What was supposed to be a Kwa-Zulu-Natal debate on Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube’s State of the Province Address degenerated into a mudslinging match between the ANC and the IFP. The ANC and IFP, the two dominant parties in KZN, are currently embroiled in a war of words as each one seeks to gain the upper hand ahead of next year’s general elections.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s long-awaited cabinet reshuffle proved somewhat underwhelming and did not see the materialisation of the wide-ranging reconfiguration of government that many hoped for. Instead, the president moved around ministers and dropped three – the minister of tourism Lindiwe Sisulu, sport, arts and culture Nathi Mthetwa and the minister responsible for women, youth and persons with disabilities Nkoana Malte-Mashoahane.
The Economic Freedom Front announced a national shutdown for Monday, March 20 to protest against load-shedding, sparking fears of violence and looting.
While EFF leader Julius Malema described his party’s national shut-down as the most successful in South African history, opposition parties said it only highlighted their lack of support…
Two “significant employers” have threatened to relocate their operations if the proposed tariff hikes are approved, the Pietermaritzburg and Midlands Chamber of Business (PMCB) said. The increases ranged from seven per cent to a staggering 8546,2%.
Former US president Donald Trump was indicted over hush money payments made to a porn star during his 2016 campaign, making him the first president to face criminal charges.
Msunduzi ratepayers were in shock and confusion after they found themselves sitting with two bills in one month following the introduction of the city’s twice-month billing cycle system.
KZN Premier Nomuse-Ncube announced a full-scale investigation into the province’s school nutrition programme after an outcry over how it was being run. Several schools in the province suspended classes after service providers failed to deliver adequate food to the schools.
With the latest fuel hikes, the already beleaguered South African consumer would have to find even more wriggle room in their monthly budgets to fill their tanks. They would also have to accommodate the rise in the cost of goods that would inevitably follow these price increases.
With the presidential race hotting up the probe into President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala farm robbery reached a crucial stage. At this stage. the two front-runners appeared to be Ramaphosa and Dr Zweli Mkhize although an adverse finding against the president could affect his chances of being re-elected.
The SAHRC found that comments made by EFF leader Julius Malema constituted incitement to violence and hate speech and requested he retracts them. Having refused to do so, Juju, later in the same week, went on to demand that copies of Jacques Pauw’s Our Poisoned Land be removed from all bookstores because of specific allegations it made against him.
Responding to criticism in parliament over the ongoing Eskom crisis, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said government intervention, including President Cyril Ramaphosa’s energy plan and Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), should be given a chance to take effect.
The country was plunged into crisis as the section 89 panel set up to investigate the Phala Phala scandal found that President Cyril Ramaphosa had an impeachment case to answer over serious violations of the constitution for exposing himself to conflict of interest, doing outside paid work and contravening the Corruption Activities Act.
President Cyril Ramaphosa secured the political support of the majority of his party as the delay in the vote for his impeachment gave him respite for a week. The president slammed the Section 89 panel for relying on the Fraser accusations in their findings.
The ANC’s acting Secretary-General, Paul Mashatile, referred Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to the ANC’s disciplinary committee. This came after she went against party instructions to vote against adopting the Section 89 report on Phala Phala.
With Christmas fast approaching, South Africa continued to suffer relentless load shedding. Eskom was thrown into further disarray with the resignation of its CEO, Andre de Ruyter.
Cyril Ramaphosa was re-elected leader of South Africa’s ruling ANC Party despite being badly damaged by a cash-heist scandal that has dogged him for months. His re-election came at a time when the country was being beset on all sides by a multitude of crises – crises that threatened to get worse with every passing moment of indecision or inaction by Ramaphosa and his government.
Hours after hundreds of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol in a harrowing assault on American democracy, a shaken Congress finally certified Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory. Immediately afterwards the White House released a statement from Trump promising an “orderly transition” when Biden is sworn in to office on 20th January although he repeated his false claims that he won the November election.
It was a dark start to the year as residents living in large parts of Pietermaritzburg, Hilton and Howick West found themselves without electricity for up to seven-days. Besides causing widespread anger and frustration, the severe electricity disruptions plaguing the city also posed a threat to the local economy as industries considered pulling out and potential investors were scared away. To overhaul the entire ageing infrastructure will cost the bankrupt municipality at least R4 billion.
The alcohol sales ban was extended along with other restrictions as part of adjusted lockdown Level 3, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced in an address to the nation. On the much-anticipated vaccine roll-out in the country, Ramaphosa, without giving a time frame, said “South Africa’s vaccine strategy is well underway,
Joe Biden was sworn in as the president of the United States, pledging to unite a deeply divided nation reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic. Faced with a country whose fissures have been widened by a brutal wedge over the past four years, he acknowledged the social wasteland he had inherited, but emphasised unity, conciliation and called for an end to the “uncivil war” that had ravaged the country. In an extremely rare move his predecessor, Donald Trump, chose not to attend the ceremony.
