News24 The Lead

The Mashatile factor in the battle for the GNU with Adriaan Basson

Loading player...
The ANC believes it's time to hit the reset button on the government of national unity (GNU) following the DA's "double-dealing" regarding the contentious budget vote in parliament. For now, though, the DA is not leaving the GNU, nor has it been kicked out. "No one wants to pull the plug. Neither the DA nor the ANC wants to walk out of this relationship. I think both those parties realise that it's incredibly important for the GNU to remain enacted for the future of South Africa," says News24 editor-in-chief Adriaan Basson. "What is not quite yet clear is how they remain in this relationship because there is clearly some bad blood between them," he adds. He argues that Ramaphosa's centrist support for the DA as a GNU partner has weakened him in his party. Later, we hear from News24 journalist Marvin Charles about Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis intervening in the case of a local couple's ballooning water bill. And 'Darth Sidious' actor Ian McDiarmid will grace a Mother City stage for 4 May's Star Wars Day. You can now mail your views, news, and voice notes to thelead@24.com. New editions drop Monday through Thursday on Spotify and Apple Podcasts at 19:00.
8 Apr English South Africa News · Society & Culture

Other recent episodes

Is Ramaphosa wasting his time with Trump? With Pieter du Toit

Youth unemployment, crumbling municipal infrastructure, persistent power cuts and escalating crime levels remain South Africa’s reality. Yet President Cyril Ramaphosa finds himself increasingly pulled into global conflict scenarios. In the aftermath of Ramaphosa labelling the first group of “Afrikaner refugees” leaving for the US on Sunday as “cowards” and “colonialists”,…
15 May 24 min

NAMPO farmers tell Nick Wilson they’re staying

President Cyril Ramaphosa described the first group of so-called “Afrikaner refugees”, who took up the US Trump Administration’s invitation to resettle in the states as “cowards” who’ll soon return to South Africa. The president surprised many South African farmers attending this week’s NAMPO agriculture expo in Bothaville in the Free…
14 May 17 min

'I am an Afrikaner', with Adriaan Basson

Whatever you’d like to call them; the “49ers”, the “Amerikaners”, the “Afrikaner refugees”, they’ve officially discarded Madiba’s Rainbow Flag for Eisenhower’s Stars and Stripes. Their departure, facilitated by the Trump administration, has generated intense debate over the Afrikaners’ place in this world. But for News24 editor-in-chief Adriaan Basson, two things have…
13 May 29 min

The first ‘Amerikaners’ leave SA, with Alex Mitchley

The annals of SA/US relations are at a watershed. They’ll historically show that in early May 2025, after a run of public holidays celebrating South Africa’s hard-fought transition to democracy, the first group of Afrikaners took up the Trump Administration’s offer to relocate to the United States as official “refugees”. And they…
12 May 21 min
All episodes