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President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa attends the second day of the 37th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union at the African Union.
South Africa to hold May elections
The election will be a referendum on the ANC, which has been mired in controversy over record levels of crime, slow economic growth, unemployment, and rolling blackouts. Alongside the election announcement, the ANC bumped up social benefits in an attempt to raise polling numbers.
The ANC’s biggest rival, the Democratic Alliance, is trying to build a coalition of smaller parties to break the ANC's majority. The third biggest party, Economic Freedom Fighters, is not considering joining the opposition coalition and is eating into ANC’s support following its promise to double social benefits if elected.
Right now, opinion polls show ANC approval ratings below 50%. If this translates into votes, it will mean the ANC will have to form the country’s first-ever coalition government to keep Ramaphosa — a political protege of Mandela — as president for a second and final five-year term.South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong (not pictured) attend a media briefing in Cape Town.
African leaders make Ukraine peace trip
The leaders of half a dozen African countries traveled to Kyiv on Friday for a mission to advance ceasefire prospects in the war. They were welcomed by incoming Russian missiles and air raids. Leading the effort is South African President Cyril Ramaphosa who, despite being officially non-aligned, has cultivated close ties with the Kremlin recently – holding joint military drills and allegedly allowing arms shipments to Moscow.
The others in the group — Egypt, Uganda, Senegal, the Republic of Congo, and Zambia — differ in their positions toward Russia, but they share one thing: Like most of the Global South, they see the war almost entirely through the lens of higher food and energy prices, and they want it to end pronto. The group heads to St. Petersburg later today for talks with Vladimir Putin tomorrow.
But don’t hold your breath for the doves to cry. African leaders have little leverage with Moscow or Ukraine, and a ceasefire is a nonstarter while Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive gathers steam.
But it’s a wise move for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in particular, to take the visit. Although his main foreign audience is the US and the EU – that’s where he gets his guns and money from – he’s been reaching out more to the Global South lately, particularly since China began positioning itself as a potential peacemaker.
Last month, Z dropped in on the Arab League summit, and a few days later he held a bilateral meeting with Indian PM Narendra Modi at the G7. Engaging with African powers is smart politically, even if it won't turn the tide of the war – and we’ll be watching to see what case Zelensky makes to them.
Members of parliament hold placards after the result of the vote on the first motion of no-confidence against the French government at the National Assembly in Paris, France, March 20, 2023.
What We’re Watching: Slim win for Macron, protests in South Africa, Trump’s legal woes, Colombia peace collapsing?
Macron’s narrow escape
It came down to the wire, but Emmanuel Macron’s government narrowly survived a no-confidence vote in France’s National Assembly on Monday, with 278 voting to topple the government, nine votes shy of the threshold needed to pass.
Quick recap: The motion was triggered after Macron used a constitutional provision last week -- bypassing a vote in the lower house -- to pass a controversial pension reform despite weeks of protests (more on that here).
Not only do 70% of French adults abhor Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age to 64 from 62 by 2030 – which he says is necessary to plug the growing debt hole – but the French electorate, which has long had a libertarian streak, is also furious that the government used what it says is an anti-democratic loophole to pass the measure.
Macron’s troubles are only just beginning. Hundreds were arrested in Paris over the weekend and on Monday as anti-government protests turned violent and smelly. Unions have called for nationwide demonstrations and strikes in a bid to pressure the government to roll back the measures (which will never happen).
Prime Minister Élizabeth Borne will likely take the fall and resign. Still, Macron, already unpopular before this debacle, will emerge a diminished political figure. After previously saying he understood that people were “tired of reforms which come from above,” it will be very hard for the ideological chameleon to regain the trust of vast swathes of the population.
South Africa’s day of demonstrations
Amid rolling blackouts and a slumping economy, the Marxist-linked Economic Freedom Fighters Party called for a national day of protests Monday, putting law enforcement on high alert.
The EFF, the country’s third-largest party led by longtime leader Julius Malema, is largely backed by poor Black South Africans, many of whom live in townships, as well as younger voters who feel they haven't benefited from the ruling African National Congress Party’s tenure in the post-apartheid era. Indeed, around one-third of South Africans are out of work and the economy is slated to grow by just 0.3% in 2023, down from 2.5% in 2022.
President Cyril Ramaphosa mobilized more than 3,000 troops nationwide in anticipation of mass protests. But turnout was lower than expected, prompting Malema to claim that the government was blocking buses transporting protesters.