Heavy rain, with flooding in places, hit the northern parts of South Africa as Cyclone Eloise moved down the Mozambique Channel – with more large downpours falling in KZN later in the week. At the same time, the murky world of spies, black ops and the unauthorised spending of millions of rand took centre stage at the Zondo Enquiry as evidence concerning the activities of the secretive State Security Agency (SSA) was heard. In a related ruling, Concourt ordered former president Jacob Zuma to obey all summons issued against him by the State Capture Enquiry and appear before it – saying he does not have the right to remain silent in proceedings.
ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule reacted defensively in an effort to deflect questions about Jacob Zuma’s defiance of state capture saying the former president should not be suspended from the party he believes in. “Leave president Zuma alone,” he said. Magashule, himself, was granted bail of R200 000 after he was arrested on 21 charges of fraud and corruption, alternatively theft and money laundering, stemming from the Free State asbestos scandal.
Glossing over government’s plans to vaccinate the nation to beat Covid-19, President Cyril Ramaphosa focused on South Africa’s economic recovery from the pandemic in his State of the Nation Address, in a thinly populated National Assembly Chamber. Adding to the many problems the under pressure Ramaphosa faces was the news that EFF leader, Julius Malema, had travelled to Nkandla to have tea with his long time adversary, former president Jacob Zuma, as part of a plan to form a broad alliance to undermine both the president and the Zondo Commission.
The first group of KwaZulu-Natal healthcare workers got their Covid-19 jab amid an outcry from doctors over the slow pace at which government is procuring vaccine. The South African Medical Association (Sama), which initially supported government’s vaccine procurement plan, said its members were becoming disillusioned with the manner in which the entire vaccination programme was unfolding. “We are worried that the target to vaccinate 40 million people by the end of the year will not be achieved,” Sama KwaZulu-Natal provincial chairperson Dr Zanele Bikitshe said.
Taxpayers were able to breathe a sigh of some relief as Finance Minister Tito Mboweni tabled a 2021 Budget free from substantial tax hikes aimed at bank-rolling South Africa’s Covid-19 vaccination programme. The sting in the tail – for smokers and drinkers anyway – was that excise duties on tobacco and alcohol would increase on average by eight per cent – double the rate of inflation.
NOTE: In addition to my normal weekly cartoons for the Weekend Witness, I did two extra ones for the paper in February:
(1). A cartoon celebrating the 175th anniversary of The Witness, the oldest continuously published newspaper in South Africa:
(2) A farewell cartoon for editor Yves Vanderhaeghen who retired from the Witness at the end of February, 2021:
NOTE: I wrote this piece shortly after I officially retired from the Witness newspaper but for some reason did not post it at the time. Since many of the concerns I raised remain as relevant now as they did back then and with the Covid-19 pandemic wreaking further havoc on parts of the print media, I decided it was still worth airing...
When I first joined the now-defunct SCOPE Magazine back in 1984 the print media was still in a state of rude good health, with full coffers and an ability to attract the brightest and the best, as well as providing a ready home for mavericks, misfits and nonconformists like myself. There seemed to be a lot more space for individual opportunism too.
Even when I got appointed to The Witness in February 1990, as their first-ever full-time political cartoonist, the industry was enjoying something of late Indian summer. With the final breaching of the apartheid wall and political change in the air, it was an exciting time to be a journalist and – again by association – a political cartoonist.
For a small, independent, provincial newspaper, the Witness, to my mind, boxed way above its weight and did an excellent job telling its readers what was happening on their patch. In fact, the newsroom was so stuffed full with reporters and specialist writers that, initially, there was no place to put a desk for me and I had to be content with a cardboard box on the floor – to which some wag glued another, much smaller, box and wrote on it:“Stidy’s Branch Office”. I decided to use this to my advantage and persuaded the editor to let me work from home.
Since then there has been a major tectonic shift. Faced with competition from the new technologies and declining circulation, newspaper budgets have been cut back to the bone, staff numbers slashed, the content has shrunk and newsrooms are now but a pale shadow of their former bustling selves. A lot of the old spirit has vanished with it; the atmosphere has become more muted and factory-like while the exodus of experienced journalists means that far less shoe leather is now expended on proper investigations.
As a result of all this, the law of unintended consequences has come into play – the cost-cutting measures have led to smaller newspapers and a more superficial content which, in turn, has caused the number of readers and advertisers to drop still further.
Looking back on it all I am just thankful that my career in cartooning happened before the rot set in too deeply and that I was offered this unique vantage point from which to view some of the major events of our recent past – the collapse of the old Soviet Union, the demise of Apartheid and the birth of the New South Africa, the recall of Thabo Mbeki and his replacement by Jacob Zuma (with all the attendant scandals) and, most sad of all, the passing of Nelson Mandela. Hopefully, my cartoons provided some sort of pictorial and historical guide to the period.
