The FW de Klerk Foundation views the ongoing escalation of xenophobic violence, intimidation, and the scapegoating of foreign nationals in South Africa with profound alarm. We write this to state clearly: such acts are not merely “community grievances” – they are a direct, violent, and unacceptable affront to the foundational values of our 1996 constitutional settlement.
Spending two days in this municipality exposes the stark reality of its collapse. The former heartbeat of the South African economy has been reduced to a dilapidated landscape scarred by massive, neglected potholes and failing public utilities. Residents are left to navigate a complete infrastructural mess, a reality made all the more frustrating by the nearly R700 million that was spent on municipal employee overtime between 2019 and 2025, despite consistently worsening service delivery.
As first appeared in Sunday World. With local election turnout declining and youth disengagement deepening, too many South Africans remain disconnected from the ward councillors and municipalities that shape their daily lives. A new civic research initiative seeks to turn citizens’ experiences into evidence that can strengthen democratic participation, service delivery and municipal accountability ahead of the 2026 local government elections.
Abdullah Ibrahim’s influence extends far beyond the distinctive sounds of District Six, the townships, and the broader narrative of Africa’s struggle against injustice. Through his compositions, he endowed African jazz with symphonic depth and elevated it to the international stage. His legacy lives on in the communities where he laid the groundwork for the next generation of jazz musicians. It lives on across both local and international stages. It lives on in every musician who pays tribute to him by interpreting his music as their own.
South Africa possesses one of the world’s most progressive constitutions and highly sophisticated policy frameworks. Yet, a catastrophic disconnect exists across every tier of governance: chronic state inaction and regulatory blindness, followed inevitably by frantic, performative, and costly reactive crisis management.
The FW de Klerk Foundation welcomes the Presidency’s response to its research on the financial and constitutional cost of parliamentary disruptions. The Foundation’s analysis shows that disrupted sittings can cost taxpayers thousands of rand per minute while weakening Parliament’s duty to hold the Executive accountable. Following the Presidency’s encouragement, the Foundation will now engage Parliament directly on stronger accountability, consequence management and respect for South Africa’s constitutional institutions.
For millions of South Africans, the Constitution promises open, accountable and responsive government, dignity, equality and access to basic services like water. Yet for many communities, those promise collapses at local government level. Water taps run dry, refuse is not collected, potholes are permanent and corruption goes unpunished.
Three decades after South Africa’s transition to a non-racial democracy, the country’s unresolved land question remains one of its most volatile political and economic fault lines. Recently, calls to abolish private land ownership have resurfaced with renewed vigor. Promoted by political figures such as Mzwanele “Jimmy” Manyi and the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP), this populist rhetoric advocates for the elimination of private property in favour of total state ownership or state trusteeship.
South Africa’s local government elections are approaching at a time of real unemployment, service delivery and governance failures, but xenophobic mobilisation is directing public anger at the wrong target. The article argues that anti-immigrant protests undermine constitutional accountability by replacing demands for competent local government with scapegoating, fear and unlawful vigilantism. The FW de Klerk Foundation warns that South Africa’s genuine grievances must be resolved through the rule of law, democratic accountability and constitutional governance – not hostility toward vulnerable minorities.