The EFF “will still claim the wall-to-wall media coverage around the protests as a victory,” says Ziyanda Sturrman, a South Africa expert at Eurasia Group.
None of this is good news for Ramaphosa, who, after a series of political scandals, looks set to lose his parliamentary majority in next year’s general election. Still, Stuurman notes that if the ANC falls just below the 50% threshold, several small parties have already put their hands up to join an ANC-led coalition.
Trump vs. prosecutors
Former US President Donald Trump faces possible legal challenges on multiple fronts. The state of New York could charge him with fraud for alleged hush money payments to a porn star. The Justice Department could charge him with many suspected crimes related to efforts to overthrow the result of the 2020 election as well as the misuse of hundreds of classified documents recovered by the FBI from his Florida home. Prosecutors in Georgia could charge him with election fraud as part of his alleged effort to overturn that state’s 2020 election result.
If Trump is indicted, he’ll likely present himself for charges, while also calling for protests. He would then be released on bond pending trial, and it’s unlikely that any trial in any of these potential cases would take place in 2023.
Trump would continue his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. There’s nothing in the US Constitution to prevent him from being elected president. His fate would remain with voters. If elected, his presidency would begin in court. In theory, a president could pardon himself for federal crimes. That would have to be tested. But no president can pardon state-level crimes, like those he might be charged with in New York and Georgia. In short, prosecutors and Trump may be about to steer American politics into uncharted waters.
Colombia: Is Petro’s “total peace” going to pieces?
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro took office last year pledging to reach a negotiated “total peace” with the country’s various armed and criminal groups. But on Monday that strategy took a big hit when he was forced to suspend a three-month-old ceasefire with the fearsome Clan del Golfo (Gulf Clan), the Andean region’s most powerful narco-trafficking outfit. The Clan had allegedly attacked an aqueduct and opened fire on police officers.
The move puts Petro in a tough spot — ramping up military action risks escalating a conflict he was elected in part to end peacefully. But allowing cartels to run riot isn’t an option either.
The setback comes amid a broader season of discontent for Petro: a corruption investigation of his son, the departure of several key coalition ministers, and an approval rating that is net-negative barely six months since he took office.
Petro, a former guerilla who is the country’s first left-wing president, has made an effort to build bridges across the political spectrum so far. But his critics worry that if the going gets tougher, he might resort to a more populist style that could be explosive in a country as polarized as Colombia.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa attends the 55th National Conference of the ruling African National Congress in Johannesburg.
Hard Numbers: Ramaphosa cleared, women in legal limbo, drought kills Argentina’s economy, French pension reforms almost done
500,000: President Cyril Ramaphosa was cleared by South Africa’s anti-corruption watchdog of wrongdoing in a graft scandal involving about $500,000 in cash stolen from under sofa cushions at his ranch, which he says was a payment from the sale of Cape buffaloes. Ramaphosa narrowly escaped removal from office over this allegation last December.
14: According to a recent World Bank report, only 14 countries currently offer full, legal protections to women. The US ranked below Peru and Albania due to a lack of guaranteeing equal pay and mandates on parental leave.
3: Argentina’s GDP is expected to drop by 3% this year due to a fierce drought that has accelerated an already dire economic situation for one of the world’s largest grain exporters. Apart from the dry spell, the Argentine economy also suffers massive debt, low foreign exchange reserves, and roughly 100% inflation.
195 to 112: France's controversial pension reform bill cleared a major parliamentary hurdle on Saturday after passing a Senate vote by 195 to 112, and is now on its way to potential ratification in the coming days. Raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 is a top priority for President Emmanuel Macron despite having set off massive protests throughout laRepublique.Emergency workers extinguish fire in vehicles at the site of a Russian missile strike, amid Russia?s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine March 9, 2023.
What We’re Watching: Russian air strikes, South African economic squeeze, day of resistance in Israel
Russia pummels Ukraine
On Thursday, Russia launched a wave of early-morning air strikes with missiles and Iranian-made drones on Ukrainian cities, its worst attack targeting civilians in a month. At least six people died, and almost half of Kyiv residents were left without electricity. Meanwhile, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — Europe's largest — was knocked offlinefor the sixth time and is now operating on diesel power. It's unclear why Moscow did this or has waited so long, but perhaps the Russians are running so low on weapons and ammo that it's much harder to carry out coordinated attacks. For their part, Ukrainians living in urban areas have become so accustomed to the barrages that they are hardly intimidated, which is the whole point for Vladimir Putin. On the battlefield, Russia is still struggling to conquer Bakhmut, a key town in eastern Ukraine, amid an ongoing rift between the Russian military and top mercenary warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin.
