Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s 2008 budget was a more powerful statement on Thabo Mbeki’s presidency than the President’s own speech. In his State of the Nation address to...

Trevor Manuel’s budget showed real gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 5% in 2007 and forecast growth of 4% in 2008, 4.2% in 2009, and 4.6% in 2010.

The African National Congress’s new leadership, in which the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) have aligned themselves behind Jacob...

African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma’s purge of allies of President Thabo Mbeki is gathering pace, with all the ANC’s key policy-making committees under the control of the...

Pomp, ceremony, fashion parades and backslapping are the usual accompaniments to the state-of-the-nation address with which President Thabo Mbeki opens a session of South Africa's parliament. This time,...

Simba Makoni's decision to challenge President Robert Mugabe has surprised those who suspected he lacked the courage to see it through. The odds could hardly be higher for...

This may prove to be the week that Simba Makoni and his backers started to turn the tide in Zimbabwe's politics. On 13 February, Makoni launched his independent...

Simon Mann, former Special Air Service officer and mercenary, was extradited on 1 February from Zimbabwe to Equatorial Guinea, where he is to face charges of coup plotting...

Zambia's first lady, Maureen Kakubo Mwanawasa, is seen as the power behind the throne of President Levy Mwanawasa, and many believe that he wants a third term in...

The electricity shortage is the immediate issue that makes South Africans question their government's competence. The energy utility Eskom says that underinvestment has left it with inadequate generating...