I now realise how
lucky I was to have had the privilege to serve under editors of the
calibre of Richard Steyn and John Conyngham, neither of whom tried to
place any sort of restriction or requirement on what I drew. I am not
sure how much longer that sort of artistic and editorial freedom is
likely to continue.
Indeed, with continued declining circulation and more and more cutbacks, I suspect I am going to be the only full-time political cartoonist the Witness ever employed. As someone who believes in the continuing importance of visual satire, I find that sad. What worries me still further is that, in their weakened state, newspapers will no longer be able to properly fulfil their important watchdog role, giving the Government and, by extension, the municipalities yet more licence to do as they like.
I am still naïve enough to believe that a flourishing, diverse, credible, media is essential to a functioning democracy. Unfortunately, newspapers, in their current form, seem to be in a death spiral – and there doesn’t appear to be any any magic wand to save them.
FOOTNOTE:
In my almost thirty-years at The Witness, I have drawn literally thousands and thousands of cartoons. Here is a very arbitrary selection, showing some of the high but mostly the low points in our recent history…
This cartoon – depicting the collapse of the old Soviet Union – was one of the first I did for the Witness. It is still a favourite of mine.
The negotiations to end Apartheid-ruled South Africa begin…
The death of Apartheid, mourned by few…
Winnie Mandela appears before the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. She proves most uncooperative…
Two South African icons – Bishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela.
Former SA President PW Botha – the “Groot Krokodil”- dies, unrepentant to the bitter end..
As true today as it was when I drew it.
President Thabo Mbeki ponders his achievements.
South African “Quiet Diplomacy” towards Zimbabwe at work.
Cosatu boss Zwelinzima Vavi throws his weight behind the bid to oust President Thabo Mbeki from office. He later undergoes a change of heart as to the worthiness of Mbeki’s successor, Jacob Zuma.
The Schabir Shaik trial in Durban proves the fraudulent and corrupt relationship between the Durban-based businessman and South African leader, Jacob Zuma. Shaik is sent to jail but is later released on very dubious “health” grounds.
President Thabo Mbeki finds his State of the Nation address being overshadowed by a much larger issue – his own survival.
Drawn back in the days when a newly elected Jacob Zuma was still trying to act presidential. He very soon gave up the pretense. Julius “Juju” Malema’s behaviour has remained unchanged…
A cartoon depicting the huge gap between electoral promises and actual delivery..
Ex-President Thabo Mbeki’s Aids denialism costs South Africa dearly.
So far Juju’s high hopes for the mines have not been realised. The position of South Africa’s parastatals has, meanwhile, got a whole lot worse.
Pmb’s refuse problem also got worse…
Former Health Minister, Manto Tshabala-Msimang dies. In her life she became an object of ridicule because of her recommended AIDS cure.
On a state visit to Britain, President Jacob Zuma receives a hostile reception from the British tabloid press. He is not amused…
What goes around, comes around – and President Zuma is, once again, not amused.
Julius Malema is expelled from the ANC by the man he helped bring to power.
One of the many, many, many scandals that dogged Jacob Zuma’s term in office.
The death of an icon. The whole world mourns.
Another cartoon which shows how little some things have changed.
Dogged by one scandal after another, Jacob Zuma remains a master of evasion.
Once his staunchest ally, Juju becomes President Jacob Zuma’s staunchest critic.
Here is another selection of my political cartoons from 2018. Besides providing a pictorial history of some of the people, ideas and events that helped shape the year they will also, hopefully, give some clues as to where we may be headed in 2019.
Our erstwhile Number One, for example, has shown little inclination to emulate his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, by fading quietly in to the background – so it almost inevitable we will be hearing a lot more about Jacob Zuma. You can take it as read, too, that Julius Malema and the EFF will continue to push the boundaries of acceptable political behaviour and that Eskom will make the news for all the wrong reasons. Likewise, SAA, SABC and all our cash-strapped, disintegrating municipalities.
There will also be more stories about corruption and the misuse of public funds.
Another opportunity to practice my craft…
Internationally, you can rely on US President Donald Trump to keep banging on about his wretched Wall with Mexico while Britain will still be foundering on the rocks of Brexit.
If nothing else they will all provide abundant material for political cartoonists to practice their art…
So watch this space…
Jacob Zuma struggles to accept his days as the President of South Africa are numbered.
New President Cyril Ramaphosa doesn’t quite complete the job.
US President Donald Trump’s twin obsessions.
The DA loses some of the moral high ground with its mishandling of the Patricia De Lille affair.
Msunduzi’s long-suffering residents face more problems with their underperforming municipality.
NHI – big on ambition, lacking in detail.
Ex-President Jacob Zuma continues to live a charmed life
Consumers feel the squeeze after a VAT hike.
Uncertainty over the land issue continues to weigh down the economy.
Service delivery fails to improve.
EFF leader, Julius Malema, gets hoisted on his own petard.
President Cyril Ramaphosa faces some big decisions…
Stidy's Eye 