SAMIDRC troops return to their respective nations
JOHANNESBURG - Two batches of South African soldiers have now returned home after a long withdrawal route from the DRC.
The troops were deployed as part of a Southern African Development Community force called SAMIDRC.
14 South Africa soldiers were killed in January as M23 rebels pushed towards the East and later the mission was aborted.
Since the end of April troops have been withdrawing from the DRC using trucks to travel overland and they've now flown in from Tanzania.
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Daily Maverick
an hour ago
- Daily Maverick
Lessons from the field — how sports can inspire South Africa's government
The shroud of inequality in race, education, employment, location, wealth, etc, etc, will continue to smother South Africa, unless the government and so many politicians of influence shed their egotistical craving for another term in office, wealth and self-importance. When will they learn? When will the government follow the extraordinary example of the Springbok rugby and Protea cricket teams? Rugby and cricket are proof that we can have an integrated society (a Rainbow Nation) in South Africa. South Africa are world champions in two major TEAM SPORTS. SA rugby in the heady days of our new democracy grew through the extraordinary leadership of Francois Pienaar, Morne du Plessis and Kitch Christie through to the incredible leadership of Rassie Erasmus and Siya Kolisi, with so many others in support. This is more than sport; it is a movement that can be celebrated, but more importantly, followed to the letter. Temba Bavuma and Shukri Conrad have now taken cricket to the same level of importance, with different leadership styles yet the same qualities. Cricket took a longer route, having to navigate the disastrous Hansie Cronje match-fixing scandal. The South African government and officials must openly and judiciously navigate their corruption scandals and the Zondo Commission. Without open and ruthless justice, this country cannot move forward. Fortunately for Cricket SA, Sean Pollock picked up the pieces, post-Hansie, with dignity, grace and commitment and put us back on track. The government of national unity (GNU) MUST do the same. Team sports require discipline, sacrifice, collaboration, learnt skills, teamwork, communication, leadership and resilience. These sports foster social relationships, boost self-esteem and improve mental health. Furthermore, athletes develop important qualities like respect, accountability and a strong work ethic. Can the GNU government and coalitions understand that, as the national teams play for their country and every person, so should they? Our political leaders need to shed their so-called importance of position or party and release South Africa to all its glory. The people of South Africa are crying out for this, and we can play our part. DM
Daily Maverick
an hour ago
- Daily Maverick
The GNU at one — serial crises and continual turmoil are the order of the day
The first year of the Government of National Unity saw crises of power-sharing, policy fallouts, court challenges, declarations of mutual contempt between the ANC and DA, and the construction of a substitute coalition — followed by truces and a seeming compulsion to stay the course. South Africa's one-year-old Government of National Unity (GNU), established on 14 June 2024, has tottered from one near-death experience to the next. Serial crises and continual turmoil are the rules of the country's new coalition politics, not a passing phase. Simultaneously, the GNU's endurance speaks its own truth: this unlikely, ideologically clashing, publicly inconvenient but largely policy-convergent coalition is predisposed to persist. This analysis records the formal and de facto rules of prevailing coalition life in South Africa. The focus is on the national. Conventional coalition theory and insights from comparative case studies have limitations in fathoming the rules of the South African coalition game circa 2024-2025. The analysis thus chronicles the rules as they have unfolded. Site of contest The GNU coalition is a site of contest, rather than an internally stable construct. Adversity and continual contestation rule; coalition practice is part of a protracted election campaign that stretches from poll to poll. The GNU's lifeblood is acrimony and the amorphous relationship between the main political parties. This discordant and 'inconvenient' relationship (as per Mistra's Marriages of Inconvenience) persists by mutual agreement between the anchor parties. The GNU is not about bonhomie and generous cooperation. Parties do not aspire to a new, shared coalition identity. The phrase 'governing in the interest of the people of South Africa' is mostly a subtext. These and other rules of engagement have become ingrained as the coalition has matured in the past year. It is a coalition that might continue ruling South Africa, probably beyond the local elections of late 2026, possibly for the parliamentary term and at least until the ANC presidential substitution of 2027-2029. The heart of the GNU, by numbers rather than affect, is the relationship between the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA). The two parties have a convenient majority of 62%, or a grand 72% with the inclusion of the other eight GNU parties. The ANC gains power against the DA in also having at its disposal a spare coalition of 52%, as seen in the VAT crisis of 2025 (even if the ANC has realised the pitfalls of possibly governing with this collection of micro and small parties). The ANC could also gain conditional coalition cooperation from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) for a third alternative, although it is neither the wish of the majority in the ANC's National Executive Committee (NEC), nor the party's financial backers. Despite these alternatives, the ANC chooses to walk the path with the DA. 