The Cape Town office of the Heinrich Boell Foundation in conversation on the 2019 South African Elections “While the team had diverse views on the contested areas of South Africa’s political landscape, all agreed that a consolidation of Ramaphosa’s political power now very much depends on his new cabinet. This will not just be determined by his political will alone, but also his ability to manoeuvre through the tricky corridors of the ruling party’s house of cards.”

“…the view from the ground of the 2019 elections does not bode well for South Africa’s constitutional vision of an equal, non-racial society where every person’s human potential can be fulfilled.”

In South Africa, a severe water crisis, fuelled by climate change, laid bare the hyperbole of “a well-run, global best practices, World Design Capital bla bla” Cape Town. Instead of relying on window dressing, Cape Town should learn from cities that are serious about climate change mitigation and adaptation. Nazeer Sonday argues that we have the farmers, and a population concerned about its food. What we lack is political leadership.

The negative impact of unregulated private funding of political parties in South Africa stretches back to the period prior to the inception of democracy in 1994.  Although on the 23rd of January 2019 President Ramaphosa signed into law the Political Party Funding Act (The Act) that provides for the regular and systematic disclosure of the sources and amounts of private funding allocated to political parties, South Africa's Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) decided to postpone its implementation until after the May elections. In the absence of an effective party funding transparency disclosure regime that enables an informed vote, this research compiled by My Vote Counts (MVC) collates historical and publicly available information on the private funding of political parties through donations and/or other financial transfers.