South Africa’s shrinking economy
Things are going from bad to worse in South Africa. Amid a deepening energy crisis that’s plunged parts of Africa’s most industrialized nation into darkness for up to 15 hours a day, new figures show that the country’s economy contracted by 1.3% in the last quarter of 2022. (Analysts had anticipated a 0.4% squeeze). In a bid to address the deep-rooted energy crisis, President Cyril Ramaphosa this week tapped a new electricity minister, but members of the business community don’t appear to have been placated as fear remains high that Pretoria could be headed for a recession. For context on how corruption-plagued Eskom – the state-owned energy company that runs 90% of the country’s electricity – reached breaking point, and what effect this is having on South Africa’s economy, see this explainer. Crucially, South Africa's economy is just marginally bigger than it was four years ago (0.3%), but the population has grown by 3.5% since then, increasing pressure on ailing infrastructure.
Israel faces ‘day of resistance’
Israelis are preparing for a “day of resistance” on Thursday as part of ongoing protests against the Netanyahu government's planned judicial overhaul. Protests are planned across the country, including a flotilla led by naval reservists that will sail off the coast of Haifa in northern Israel. In Tel Aviv, meanwhile, activists are seeking to block access to the international airport in order to disrupt PM Netanyahu’s planned visit to Rome, where he’s set to meet with Italian PM Giorgia Meloni. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has also been forced to cut short his trip to Israel, as authorities could not secure a route for him to the defense ministry in Tel Aviv. Protest leaders also promised “many surprises,” while the tech industry – which accounts for more than half of all of Israel's exports – will also hold mass walkouts. In a bid to lower the temperature after months of demonstrations, the government on Wednesday unveiled a slightly dialed-back judicial reform plan, but opposition leader Yair Lapid – and most of the Israeli public – aren’t buying it. Bibi insists his government will get judicial reform done before the legislature’s Passover break next month. But as the proposed legislation continues to impede Israel’s economic outlook, will he be forced to offer more concessions – and would his far-right coalition survive a walk-back?A woman cooks by a candlelight during one of the frequent power outages in South Africa.
South Africa struggles in the dark
Things are dark in South Africa right now, both metaphorically and literally. Though not new, rolling blackouts have worsened in recent months, disrupting every aspect of daily life. With the situation near breaking point, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a state of disaster in recent days, which allows the government to bypass bureaucratic hurdles to get stuff done.
Why are things so dire in Africa’s most industrialized country, and what’s the government’s plan – if any – to fix it?
Lights out. The current crisis is centered largely on South Africa’s collapsing state-run electricity grid, which relies on coal for 85% of its generation capacity. Blackouts and load shedding occur when demand outstrips supply, forcing the utility company to cut access – which has been happening regularly for years.
Meanwhile, Eskom, the state-owned energy company, which runs 90% of the country’s electricity, has long been plagued by government corruption, cronyism, and mismanagement – most of which occurred under President Jacob Zuma, who is now facing a host of corruption charges. Consider that since 2007, no fewer than 14 people have been tapped to lead the energy agency, and they have left Eskom in rough shape, with the body now $26 billion in the red.
“Over the last 15 years there’s really been a deterioration in being able to add generation capacity to the national grid – or adding new sources of capacity whether that's nuclear or renewable energy,” says Eurasia Group expert Ziyanda Stuurman.
While the problem spans the African National Congress’ time in power, which has been plagued by corruption scandals, energy access has long been an issue in South Africa. “The problem stretches back to South Africa's history of apartheid,” Stuurman says, adding that “electricity provisions were never made available to the majority of citizens in the country.”
What’s more, as a result of political meddling and cumbersome bureaucratic hurdles to approving new contracts, some South Africans are left in the dark for up to 15 hours a day. Indeed, things have gotten so bad that morgue operators say that bodies are decomposing faster than they can bury them.
There are also growing concerns over food security. Case in point: South African poultry farmers were forced to cull 10 million chickens because abattoirs couldn’t function amid constant power cuts.
Clearly, the failing power grid is having a big impact on domestic productivity. But economic output is also being curtailed by yet more crumbling infrastructure: the railway system.
