The Phala Phala case reveals that Parliament keeps failing to get its act together, failing to make rules, bungling them when it does, failing to make them in plain language, and then inviting the courts to intrude and dictate terms, argues Mpumelelo Mkhabela.

Drawing on Henry Kissinger’s ‘strategy of will’, Mpumelelo Mkhabela draws a striking parallel between General de Gaulle’s defiance of Nazi collaboration in 1940 and Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi’s stand against the criminal capture of South Africa’s justice system.

Julius Malema and the EFF are trapped by their own contradictions. The party was bankrolled by a cigarette smuggler, led by a man whose lavish lifestyle and compromised loyalties make him the very opposite of the economic liberation he preaches, writes Mpumelelo Mkhabela.

South Africa’s major political parties are sinking deeper into ethical compromise. The single quality that makes leadership legitimate – moral authority – has all but vanished from Parliament, argues Mpumelelo Mkhabela.

South Africa’s anti-migrant protests reveal a crisis that walls alone cannot solve, but cross-border commerce and bold leadership might, writes Mpumelelo Mkhabela.

March on March’s fear-driven ultimatum has exposed government’s failure to enforce immigration law, forcing it into a reactive, fear-based response that undermines its own authority and rewards the very vigilantism it should have prevented, argues Mpumelelo Mkhabela.

South Africa’s elections have been free and fair, but a staggering 61% of eligible voters stayed home in 2024. Mpumelelo Mkhabela argues that this voter apathy is a ticking time bomb. Part of his solution is to lower the voting age to 16.

While calls for private sector involvement in South Africa’s failing municipalities are compelling, history warns that without genuine political will to root out corruption, no business intervention can substitute for accountable governance – and ratepayers must show up at the ballot box to demand it, argues Mpumelelo Mkhabela.

Rise Mzansi is converting its slim parliamentary foothold into outsized political influence – though voters still remain the ultimate arbiters of power, writes Mpumelelo Mkhabela.

Once content to bite his tongue from the political sidelines, former president Thabo Mbeki has steadily re-emerged as South Africa’s most vocal and unrelenting critic of his successors – a self-styled “super president” if you will, writes Mpumelelo Mkhabela.