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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 the perfect metaphor for a party that never seems to plan ahead, the ANC, which missed the IEC's deadline to submit candidate lists in several Eastern Cape municipalities, risking being locked out of contesting those areas entirely.
From there, the conversation turns to deputy president Paul Mashatile's prolonged and largely unexplained absence from public life, and Zuks makes the case for why Mashatile may have little incentive to campaign hard for an ANC win right now.
Patrick joins for a deep dive into Zambia, where president Hakainde Hichilema was sworn in for a second term this week under deepening controversy. Notably absent from the inauguration was South Africa's own president, Cyril Ramaphosa. The team unpacks the international response, the ongoing legal fight over former president Edgar Lungu's body, and asks a bigger question, why doesn't popular anger over stolen elections and rising costs ever seem to topple governments in this part of Africa?
