Jacob Zuma in the context of 2014 South African general election

26°0′07″S 28°07′46″E / 26.00194°S 28.12944°E / -26.00194; 28.12944The Pan-African Parliament (PAP), also known as the African Parliament, is the legislative body of the African Union. It held its inaugural session in March 2004. The Parliament exercises oversight, and has advisory and consultative powers, having lasting for the first five years. Initially the seat of the Pan-African Parliament was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, but was later moved to Midrand, South Africa. The goal in establishing the parliament was creating a space where people from all states of Africa could meet, deliberate, and pass some policy on issues that affect the entire continent of Africa.

The Parliament is composed of a maximum of five members per member state that have ratified the Protocol establishing it, including at least one woman per Member State. These members are selected by their member state and their domestic legislatures. The overall goal for the parliament is to be an institution that has full legislative power whose members are elected through universal suffrage, as stated by South African President Jacob Zuma in his opening speech to the first ordinary session of the second legislature of the Pan-African Parliament on October 28, 2009.

The IBSA Dialogue Forum (India, Brazil, South Africa) is an international tripartite grouping for promoting international cooperation among these countries. It represents three important poles for galvanizing South–South cooperation and greater understanding between three important continents of the developing world namely, Africa, Asia, and South America. The forum provides the three countries with a platform to engage in discussions for cooperation in the field of agriculture, trade, culture, and defence among others.

The IBSA Dialogue Forum plays an increasingly important role in the foreign policies of India, Brazil, and South Africa. It has become instrumental for promoting ever closer coordination on global issues between three large multicultural and multiracial democracies of Asia, South America and Africa, and contributed to enhancing trilateral India-Brazil-South Africa cooperation in sectoral areas.

The president of South Africa is the head of state and head of government of the Republic of South Africa. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the South African National Defence Force. Between 1961 and 1994, the office of head of state was the state presidency.

The president is elected by the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, and is usually the leader of the largest party, which has been the African National Congress since the first multiracial election was held on 27 April 1994. The Constitution limits the president's time in office to two five-year terms. The first president to be elected under the new constitution was Nelson Mandela. The incumbent is Cyril Ramaphosa, who was elected by the National Assembly on 15 February 2018 following the resignation of Jacob Zuma.

General elections were held in South Africa on 29 May 2024 to elect a new National Assembly as well as the provincial legislature in each of the nine provinces. This was the 7th general election held under the conditions of universal adult suffrage since the end of the apartheid era in 1994. The National Council of Provinces (NCOP), the upper house of the Parliament of South Africa, was elected by the provincial legislatures on 13 and 14 June after the general election.

Support for the ruling African National Congress (ANC) significantly declined in this election; the ANC remained the largest party but lost the parliamentary majority that it had held since the inaugural post-apartheid election in 1994. The centrist Democratic Alliance (DA) remained in second place with a slight increase. uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), a left-wing populist party founded 6 months prior to the election and led by former president Jacob Zuma, came in third place. Several smaller parties received too few votes in the regional constituencies to secure a seat but received enough votes overall to win seats in the National Assembly (based on their allocation of compensatory seats).

uMkhonto weSizwe Party (Zulu for 'Spear of the Nation' Party'), abbreviated as MKP, and often referred to as the MK Party, is a South African left-wing populist political party founded in December 2023. The party is named after uMkhonto weSizwe (shortened to MK), the paramilitary wing of the African National Congress (ANC) which was active during the apartheid regime in South Africa and disbanded after Nelson Mandela's release in the early 1990s. However, the ANC has threatened legal action over the usage of the name, and the formation has been criticised by original MK veterans.

The party rose to prominence in December 2023, when former president Jacob Zuma announced that, while planning to remain a lifelong member of the ANC, he would not be campaigning for the ANC in the 2024 South African general election, and would instead be voting for MK. He stated that "I cannot and will not" campaign for the ANC of current president Cyril Ramaphosa, Zuma's successor, and that to do so would be a "betrayal".

In November 2017, Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe was removed as president and party leader of ZANU–PF and was replaced by Emmerson Mnangagwa.

On the evening of 14 November 2017, elements of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) gathered around Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, and seized control of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation and key areas of the city. The next day, the ZDF issued a statement saying that it was not a coup d'état and that President Mugabe was safe, although the situation would return to normal only after the ZDF had dealt with the "criminals" around Mugabe responsible for the socio-economic problems of Zimbabwe. Jacob Zuma, then-President of South Africa, phoned Mugabe and was told that Mugabe was under house arrest but otherwise "fine".

Robben Island Prison is an inactive prison on Robben Island in Table Bay, 6.9 kilometers (4.3 mi) west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, Cape Town, South Africa. Nobel Laureate and former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela was imprisoned there for 18 of the 27 years he served behind bars before the fall of apartheid. Since then, three former inmates of the prison (Mandela, Kgalema Motlanthe, and Jacob Zuma) have gone on to become President of South Africa.

It is a South African National Heritage Site as well as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Julius Sello Malema (born 3 March 1981) is a South African politician. He is the founder and leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a communist and black nationalist political party since 2013. Before the foundation of EFF, he served as a president of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) from 2008 until his expulsion from the party in 2012.

As a child, Malema joined the ANC and was a highly engaged member while growing up; he was ultimately elected president of its Youth League in April 2008 under controversial circumstances. While president, he was an early proponent of nationalising South Africa's mining industry and expropriating land without compensation. He rose to national prominence as an outspoken supporter of Jacob Zuma, then ANC president and later President of South Africa.