Road to nowhere. The state-run freight railway system (never a sexy topic) is also in tatters. The system, called Transnet, is in such bad shape due to years of government underinvestment and corruption that companies are having to turn to alternate transport systems – like trucking goods to Mozambique. Indeed, one forensic auditor told a government commission that “Transnet accounted for 72% of all irregularly awarded contracts” during Zuma’s time in power.
This dysfunction of the freight system is a catastrophe for South Africa’s robust mining sector, which is having a rough time getting goods to export terminals on the coast. And as metals, gems, and minerals account for most of South African exports, the state’s failure to fix the transport system is also having a downward effect on the entire economy. According to one South African academic, lost coal exports as a result of transport delays cost South African companies around $4.7 billion last year, while South Africa’s central bank now estimates that the economy will grow by just 0.3% in 2023, down from 2.5% in 2022.
But why is the government so hesitant to give up any control of these state-owned enterprises and let the markets do their thing? “Given the history of apartheid and particularly the neglect of poor Black and working-class communities in South Africa,” Stuurman says, “there’s a fear that inequality would be exacerbated if and when privatization of electricity generation and supply comes into force.”
So what’s the plan? The government says that dealing with the energy crisis is priority number one and has set out steps to reduce load shedding. This includes cutting red tape to attract more private investment by reducing the timeframe for authorization of new contracts to 57 days, down from more than 100. However, the problem is, as Stuurman points out, that there are now at least four different ministries charged with overseeing power grid reform, which hardly consolidates the process.
The geopolitics of it all. Given that Africa is a frontier in the ongoing rivalry between the US and its rivals – Russia and China – Washington is vying to play fixer in South Africa, having previously committed, along with European allies, $8.5 billion to help South Africa's green transition. Still, Pretoria needs much more than that to get itself out of its deep hole.
Georgia votes: Democratic candidate U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker
What We’re Watching: Georgia's runoff election, Iran’s bluff, Putin's black eye, Ramaphosa's political survival
Walker and Warnock reach the finish line
Tuesday is the day that Georgia voters, exhausted by months of this bitterly contested election, will have their final votes counted. Incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock is expected to win a close race with football legend Herschel Walker. Early voting, which is expected to favor Warnock, has had a historically heavy turnout. The Democrats have already secured their Senate majority by winning 50 seats. (A 50-50 tied vote is decided by Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat.) But a 51st seat would be important for Democrats, because it ensures that no single Democrat can win concessions by threatening to block the party agenda and that Democrats have majority control within every Senate committee, speeding the approval of judges and other Biden appointees. A Warnock victory would also give former President Donald Trump yet another political blackeye in the hotly contested state of Georgia. President Joe Biden carried the state in 2020, while Democrats Warnock and Jon Ossoff were elected. Gov. Brian Kemp and particularly Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both Republicans, distinguished themselves in 2020 and 2021 by refusing to support Trump’s effort to overturn his presidential loss in the Peach State.
The Islamic Republic’s smoke screen
Many media publications jumped the gun Sunday in declaring that the Islamic Republic of Iran had axed the modesty police – the unit that imprisons and beats Iranian women who fail to adhere to the regime’s strict modesty rules. So what really happened? In response to mass protests that started after Mahsa Amini, 22, died in custody on Sept. 16 after being arrested by police for improperly wearing her hijab, Iran’s Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazer said on Saturday that the regime’s “morality police … have been abolished by those who created them." He also stated that the regime’s strict hijab laws were under review. Western media outlets appeared to eat up the Islamic regime’s propaganda, even though Montazer himself clarified that “no official authority” – meaning Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – had agreed to these measures. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken offered cautious praise, saying such a move would be a “positive thing,” prominent Iranian dissidents, including journalist Masih Alinejad, who recently spoke to GZERO, said that such takes miss the point because the protest movement is calling for full-blown regime change. This comes as a new report released by a Norwegian-based rights group reveals that the Islamic Republic has executed at least 500 people so far this year.
A black eye for Putin
Is Ukraine taking its fight against the Kremlin deep into Russia now? Early on Monday, large explosions were reported at two major Russian air bases located hundreds of miles from the Ukrainian border. Moscow, which blamed Ukrainian drones and said it had shot down several unmanned Ukrainian craft, responded by lobbing a fresh barrage of missiles into Ukraine later in the day. Kyiv, for its part, was mum on any responsibility for the attack as of this writing — saying only, gamely, that “the earth is round.” If the Russian version is true, it would be a brazen strike on the heart of Russia’s national security complex — one of the bases targeted is home to some of Russia’s nuclear bomber fleet, as well as criticaltanker aircraft. The attack is sure to provoke some ripples within the Kremlin: Russian nationalist bloggers have already criticized the military for leaving the bombers exposed, and some Western military experts have suggested that the drones might have been launched from … within Russia itself.
