Podcast: How Low Can We Go?

Rob Rose and Zukile Majova are joined by Patrick Smith from Africa Confidential for episode 23 of Sharp Sharp, the weekly podcast on politics, money and power from the Financial Mail and Scrolla.Africa.

The week began with two Airlink jets flying dramatically low over Cape Town Stadium ahead of the Springboks and All Blacks Test, sparking a global safety debate. Rob and Zuks use it as a fitting metaphor for a party that never seems to plan ahead, the ANC, which missed the Electoral Commission’s deadline to submit candidate lists in several Eastern Cape municipalities, risking being locked out of contesting those areas entirely in November.

From there, the conversation turns to deputy president Paul Mashatile’s prolonged and largely unexplained absence from public life. Zuks makes the case for why Mashatile may have little real incentive to campaign hard for an ANC win right now, given how the party’s internal succession politics could play out if the ANC performs badly at the polls.

Patrick joins for a deep dive into Zambia, where president Hakainde Hichilema was sworn in for a second term this week amid deepening controversy. Notably absent from the inauguration was South Africa’s own president, Cyril Ramaphosa. The team unpacks the muted international response, the ongoing legal battle over former president Edgar Lungu’s body, and Zambia’s mounting cost of living crisis, before asking a bigger question: why does popular anger over disputed elections so rarely translate into real political change in this part of Africa?