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3 weeks ago | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Ray Hartley |Greg Mills
COALITION GOVERNMENT OP-ED Voters were positive about the Government of National Unity despite 72% saying SA’s economy was in bad shape and more than half indicating that their current living conditions were difficult.
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1 month ago | 
rusi.org | Ray Hartley |Greg Mills
There has seldom been as ill-considered a rant as that placed on record by the South African Ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool at an online dialogue organised by an African National Congress (ANC) think tank. During a feverish ‘analysis’ of the US, Rasool managed to insult by name the US President, Donald Trump, his strongest ally, Elon Musk and the Vice President, JD Vance. In one fell swoop he has placed himself (now persona non grata in the US) and his country in jeopardy.
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2 months ago | 
rusi.org | Greg Mills |Ray Hartley
South Africa’s defiance of US pressure over land expropriation and foreign policy has triggered economic consequences, raising fears of a Zimbabwe-style decline. ‘So, Blair keep your England, and let me keep my Zimbabwe’, said Robert Mugabe in September 2002. ‘Let our Africans come first in the development of Africa. Not as puppets, not as beggars but as a sovereign people’.
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2 months ago | 
allafrica.com | Ray Hartley |Greg Mills
At the heart of the GNU's dysfunction lies a simple sleight of political hand and a misinterpretation of the desire of the Constitution. There is a fundamental difference between an administration being voted back into office to continue with its programme and a new administration being elected because the public wants change.
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2 months ago | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Ray Hartley |Greg Mills
South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) wrote to the government of Taiwan in October 2024 instructing the Taipei Liaison Office to shut up shop in Pretoria and move to Johannesburg under a different name by the end of February 2025. This request was reiterated by Dirco in a subsequent letter setting an eviction deadline of the end of March. Contemporary Taiwan emerged in 1949 with the end of the Chinese Civil War.
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2 months ago | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Ray Hartley |Greg Mills
The ANC, unable to escape the gravity of its liberation movement past, continues to act as though it is the sole representative of the people. This is no longer the case. The Government of National Unity (GNU) is not a continuation of the old ANC administration, it is a new administration which came into being after unchecked ANC rule was rejected by voters in the May 2024 election.
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2 months ago | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Ray Hartley |Greg Mills
The broad consensus is that South Africa has turned the corner with the Government of National Unity (GNU). But the political clock is ticking and South Africa’s next day of reckoning is loading. In just two years and 10 months, President Cyril Ramaphosa will be replaced as ANC president at its congress in December 2027. He will still have two years to serve out in his second term, but history is not on his side. Don't want to see this?
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Dec 8, 2024 | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Greg Mills |Ray Hartley
Greg Mills and Ray Hartley are with The Brenthurst Foundation. If it wants to be on the right side of history rather than the historical side of righteousness, South Africa needs to return democracy to the centre of its international relations and understand that this is the only way to secure regional stability and economic progress.
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Dec 6, 2024 | 
allafrica.com | Greg Mills |Ray Hartley
There is a danger that the GNU is missing the opportunity to grasp the nettle and push on with the economic reforms that the country desperately needs to ignite growth and investment. Listen to this article 7 min Listen to this article 7 min This week saw a slew of announcements on South Africa's economy which suggest we are far from out of the woods despite the buoyant mood (at least in the coffee shops) following the formation of a Government of National Unity (GNU) earlier this year.
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Dec 5, 2024 | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Greg Mills |Ray Hartley
Greg Mills and Ray Hartley are with The Brenthurst Foundation. There is a danger that the GNU is missing the opportunity to grasp the nettle and push on with the economic reforms that the country desperately needs to ignite growth and investment.