Ramaphosa’s political escape
Regional leaders of the African National Congress (ANC), South Africa's governing party, have rescued the country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, from corruption charges and the threat of a successful impeachment vote in parliament. In 2018, Ramaphosa won his position as ANC leader and then as South Africa’s president following a wave of corruption charges against his party rival, the populist former president Jacob Zuma. Six months ago, a former South African intelligence chief (and Zuma ally) accused Ramaphosa of hiding the theft of $4 million from his farm to conceal the fact he had illegally stashed a lot of cash at home. In response, Ramaphosa said thieves had made off with just $580,000 he’d stuffed in a sofa, but said he earned the money on the sale of some buffalo and hadn't wanted to put it into a safe for fear that park employees might access it. A panel of legal experts appointed to report on these charges, expressed “substantial doubt” about the buffalo part of the story. But on Monday, ANC leaders instructed ANC members in parliament to vote against endorsement of the report, defeating a bid by the ANC’s leftist “radical economic transformation” faction to depose him from party leadership. Ramaphosa has now asked the country’s Constitutional Court to declare the report unlawful. Now backed by a majority of votes in parliament, Ramaphosa will lead the ANC into national elections in 2024.This comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Sign up today.
People in Hong Kong hold sheets of paper in protest over coronavirus disease restrictions in mainland China.
What We’re Watching: China's zero-COVID shift, Russia's fertilizer deal, Ramaphosa's corruption probe, EU's oil wrangling
China hints zero-COVID shift, censors online protesters
Chinese people who can't wait to ditch zero-COVID — basically everyone except the government — got a glimmer of hope Thursday, when the senior official overseeing the policy said that China was entering a "new stage" in taming the virus. Although what that means is unclear, his comments follow moves by several big cities to relax lockdown rules. Meanwhile, now that most COVID protesters are off the streets, Xi Jinping's censors have taken the fight to cyberspace. They'll have to get creative because Chinese netizens are now ranting about zero-COVID with the online equivalent of the now-verboten blank sheets of paper: sarcastic memes or words that sound similar to Xi or resign. Interestingly, the government outsources content moderation to social media companies that use a mix of humans and artificial intelligence. Exhaustion with zero-COVID might be the biggest test to date of a system that’s not designed to be perfect but rather effective enough at wiping out critical voices.
Some rare good food news out of Ukraine
The UN says it is on the verge of brokering a deal to resume Russian ammonia exports via a Black Sea port in Ukraine. What’s ammonia anyway? The smelly gas is a key ingredient in nitrate fertilizer, which is needed to help plants and seeds grow. Russia and Ukraine are both major global exporters of grain and fertilizer, and disruptions to the output of both due to the ongoing war have led to a global food crisis that’s plunged some 47 million people into “acute hunger,” with import-reliant Africa and the Middle East particularly hard hit. The resumed use of this ammonia pipeline is crucial to avoiding mass food shortages in a year’s time. This comes after a deal brokered by Turkey in the summer saw grain exports pick up again after a Russian blockade caused global shortages and record-high food inflation in developed and emerging economies while bringing poor countries like Somalia to the brink of famine.
A weakened Ramaphosa likely to stay on
South Africa’s embattled President Cyril Ramaphosa could be forced out of office after an independent body found he may have covered up the theft of a large wad of cash from his game farm in 2020. It’s alleged that Ramaphosa, who was elected in 2018 to head the African National Congress – Nelson Mandela’s party – on an anti-corruption platform, illegally stashed up to $4 million at his farm and paid off thieves who stole $580,000 stuffed under his couch (you can’t make this stuff up)! Ramaphosa’s political future now hangs in the balance as he waits for the ANC to vote on Dec. 16 on whether he should lead them into the next general election in 2024 and for parliament to decide whether to impeach him. It is unlikely given that a two-thirds majority – including half of ANC’s parliamentarians – would need to back the motion. Though the ANC has been plagued by infighting since Ramaphosa replaced party stalwart Jacob Zuma in 2018, not enough ANC members will be willing to switch sides to show Ramaphosa the door.