'Sufficient consensus' GNU rule-making started with the negotiation of the Statement of Intent (SoI) — South Africa's weak substitute for a coalition agreement. The ANC-DA negotiations were insubstantial. The SoI was confirmed and signed at the eleventh hour, on 14 June 2024. The election of the President, scheduled for that day, was the DA's leverage. It won the battle for decision-making by 'sufficient consensus', but effectively ceded power because it had to recognise the President's prerogatives to exercise functions. All parties agreed to respect the Constitution. There was no time (nor were opportunities created subsequently) to deliberate the appropriateness of constitutional provisions that had clearly not envisaged a coalition government. The SoI, not a legally enforceable document, helped limit GNU power-sharing because 'sufficient consensus' for decision-making came to be at the discretion of the ANC. The weak SoI aided the ANC's desire not to let the coalition government cramp its exercise of power. Disproportionate GNU power flowing to the ANC was confirmed in the number and designations of Cabinet portfolios. Such deliberations invariably help establish coalition governments, and many embryonic coalitions implode at this point. The DA emerged bloody-nosed from the Cabinet composition contest but accepted the outcome — caught off-guard after committing strategic errors in the negotiations for Cabinet positions, also recorded in Tony Leon's book Being There. Legal combat The infant coalition limped from one defining power-sharing and policy crisis to the next. The series of policy conflicts almost unravelled the GNU. Key conflicts included: The Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Act, signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa in September 2024 (the National Assembly adopted it shortly before the 2024 election); The National Health Insurance (NHI) Act, signed by the President hastily in May 2024, just before the election (multiple professional bodies and political parties challenged it, ongoing by mid-2025, but it served the ANC's 2024 election campaign); and The Expropriation Act, signed by Ramaphosa in early 2025, despite the DA warning that it regarded the Act as unconstitutional. The DA litigated these and several other cases. The ANC argued that the DA opposed transformation and practised racially reactionary politics. The courts became a GNU partner of a special legal type. They were called on to offer legal answers to politically insoluble conflicts. The DA had been identifying low-hanging, procedural-matter fruit where lawfare could obstruct policies that the ANC refused to negotiate or renegotiate, now that the coalition era had rooted itself. Such legal combat among GNU partners, along with insolent mutual reproaches, including references to GNU partners as 'the enemy', were confirmed as further de facto rules of South Africa's new coalition game. It was accepted, equally, that these acts were not (necessarily) intended to kill the coalition. In the coalition policy battles, the DA felt free to act in the perceived interest of its constituents, to help position itself for future elections. The ANC, in turn, felt free to cast the DA as the reactionary foe. Several public opinion polls indicated that both the DA and ANC were gaining in voter endorsements for their GNU participation, with the DA gaining slightly more than the ANC. 'There shall be consultation' As the GNU wars escalated at the time of South Africa's Budget 2025, GNU rules were clarified further. The DA at last had the power it craved. The Budget and its fiscal framework need a 50%-plus National Assembly majority to pass. The DA, which was, at the time, only minimally consulted despite being the main GNU partner, rejected two versions of the Budget, due primarily to its disagreement with the proposed hike in Value-Added Tax (VAT). The ANC's options were to cooperate with the DA, work with the EFF and/or Jacob Zuma's uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party, or find a new small-party front. The ANC went shopping for new coalition partners outside of the GNU, but not the MK and EFF. It built a parallel majority coalition, with the inclusion of the non-GNU ActionSA and Build One South Africa. The bulk of the GNU micros remained part of the ANC's parallel majority coalition. In the universe of coalition government globally, outside soliciting is regarded as notice of (antecedent) 'coalition disbanded' — but not in the case of South