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In this edition of the NdB Sunday Show with Chris Steyn, Elections Analyst Wayne Sussman dissects the preparedness and likely outcome for South Africa’s top eight political parties ahead of the Local Government Elections in November. He predicts a “car crash” for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ANC “going into the election knowing that there are a number of …municipalities and ANC heartlands which are either going to be lost or have to be sorted out by coalition”. He has good news for the DA: “I think they're well on track to being the most popular party when we tally the votes in the eight metropolitan areas after election day.” The party tipped for provincial power in KZN is former President Jacob Zuma’s MKP. “I think uMkhonto weSizwe are well on track to be the largest party.” Also listen to Sussman explain why the PA’s Gayton McKenzie “is very well positioned to be a winner in this election”; why ActionSA’s Herman Mashaba “is going to be the kingmaker” in Johannesburg; why it is likely to be a “difficult election” for Julius Malema’s EFF; why the Freedom Front Plus of Corne Mulder is “likely to grow somewhat in this election”; and why the IFP is not going into this election with the "confidence" with which it entered the previous one.

Swimming South Africa has two officials suspended, a high performance centre with more than R50 million unaccounted for, and an Olympic champion who says she waited over a year for prize money the federation then charged her interest on. So what does a sponsor actually do with that? Bank of America's Brad Ross, speaking to Alec Hogg in a personal capacity, laid out the playbook: freeze the funds, audit what really happened, then find a way to keep supporting the athletes without the money running through a federation under a corruption cloud. Drawing on his years running sponsorship for Coca-Cola, and on cautionary tales from West Ham United to the International Olympic Committee, Ross made the case for morality clauses South African sport still doesn't use, and for putting athletes like Tatjana Smith and Roland Schoeman on the boards that are supposed to serve them.

The Trump administration has escalated its pressure on South Africa, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio announcing new visa restrictions over land expropriation laws and racial discrimination against the Afrikaner minority. Christo van der Rheede, executive director of the FW de Klerk Foundation, calls it a profound strategic blunder, one that risks handing the ANC a political gift ahead of local government elections. Van der Rheede also takes issue with the framing of Afrikaners by the Trump administration, arguing that associating Afrikaners only with white people is problematic. In an interview with BizNews, Van der Rheede argues that the real culprits have already been identified in the findings of the Zondo and Madlanga commissions and that Washington had a far more effective and far less divisive path available to it. He appeals to the US to reconsider its approach to South Africa if it is interested in saving the country and a society in which all enjoy the fruits of a hard-earned constitutional democracy. – Linda van Tilburg

This interview was livestreamed on Conscious Caracal on 11 September 2026. Find Ernst van Zyl's Conscious Caracal Podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/@UCeNFLCUJ2lM1S_H32ICVs4w Before BizNews, there was a bank job Alec Hogg quit within three years, a company called Moneyweb he built from a room above his garage and then lost control of, and a High Court letter that convinced him to start all over again rather than retire. In this conversation with Ernst van Zyl, Hogg walked through the full history: the SABC newsroom he ran the year Nelson Mandela was released, the corporate takeover that pushed his stake in his own company down to 18 percent, the year of gardening leave that turned into a second startup, and the decision to own almost all of BizNews himself this time. He also covered what BizNews has become since 2013: a newsroom that moved from Bryanston to Hermanus, a YouTube and podcast audience of around a million people a month, and two annual conferences that now sell out within weeks of opening.

FF+ leader Corné Mulder tells Alec Hogg that Pretoria's foreign policy has exhausted Washington's patience and that the ANC could collapse well before 2029. New US visa restrictions name no names, making official travel to America a gamble. Kasinomics author GG Alcock says the deportation drive barely dented a trillion-rand township economy, with spaza volumes back to normal within weeks of the July deadline. Plus Wall Street rallies while the Fed hikes for the first time since 2023.

South Africa just joined a short and unflattering list of countries facing individual US visa restrictions, and Freedom Front Plus leader Corné Mulder says he saw it coming from a manifesto launch stage days before it happened. He tells Alec Hogg why he thinks Cyril Ramaphosa's habit of avoiding decisions has left the country exposed to an American administration that has run out of patience, why the ANC seems willing to simply wait out the Trump presidency, and why he believes ordinary South Africans, not the "comrades" benefiting from ANC patronage, are the ones now pushing back. He also lays out his read on the coalition scramble coming after 4 November, throws down a direct challenge to the DA over Tshwane and Johannesburg, and explains why he thinks South Africa's next real change of government could arrive well before 2029.

