CAPE TOWN, South Africa _ A graft scandal enveloping South African President Jacob Zuma's administration has laid bare the chaos swirling around the nation's law-enforcement agencies and their vulnerability to political manipulation.

South Africa named Dondo Mogajane as the director-general in the National Treasury, appointing an official from within the department’s ranks two months after President Jacob Zuma replaced a respected finance minister and his deputy.

It is probably no consolation to Brian Molefe, the CEO of South Africa’s power utility Eskom, that his woes are evidence that President Jacob Zuma’s March cabinet reshuffle has so far had precisely the opposite effect to that which was expected.

South Africa escaped wall-to-wall junk sovereign assessments from the three biggest ratings companies, after Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the nation one level to the lowest investment grade.

In the liberation struggle against apartheid a small number of white people joined the battle to overthrow the South African regime. One of them, academic Raymond Suttner, was first arrested in 1975 and tortured with electric shocks because he refused to supply information to the police. He then served eight…

Politics are in shambles across the world. Populism and political gambles are making headlines from London to Washington. Southern Africa is no exception. If it’s any comfort, this suggests that there’s nothing genuinely typical about African versions of political populism. Nor are the flaws in democracy typically African.