DDP Podcasts

Head of Policy and Research at Rivonia Circle, Lukhona Mnguni joins us for this episode. With the DDP Civic Education Conference coming up on 27 July 2022, Lukhona speaks to us about the path to the 2024 elections. The theme for this year's conference is 'The Role of Observers during Elections.'

Join us for the event here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZclcOquqTkrEtMqZWENRi2AB-KBIZvm-56X

This is a Political Summit special episode. The Political Summit will be on 14 July 2022 at 08:00 and the topic discussed in this podcast is the Summit's theme. You can join the Summit over Zoom through this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAoce2trzIrHtNJVzv9DORmptGCbUR64sz3 or catch it on the DDP Facebook LIVE.

About our guest:

Sphamandla Mhlongo currently serves as the Senior Programmes Officer at the DDP. In this portfolio, he is responsible for the increasing the capacity of community-based organizations, towards interacting with local municipalities, as well as representing the organization in various forums and conferences. He is an experienced community and process facilitator, with a keen interest in public participation and elections management. He has co-authored in publications on local government (GGLN) and reflected on the work of civil society’s role in election observation in a publication belonging to the Maurice Webb Race Relations Unit based at the University of KwaZulu Natal. He has also been credited as an editor in a series of publications. Through his work, he has engaged on a variety of media platforms as a guest contributor and analyst on current affairs, including content production for several community radio stations in KwaZulu Natal.

Joining us for this episode is Thabo Shingange to discuss the relationship between democratic activism and young people in South Africa.

Mr Shingange is an activist, academic, analyst, PhD candidate and Higher Education consultant. His other accolades include:

-FMF activist

-Former UP President (2016)

-Mandela-Rhodes Scholar (2017)

-Former SAUS National Spokesperson (2021)

-Covid 19 Higher Education Ministerial Committee (2021)\

-Graduated with a MA PolSci at UP

- Deputy Director: Community Outreach at the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies

In this episode, Dr Sithembile Mbete joins us to speak about populism in the era of democratic decline.

Sithembile is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Sciences at the University of Pretoria where she teaches international relations and South African politics and an Associate Fellow of the Centre for Governance Innovation. She is also a visiting researcher at the African Leadership Centre at King’s College London. She has a DPhil in International Relations from the University of Pretoria. She completed her undergraduate, honours and masters degrees at the University of Cape Town. In 2014 she was a visiting scholar at the Department of Political Science and Balsillie School of International Affairs at the University of Waterloo in Canada.Sithembile has done research, consulting, speaking and facilitation work for organisations including Teneo Intelligence, Liberty, Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, Rand Merchant Bank (RMB), ABSA, Standard Bank and Edelman South Africa. She has done work for the South African Parliament, several South African government departments, the United Nations Human Rights Council and several foreign embassies in South Africa. She is a 2019 OSF-SA Democracy Fellow for research on the South African electoral system. She comments frequently in the media on a range of issues in South African politics. She comments frequently in the media on a range of issues in South African politics. She is Kaya FM’s resident political analyst and has a regular slot on David o’Sullivan’s breakfast show. Sithembile has been part of eNCA’s team of analysts for the ANC’s 2017 elective conference, the State of the Nation Address in 2018 and 2019, and the 2019 National and Provincial election. Sithembile joined the University of Pretoria from The Presidency of South Africa where she was a researcher in the secretariat of the National Planning Commission. She contributed to the drafting of the National Development Plan in the areas of public service reform, anti-corruption policy and community safety.

In this episode, Ms Heather Thuynsma joins to discuss South Africa's 28 year democratic journey.

Heather Thuynsma holds a BA and a BA Honours from the University of the

Witwatersrand, received her MA in applied politics from the University of Akron

(Ohio, USA), and attended the Women’s Campaign School at the Yale Law School to

complete her specialisation in fundraising and political campaign strategy. She has

spent 30 years working in the South African and US non-profit sectors managing

fundraising, policy analysis and media relations. She worked as a specialist election

monitor during South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, has coordinated and

fundraised for political campaigns at various levels of government in the State of

Ohio, and has taught political behaviour, campaign management, fundraising

strategy, and civic and human rights education in both the US and South Africa.

Ms Thuynsma has published articles on human rights education for the United

Nations and on South Africa’s political campaigns and electoral strategy for the

Electoral Institute of South Africa. She is currently the Communications Manager for

the Faculty of Humanities but also supervises postgraduate students and co-teaches

the Honours-level course on Comparative Politics, that incorporates The Global

Classroom, in the Department of Political Sciences. This postgraduate course won

the Vice-Chancellor (2019) and the Faculty of Humanities’ (2018) Teaching and

Learning awards.

Ms Thuynsma has been a contributing editor of three book-length publications: Brittle

Democracies: Comparing Politics in Anglophone Africa; Political Parties in South

Africa: Do they Undermine or Underpin Democracy?, and, Public Opinion and

Interest Group Politics: South Africa’s Missing Links? And with Prof Vasu Reddy

(Dean: Faculty of Humanities) has co-edited the monograph The Undiscovered

Country: Essays in Honour of Maxi Schoeman.

Ms Thuynsma has presented papers at several international conferences and,

before joining the Faculty as its Communications Manager, advised political parties

and advocacy groups in Angola, Cote D’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo,

Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Senegal, South

Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, the US, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

In this episode, DDP's Executive Director - Dr Paul Kariuki - discusses the relevance of democracy at a time where it seems to not matter. The episode explores the sufficiency of established democratic mechanisms and what they mean for South Africa's young democracy.