Thomas Johnson - The Blog

 Political analysts know politics but they're no better than you or I telling which way an election will go. By applying what we all could see, I predicted the DA's and ANC's result within one percentage point at 2019's election.  2010 was the last time I voted DA in any election. I saw how, under Helen Zille, it became unmoored from its liberal principles. She was, and is, a key figure in its failure to keep voters and the disillusionment of former non-white supporters.  Under her the DA, always a bit shouty, became even more strident. One expects politicians to be proud and never admit they're wrong, but the DA's hubris became unpleasant to bear. They took example from Zille herself including their approach to the various scandals and problems she personally and DA experienced since.  The DA has shifted to centre-right, similar now to FF+ but without the latter's integrity about what it stands for. Wilmot James, when he was DA MP, expressed concern about t...

Ramaphosa signed NHI into law last week in a blatant election move. Immediately he and ANC said, in response to criticism and concerns, it would be incremental and could be changed. People prefer paying extortionate private healthcare fees rather than resist. But the problem is that in a supposed free market people are held to ransom by healthcare providers and don't have a choice. NHI will make things far, far worse, and the ANC will mess things up and steal as they always do (assuming they're still in power if and when it begins).  But private healthcare (PH) partly has themselves to blame for this situation. And they've brought the problem down on all of us with heavy handed state intervention.  NHI started with complaints of the costs of PH and that it was exclusionary - it absorbed a huge chunk of national health expenditure for a small percentage of the population. Statements now by NHI critics that SA's out-of-pocket health costs are among the lowest - 12th lowes...

Businessman and media owner Iqbal Surve's bank accounts were closed. He is a controversial figure and the butt of other media for his businesses practices and aggressive, narcissistic persona. He uses his media company, Independent Media, as his personal marketing department and to attack his critics and those who've crossed him. Independent Media does not have the best of reputations professionally - it pulled out of the Press Council because of its perceived unfairness but rejoined recently.  But it's Surve's ownership of investment company Sekunjalo that brought the most controversy. The Public Investment Corporation, the investment arm of the government pension fund, loaned Surve R5 billion with Sekunjalo as collateral. But the company was massively overvalued. Daily Maverick business editor Tim Cohen in reply to me yesterday about the matter: "Surve's big sin was that he convinced, how we don't know, the administrator of SA's state pensioners cash ...