Three scandals, one theme. Rob Rose and Zukile Majova, joined by Patrick Smith from Africa Confidential, dig into the week the DA turned on itself.
Former DA leader Tony Leon’s lobbying firm, Resolve Communications, has allegedly sought audiences with government ministers on behalf of clients, including SpaceX’s Starlink. Meanwhile, former party leader John Steenhuisen has gone public, claiming his successor Geordin Hill-Lewis stabbed him in the back after striking a deal on the DA leadership transition.
Then the team turns to the ANC, where Dina Pule, fired by Jacob Zuma himself in 2013 over a corruption scandal involving her boyfriend, has just been brought back into cabinet as minister of social development.
Patrick draws the global thread through the stories, tracing the political revolving door from Dick Cheney and Halliburton through Tony Blair’s government to Donald Trump pausing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and asks what happens to a body politic when insiders can freely monetise their old government connections.
They close with the continental fallout from the June 30 xenophobia deadline, South African foreign policy’s uncomfortable contradiction of exporting billions in goods to Africa while expelling Africa’s people, and a World Cup catch-up featuring the giant-killing run of Norway, the heartbreak of Cape Verde, and a Paris bar full of French football fans cheering for the underdog.
Sharp Sharp is a podcast on South African politics, money and power from Currency News and Scrolla.Africa. New episode every week.
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