Recent content by Marius

Fair point.

Do you mean in an ATL? In OTL the AWB isn't banned, but I think it's just three guys and an email address now. They even have a website: https://awb.co.za/

This is the best name a cricketer has ever had. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_Einstein

Apropos of nothing, I drove through that area twice today, ha ha.

Yes, that's fair. White electoral politics was much more competitive before 1948 (I think between 1948 and 1994 the Nats only failed to get more than 50% of the popular vote twice, 1953 and 1989). And even for whites free political activity became more difficult under the Nats, censorship, a...

Hmm, I'm not sure about that. I think there was already widespread resentment pre-1948 regarding the exclusion of black South Africans from political life. Some of the most heinous and racist legislation was put in place long before 1948, the 1913 Land Act, for example. I don't think there was...

Very nice summary. I quite like Holomisa and I considered voting for the UDM in the past but they're a bit weird now, still have pockets of support in the Eastern Cape, but nowhere really. They also sometimes support the ANC in municipal colaitions and sometimes the DA. When a DA-coalition won...

Some black areas did have their own councils but only from the 1980s. I also think they didn't have much power or autonomy and elections for them had extremely low turnout. In addition, people who worked with and for these councils as officials etc were often considered lackeys and sellouts.

Surely it didn't need to be the party leader, they could deploy anyone to the position if they like? Like when Motlanthe became Pres although Zuma was party leader (I know the circumstances were a bit different). But who knows what butterflies would have flapped if the DP entitlement was kept...

Jacob Zuma and Helen Zille sharing a laugh. If SA had kept its interim 1993 Constitution, where a party which won more than 20% of the vote was entitled to a Deputy President post, Zille could have been Zuma's deputy. I think about that a lot, ha ha.

It's also the second biggest legislature in South Africa, after the lower house of parliament, which has 400 members. The biggest provincial legislature is KwaZulu-Natal with 80 members.

It is indeed. He isn't the speaker anymore though, lost his position to someone from another microparty, Colleen Makubhele from COPE. COPE has one seat in the 270 seat council (full disclosure I voted for COPE in the 2009 national election when they were still actually a coherent thing).

RW Johnson, one of SA's greatest curmudgeons and someone who has been an SA watcher for probably longer than anyone on this board has been alive, says part of the problem was that union in 1910 lead to the 'Transvaalisation' of the rest of the Union. The racial dynamics in the Cape were always...

That's where I grew up, ha ha. Still go there quite often, still have a few friends that live there.

There wasn't but if you could read for comprehension you would see I was pointing out the fact that no party called the Liberal Party had ever governed in South Africa.