Democracy Unplugged

The team - alongside Daniel Silke, who is a political economy analyst, keynote speaker, author and futurist - discuss the recent Budget Speech and have a straightforward conversation about where South Africa stands economically.

With the recent 2021 fiscal spending plans of the National Budget being unveiled by Finance Minister Tito Mboweni... Gareth, Phumi, and Jamie (lawyer, award-winning debater and political analyst) have a candid conversation about the tax increases, debt to GDP, and our government’s simple-minded approach to solving our current financial issues.

Racial politics are a hot topic this week as Phumi states that there are too many white men in one particular party. Playing the blame game seems to be second nature when it comes to our politicians. Do we have a toxic relationship when it comes to corporate and government? Herman Pretorius - head of Strategic Initiatives at the IRR - shares his thoughts on the current state of the nation.

Has Cyril Ramaphosa been a weak leader for the ANC and South Africa at large? What is the big difference between Cyril and Jacob Zuma when it comes to leadership? What is the role of the Zondo Commission within the South African legal landscape? Do South Africans need to worry about the 2021 elections being cancelled?

Are we taking too long to roll out the COVID-19 vaccine? With a declining economy, how much worse must it get before it gets better? Maybe it’s time to admit that many South Africans might be addicted to the ANC. Leading the conversation this week is Lecturer at the Central University of Technology, debater and socio-political analyst, Leeto "Briggar" Nthoba, and Gabriel Crouse - writer and analyst at the Institute of Race Relations (IRR).

Biden’s inaugural address was a soulful plea to come together. After being in office for a week he has already overturned Donald Trump’s ban on transgender people serving in the US military, and rejoined the Paris climate agreement... is President Joe Biden better than Trump, or will the honeymoon phase come to an end sooner than expected? The Guardian's Washington DC bureau chief David Smith joins the team to discuss what’s happening in the USA.

If a mere seven more MPs had voted with Prime Minister JBM Hertzog in favour of neutrality, South Africa's history would have been quite different. Will we see more war under the administration of US President Joe Biden?

Grave concern in Mozambique, where the impotence of the African Union is compounded by crushing poverty and the actions of Muslim fundamentalists, who are converting vulnerable civilians at the end of a barrel. The team discusses the potential for corruption around the Covid vaccine process in South Africa, and how citizens might end up overpaying, while many may not even get vaccinated. And finally, what will the Biden regime mean for Africa?

Nick Hudson, co-founder of Pandemics Data and Analytics (PANDA) joins the Burning Platform to discuss what the data suggests about the effectiveness of lockdowns on a cost-to-benefit ratio. There’s a discussion around the media’s role in stoking pandemic panic, before moving on to the subject of a vaccine - its viability given a rapid public uptake after an equally rapid turnaround, and Big Pharma’s push to get a solution to market without it first being peer reviewed.

As South Africa prepares for the Covid 'second wave', the ruling party has elected to limit access to beaches, potentially crippling the tourism industry. How long will the Garden Route take to recover economically from the current lockdown, and were there any options that would have limited the spread of Covid-19 without shutting down the economy? The team gives us their reasons to be optimistic for 2021.