Pambazuka News 502: Twilight of regimes or dawn of new eras?

Demosh

‘There’s no political event more dangerous than a general election’, and ‘if wise counsels do not prevail, no one can predict what might happen’, writes Cameron Duodu.

A four-week service delivery protest in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, has spread to Philippi, with hundreds of residents barricading busy roads with burning tyres over the weekend. The protest was set to continue last night, according to Eric Notana, chairperson of the Philippi People's Forum.

The Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS), just announced by the South African government, can be praised for being a hard win in a context that offers few building blocks to make bolder decisions, writes researcher and policy analyst Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen on the South African Civil Society Information Service website. 'However, time is not on the side of the poor and more broadly, the country. A conscious attempt to finalise economic policy that has the best prospect to break unemploym...read more

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/502/68169_sa_strike_tmb.jpgThe social weight of organised, mobilised workers is beginning to consolidate in South Africa. The September public sector strike was a shining example, writes Trevor Ngwane.

Gus Pickard, a rural development consultant operating in the Western Cape, has a strange problem, writes Karin Kleinbooi on the blog Another Countryside. He has been contacted by a farming family living on land near Elim: they desperately need help because they may lose their land - to the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform. 'The family has been farming on the land for many years. Despite setbacks they have survived; but they have also accumulated significant debt — not enough to...read more

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