Africa. ANC insults of the DA rocketed, although it tried not to be seen as instigating a breakup. Rather, the ANC's apparent strategy was to antagonise and frustrate the DA out of the GNU: it was a case of the DA being 'kicked out' versus 'frustrated out'. ANC factions continued as a major influence on GNU survival — it is also common globally that internal factions affect governing coalitions. June 2024's approximate 60-40 ANC NEC division between favouring or disavowing a GNU with the DA persisted at the time of the VAT crisis. Business showed its hand as a powerful partner in the coalition room, and this worked against the ANC's factional GNU demolition thrust at the time. Business leaders called on the ANC and DA to safeguard the GNU: its collapse could endanger economic growth and cost jobs. The game changed, with pressure added through the DA and EFF's legal challenge to the VAT increase and the ANC's growing recognition of the problem of continually accommodating a multiplicity of micro parties. In late April, the Treasury scrapped the planned VAT hike and tabled its third revised fiscal framework. The ANC reached out for an out-of-court settlement with the DA (the courts were still required to issue an order to avert the 1 May VAT increase). In an ANC-DA meeting soon thereafter, the DA expressed its 'sincere commitment' to stay in the GNU. To help preserve the fragile GNU, the ANC postponed an NEC meeting, and continued to do this at the time of writing, waiting first to achieve the Top Seven's consensus on its ongoing GNU alignment with the DA (or to let the dealignment fire burn itself out). The substantive (although incredulous that it only came roughly a year into GNU) coalition rule learnt at the time was that 'there shall be consultation'. Ramaphosa, ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula and Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana all pronounced that they had learnt the lesson that coalitions require consultation; globally, in coalition practice, this is an entry-level criterion. No effective conflict resolution A coalition rule awaiting ANC discovery is that functional coalitions require a meaningful, operational conflict resolution mechanism (effectively absent in the Statement of Intent). The 'clearing-house mechanism' is being refined, but, to date, remains poorly defined and vastly underutilised. The de facto guideline in the interim is for coalition party leaders to 'talk it over with the President' — while the President maintains scarce availability. Coalition governance is on low-key piloting — after the base rule of executive or Cabinet constitution was asserted early in the life of the GNU: the ANC would have disproportionately large numbers in the executive, both in Cabinet and deputy ministerial ranks. The ANC retained power and control over the bulk of the state and government. Coalition rules included that opposition party ministers had to get on with the job, be discreet in claiming success lest it upset ANC ministers, not outshine ANC Cabinet members or predecessors, and be guarded in criticisms of Cabinet colleagues who suffer corruption charges. Opposition Cabinet members were monitored by ANC deputy ministers, but not vice versa. In the legislature and its committees, nevertheless, green shoots of accountability and responsible decision-making started appearing, tentatively. The opposition parties and 'GNU opposition parties' often converge in inputs. Coalition government under the GNU also entailed that Cabinet meetings may be suspended or minimised when it becomes too ghastly a prospect for ANC ministers to face, for example, DA colleagues. Despite the raging VAT-Budget-GNU crisis, which needed urgent resolution, just a few Cabinet meetings took place from February to May 2025. It was in the wake of DA leader John Steenhuisen's inclusion in the South African delegation that met US President Donald in May that a sense of normality returned to Cabinet interactions. More benefits than drawbacks These were the core rules therefore that shaped the GNU: evolving from the initial denial that it was a coalition, to keeping doors open for the cooptation of parallel majorities, trying to do coalitions without consultation, litigating against partners, shutting avenues for partner impact and influence, acrimonious intra-coalition relations, and eventually an apparent and veiled resolve to keep the GNU going. Centripetal refuted centrifugal at the time of the GNU's first anniversary. There were more benefits than drawbacks for the two anchor parties, either to the left and infused with gripping liberation narratives, or to the right and drawn to liberal precepts mixed with race nostalgia. This interparty distance also means that the GNU partnership aids electoral positioning and poll progress, which nurtures GNU prolongation. But look out for the moment when opinion polls start reflecting citizen disillusionment with the GNU's ability to deliver tangible prospects for economic growth, jobs and wellbeing. That will be a cue for the GNU glue to disintegrate. DM Susan Booysen is a Wits University emeritus professor and research consultant. She is the editor of the forthcoming Mistra Coalitions Barometer II, 2023-2025.
