The EFF's Mbuyiseni Ndlozi and the DA's James Selfe give fascinating insight into what happened in six crucial meetings

Six meetings over ten days at different locations in Gauteng following the sensational local government election results of 3 August have changed the face and dynamic of South African politics, maybe forever.

South African president Jacob Zuma often boasts that the African National Congress (ANC) “will rule until Jesus comes back.” Voters have consistently given it clear majorities in national, provincial, and local elections since 1994, when South Africa first made the transition to democracy. A certain level of hubris may have been inevitable.

No one is fooled. When ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe complains that the local government voting system has been unfair to the ANC, we know that what he is actually doing - he is making excuses for the fact that the ANC has lost absolute political control in crucial metropolitan municipalities. He is complaining about the rules after the game is over. If that's just being a sore loser, more sinister is his threat to change the voting system to one that enables the ANC to do better.

EITHER city voters will get the ANC leadership they want by 2019, or the party may well no longer govern the country on its own. The ANC’s huge setback does not change the reality that, for a while yet, what happens in the governing party will shape politics here.

In depth: Local elections 2016

electionsLocal elections news, views and analysis

THE days that follow an election result are fraught with rhetoric and hyperbole, as political parties battle to frame the results on their terms. One needs to step away from all of this to provide a more sober reading of the numbers and what they mean. Typically, when one does this, the final statistics cut something of a contrast with the grand claims that mark the post-election environment more generally.

What do the results mean for the 2019? The top line numbers tell a particular story in this regard.

South Africa’s election 2016 local election signals change. For the first time in the country’s democratic era since 1994, in this tenth major electoral event, the governing ANC is facing the prospects of losing its dominance in several strategically important centres.

Numsa members strike. Picture: PUXLEY MAKGATHO
AUGUST’s local government elections are aptly billed as the most difficult elections to read since 1994. This is, in many ways, a by-product of a decade of turbulence and considerable shifts in the body politic.

Nadine Gordimer died at her home, aged 90 on July 14 2014. EPA/Alejandro Ernesto

The passing of Nadine Gordimer is a tremendous loss, both to South Africa and to the literary world. For me, and others who knew her, it will also be an enormous personal loss.

There is a growing authoritarian impulse in South Africa, including among some student activists. Mark Wessells/Reuters

South Africa is sinking into a political, social and economic crisis. Running in parallel is a growing disillusionment about the post-apartheid project of transformation.

The death on June 25 2016 of Adam Small, the South African Black Consciousness activist, Afrikaans poet and revered academic, was not unexpected. In the twilight of his years, in his public interactions, he came across as alert but increasingly frail, often teary-eyed. In his last creative writings such as “Klawerjas” (2013) and “Maria, Moeder van God” (Mary, Mother of God, 2015) he often referenced impending death or retraced the vagaries of a life lived.