Presented by the Jakes Gerwel Foundation and the ATKV
The Jakes Gerwel Discussions are supported by NB Publishers, Jonathan Ball, Penguin Random House SA, Bookstorm, the Afrikaans Language Council and Vriende van Afrikaans.
All events are free, but book your place with Theo Kemp: theo@jgf.org.za. Books of all the writers on the programme, will be sold by Wordsworth at the venue.
The Outsider: Herman Mashaba
In collaboration with Jonathan Ball
With Prince Mashele and Anthony Butler
Language: Eng
Venue: ATKV Innovation Lounge
Date and time: 29 April 10:00
Duration: 60 min
Price: Free, book at theo@jgf.org.za
What do Volodymyr Zelensky, Emmanuel Macron and Herman Mashaba have in common? They all are outsiders who entered mainstream politics. Mashaba is a business tycoon who caused turmoil in our political landscape. After his term as DA mayor of Johannesburg, he founded his own political party, Action SA. In a short time, he managed to gather enough votes to make him a force to be reckoned with in the boisterous world of coalition politics.
Across the world, outsiders have been penetrating mainstream politics: Volodymyr Zelensky, Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron – and, in South Africa, Herman Mashaba, who went from being a business tycoon to Joburg’s DA mayor, and now founder of his own political party.
In his trademark opinionated fashion, political scientist Prince Mashele delivers a fascinating fly-on-the-wall account of Mashaba’s dramatic rise to the mayor’s office, managing the fragile coalition with the EFF, falling out with the DA and starting his own party.
What emerges is a portrait of a pragmatic man with a passion for capitalism, but who defies ideological boxes. In Mashele’s hands, Mashaba is also the perfect foil for our troubling political machinery, revealing ever more sharply the fault lines of our government system and the rot of the ruling ANC party.
Prince Mashele is the Executive Director of the Centre for Politics and Research. He is a leading political commentator in South Africa and the author of The Death of our Society. He co-authored The Fall of the ANC: What Next?
The discussant is Anthony Butler, Professor of Political Science at the University of Cape Town. He is the author of The Idea of the ANC (2012) · Cyril Ramaphosa (2011) · Paying for Politics (2010) · Zunami! (2009) · Contemporary South Africa (2009).
