1980s, South African leaders gradually began to soften their attitude towards the hard-line racism and segregation that had been official government policy since 1948. The culmination was the release of Nelson Mandela after 27 years of incarceration and his subsequent election as the country’s first black president in 1994. The world was excited about this new Rainbow Nation with 12 official languages, a colourful new flag, a multi-racial parliament, a stirring multi-lingual national anthem – and universal suffrage. Predictably the African National Congress (ANC), the party of Mandela, won that first election and 32 years later is still the dominant political force, but not everywhere. In the Western Cape, the area around Cape Town, both provincial and city government is led by the Democratic Alliance or DA. Our tour guide, a genial white man named Grant Edkins was, he confesses, a bit different to the rest of his family and friends. As a young man he joined the ANC because he abhorred the treatment of blacks under apartheid. He loved the Mandela presidency but admits that, since his replacement by Thabo Mbeki in 1999, the country has not developed and progressed the way it could and should have. Much of that he says is down to pure corruption and mismanagement by those inside the ANC. Mbeki, generally regarded as an economic neoliberal, was replaced as ANC leader and subsequently as the country’s president by Jacob Zuma from the hard-left wing of the party. White South Africans now refer to Zuma’s years in power, from 2009 to 2018, as the “Stolen Years”. Prior to becoming president he’d faced charges of both corruption and rape. The charges were dropped within weeks of assuming the presidency. Zuma embarked on a programme of ‘state capture’, including land expropriations without compensation. It was a time riddled with corruption and inefficiency. One story told is of Eskom, the South African electricity company, needing to buy toilet paper for staff. The cost was 1300 rand a roll, or $NZ130\. Who knows where the excess money went! South Africa has local elections on November 4 and, according to Grant Edkins, change is afoot. The elections are for all the councillors in the eight metropolitan municipalities and the 205 local municipalities, plus 40 per cent of the councillors in the 44 district municipalities. In the last such event, in 2021, the ANC won the most votes nationwide with 45.59 per cent with the DA a long way back in second with 21.62\. The hardline Black Nationalist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) led by Julius Malema, he of the red beret favoured by Te Pāti Māori MP Oriini Kaipara, were third on just over 10 per cent. Grant Edkins, the white one-time ANC member, believes this is the year that the ANC will start losing its grip on power. The previous president Zuma is still not clear of corruption charges while the current president, Cyril Ramaphosa is facing impeachment charges after $US580,000 in cash was found hidden in a couch on his farm, apparently from the sale of buffalo. The DA has long controlled local politics in the Western Cape. Its leader Geordin Hill-Lewis is a career politician who, while still not 40, has already spent 10 years as a member of the National Assembly and the last five years as mayor of Cape Town. His predecessor but one as DA leader was Helen Zille, now 75 years old. She has been mayor of Cape Town, premier of Western Cape and a member of the National Assembly. In a previous life she was a journalist who helped expose the cover up surrounding the death of Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko in 1977. Despite her political history in the Western Cape, she’s running hard this year for mayor of Johannesburg, her home town. An opinion poll in early August had the DA at 42 per cent in the country’s largest city, with the ANC on just 18 per cent. As my man Grant Edkins says “look at the state of Cape Town and the surrounding area, then look at Johannesburg”. The contrast is easily visible to a tourist’s eyes by just looking at the state of the city infrastructure. The DA has run Cape Town and the Western Cape since 2006\. Maybe the voters in Johannesburg want a bit of that type of government. The DA currently has 87 of 400 seats in the National Assembly but Hill-Lewis, despite leading a party which is part of the coalition government of National Unity, intends to stay on as mayor of Cape Town. He says that gives him the distance to still criticise the ANC. These elections, and the most recent poll in Johannesburg, might lay the foundations of an incredible sea change in South African politics. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that after 35 years of ANC led governments, the country could have a new major party at the next federal elections in 2029. And that might mean a white man back as president. Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves here, but it’s obvious that millions of South Africans of all skin hues are heartily sick of the constant scandal and corruption allegations surrounding ANC leaders. In the lead-up to our big day on November 7, we should look out for news from South Africa a couple of days prior. This article was originally published on the [author’s Substack](https://peterallanwilliams.substack.com/p/tour-report-politics).