It comes as no surprise that Vusi Pikoli won the first round in his legal battle with the President of South Africa when the North Gauteng High Court granted an interim interdict prohibiting the President from appointing a permanent National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) until such time as Pikoli’s case had been dealt with. [...]
Posts under ‘Thabo Mbeki’
Thabo Mbeki’s strange relationship with the truth continues
Politicians call it “plausible deniability”. One makes a statement that everyone who hears it believes to mean X. The generally accepted meaning of X is, however, untrue. But one has parsed the words in such a way that one could always later claim never to have said what everyone thought one had said – even [...]
“I did have national security with that man”
Former US President Bill Clinton famously lied to the American people by saying: “I did not have sex with that women”. He then tried to wiggle out of a difficult question posed by a lawyer by saying: “Well, it depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is”. Former President Thabo Mbeki seems to have the [...]
Mpshe was wrong to drop Zuma charges says plagiarised judge
The website Grubstreet has a nice scoop on an issue that many people wish us to sweep under the carpet now that we have had our election. After all, we are now all going to live happily ever after and Mr Jacob Zuma is going to eradicate poverty and unemployment in the next year. That [...]
Curiouser and curiouser in Wonderland
Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice…. – From Alice in Wonderland.
You’ve got to love this country. Who needs The Bold and the Beautiful or Generations when you have the Zuma-saga to provide drama, mystery and intrigue? Now we are told (but can we believe this?) that Mr Zuma’s lawyers handed evidence – recordings of tapped [...]
Fact: Zuma has a case to answer
No matter what decision the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) takes regarding the prosecution of Mr Jacob Zuma, one incontrovertible fact remains: Mr Zuma does have a criminal case to answer. Another incontrovertible fact is that the arms deal has become a poisoned chalice for the ANC and has forever tarnished its reputation and destroyed our [...]
Give Zuma a chance?
Xolela Mangcu has an interesting column in today’s Business Day on Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, in which he argues that we should give Jacob Zuma a chance as President. (What would we do without the editorial pages of Business Day? Hopefully the rumours about its immenent demise are premature.)
As Mangcu points out:
Over the past [...]
Questions for Chikane, Mbandla, Gumbi, Simelane, Mpshe and Mbeki
Sometimes the truth seems so blindingly obvious that one is tempted to believe that even our politicians would not be able to twist the facts to justify the indefensible – only to be reminded that politicians lie for a living and that the ordinary voter is often too lazy or stupid to care.
But let us consider [...]
On “deliberate falsehoods” and conspiracies
Why is it that South Africans so love conspiracies and are so quick to believe in them? Your paper not delivered this morning? Must be a conspiracy involving various journalists, the tooth fairy and maybe Father Christmas (or Santa Clause as they call the ugly fat guy with the cotton wool beard here in the USA). [...]