Daily Maverick
an hour ago
- Daily Maverick
A defining moment — act now to secure South Africa's energy future
While the energy crisis may feel lessened by the suspension of scheduled load shedding this winter, South Africa's longer-term energy outlook still looks precarious and in the medium term consumers will bear the brunt of price hikes. This reality has led us to a Rubicon moment where the energy choices the country makes today – or fails to make – will shape our socioeconomic future in deeply fundamental ways. As someone actively engaged in energy policy through the B20 Energy Task Force, the World Energy Council's South African board, and as co-chair of the Just Energy Transition and Industrialisation Steering Committee within the Energy Council of South Africa, I am concerned about the state of the energy transition and the continent's industrial progress – and believe the urgency to act has never been greater. To secure South Africa's long-term energy future and industrial base, several priority areas demand immediate attention. Avoiding continued load shedding is critical In South Africa the risk of load shedding remains very real. Decades of underinvestment and persistent challenges in maintaining ageing generation infrastructure have left the system vulnerable, with planned availability still well below the 70% target. As older coal power stations are decommissioned and renewables begin to scale, slow and fragmented procurement processes continue to delay much-needed capacity – meaning the underlying risks to supplying electricity reliably have not yet been resolved. As we reduce reliance on legacy coal and oil-based generation, it is clear that renewables alone cannot ensure system stability due to their intermittency. The solution lies in technologies that support renewable integration and provide dispatchable power – most notably hydrogen-ready gas-to-power. While gas is a fossil fuel, it is a cleaner and scalable solution that complements wind, solar and green hydrogen, and will remain a vital component of South Africa's long-term energy mix. Shifting from coal to gas can reduce CO2 emissions by up to 60%, making gas-to-power one of the most effective available pathways for decarbonising baseload generation. South Africa has vast renewable resources, but without urgent reform in both generation and infrastructure, we risk falling behind. Our 2030 national energy targets include 6GW of gas-to-power, 10,600MW of new capacity (including solar, wind and battery storage) and the decommissioning of 8GW of coal-fired power by 2029. At the current pace, we may fall short of our own commitments by at least two years. Such delays have real economic consequences: weakened investor confidence, stalled industrial growth and continued energy insecurity for 65 million South Africans. The grid is our weakest link The issue is not just generation capacity. It is the system that connects, transmits and stabilises that capacity across the country. South Africa's existing grid infrastructure cannot support large-scale renewable integration. With lead times of up to four years for some of the transmission equipment and another 12 to 18 months for installation, delays are compounding. According to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, more than 10GW of renewable capacity awarded to independent power producers is effectively stranded due to the lack of grid access. Expanding and modernising the national grid must become an urgent investment priority – not only to meet decarbonisation goals, but to unlock new economic zones, enable decentralised power generation, and improve resilience in the face of climate-linked weather disruptions and cyber threats. Encouragingly, the recent unbundling of Eskom's transmission division is a step in the right direction. To make real progress, this must be supported by decisive investment and implementation. South Africa's grid expansion efforts have faced significant delays and accelerating them now is critical to unlocking generation capacity and ensuring energy security. Unlocking progress through procurement reform Progress on gas procurement remains slow. The recent 2GW gas-to-power request for proposal is an encouraging signal, but we must move quickly to implementation. Gas turbines can take up to three years to manufacture and deliver – any delay now will leave South Africa unprepared for coal retirements and potentially exacerbate unplanned outages. One of the most critical barriers to progress lies in our current procurement model. To meet our goals, procurement must be reformed to accelerate processes, increase scale and attract long-term investment, and industrialise. We should consider innovative, strategic procurement approaches – ones that aggregate demand, enable faster approvals and give suppliers long-term certainty. This will reduce the cost per megawatt, unlock manufacturing investment, and support job creation across the energy value chain. Other countries have shown what is possible. For example, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have successfully accelerated energy infrastructure development by prioritising speed, scale and sustainability in their procurement frameworks. Our industrial growth depends on energy stability This is not just a debate about energy – it is a national development imperative. Without reliable, affordable power we cannot grow our manufacturing base, expand mining operations or attract global investment. Energy is not a cost centre. It is a strategic enabler of national competitiveness, especially in turbulent times. Gas infrastructure, grid expansion and renewable projects deliver a powerful combination: they improve security of supply, enable localisation and attract capital. But that only materialises if we create policy and procurement environments that give industry the confidence to invest. As we speak, South African companies are already reducing their reliance on the national grid. Rooftop solar installations are surging. Independent power producer deals are accelerating. This is what we need if we want to support inclusive, economy-wide transformation, but we also need infrastructure at scale – and that can only be delivered through coordinated public-private partnerships, anchored by the government's strategic direction. Africa cannot afford to wait Across the continent, the ambitions of the energy transition are being slowed down by infrastructure gaps, regulatory complexity and undercapitalisation. As South Africa chairs the G20, we must demonstrate that emerging markets are ready for investment, localisation and technology partnerships. At the upcoming Africa Energy Forum (AEF) tomorrow (Tuesday, 17 June), our message is clear: Africa's energy transformation must happen now – and it cannot happen in isolation. We need cross-border collaboration to accelerate technology deployment, de-risk financing and enable shared infrastructure. The time for incrementalism is over. Our immediate priorities need to be the fast-tracking of procurement of hydrogen-ready gas-to-power, the acceleration of grid expansion and modernisation, the implementation of strategic, long-term procurement approaches and the prioritisation of localisation and skills development – all supported by a strong national long-term investment strategy. This is not just power generation – it is about building an economy that works for industry, for communities and for future generations. The decisions we make in the next 12 to 18 months will determine whether South Africa transitions out of survival mode and into long-term energy security, sustainability and affordability. DM