South Africa's townships are not a side economy. According to GG Alcock, author of the Kasinomics book series, they're a trillion-rand-plus market that the country's biggest listed companies are already quietly fighting over, from Shoprite's cash-and-carry pivot to Capitec's entrepreneur accounts to Pepkor's handset financing. Alcock, who grew up in a mud hut in Msinga, KwaZulu-Natal, and never went to university, sat down with Alec Hogg to explain why the xenophobic crackdown on foreign traders barely dented the spaza sector, why Pick n Pay's QualiSave format misread who actually shops in a township, how a social grant became one woman's ten-year start-up fund, and why an entire generation of township entrepreneurs is quietly building wealth in bread, eggs, hardbody chickens and handset finance while the formal economy stalls.

In their latest weekly chat, Chris Steyn and Political Commentator Solly Moeng talk about both President Cyril Ramaphosa and Deputy President Paul Mashatile having been declared unfit - because they are too ill - to perform official duties; the US the visa restrictions for certain - still unamed -government officials; the performance (or lack) of US Ambassador Roelf Meyer; the 181 lost candidate crisis for the African National Congress (ANC) ahead of the Local Government Elections (LGEs) in November this year; the body tally of raped and murdered women in Ekurhuleni rising to 9 as Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi gives criminals a heads-up of a lockdown; the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) dropping charges against National Commissioner Fannie Masemola; and a year of sittings of the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry into Police and Political Capture.

Washington stopped talking about South Africa in the abstract this week. Marco Rubio named individual officials for visa restrictions over land seizures, race-based discrimination and incitement, and the US ambassador in Pretoria called it only the first move. Hudson Institute's Joshua Meservey explained why Washington chose a scalpel over a sledgehammer, and why South Africa's own dealings with Tehran, Moscow and Hamas made this outcome close to inevitable. Denker Capital's Kokkie Kooyman weighed in on how South African banks are quietly benefiting from the same Iran war that's rattling oil markets, even as FirstRand heads for the exit in the UK and the country drifts closer to Beijing and Moscow. AfriForum's Jacques Broodryk laid out a disturbing new report on the patterns of torture behind 47 farm attacks. And on Wall Street, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to fight an oil-driven inflation spike, sending stocks lower.

The night before this interview, Marco Rubio picked up a weapon Washington has never used against South Africa before: visa restrictions aimed at individual officials, not the country as a whole. Hours later, the US ambassador in Pretoria said it was only the start. Joshua Meservey of the Hudson Institute had spent months arguing publicly for exactly this approach, and told Alec Hogg why the scalpel beats the sledgehammer, why AGOA is not off the table whatever the ambassador implies, and why South Africa's own record with Tehran, Moscow and Hamas made this outcome close to inevitable. He also had a hard question for South Africans weighing in on BEE and land expropriation from here: does it matter that Washington agrees with you, if agreeing with Washington is now politically radioactive.

FirstRand just put its UK business up for sale after a motor finance mis-selling scandal turned an eight-year-old acquisition into a multi-billion-rand headache, and analyst Kokkie Kooyman of Denker Capital walked Alec Hogg through what it's actually worth. He explained why Capitec is quietly trying to build six versions of itself across Eastern Europe and Latin America, why South Africa's big three banks keep poaching each other's executives, and why a punishing war between Iran and the United States is, oddly, good news for bank profits and bad news for everyone else. He also weighed in on Washington's new visa restrictions on South African officials, what a strong DA showing in the upcoming local elections would mean for the rand, and why he thinks South Africa's own BEE rules are capping the entrepreneurial growth the country badly needs.

In this interview with Chris Steyn, Jacques Broodryk, the Chief Spokesperson for Community Safety at AfriForum, hails the announcement by the Trump administration of visa restrictions for those “responsible for, or complicit in, the enactment or implementation of laws or policies that enable uncompensated land seizures, race-based discrimination, and/or the incitement of imminent violence against members of minority ethnic or racial groups in South Africa.” In his reaction, Broodryk says: “We've been asking for direct sanctions against these political leaders for quite some time now, publicly and as well as in discussions with the US…we hope that the work that we've been doing has had some kind of an impact on the steps that the US has now taken. Because this is what we've been asking for, for international pressure so that the South African government can stop dismissing minorities' complaints and concerns the way that they have been doing for the last 30 years.” Broodryk also unpacks a new AfriForum report – focused on 47 separate violent farm attacks - that reveals a recurring pattern of torture. He says AfriForum will now continue to expand and strengthen its 178 neighbourhood and farm watches and invest in volunteer training as well as the expansion of its specialised response capabilities, technology, and communication networks.

Washington has stopped talking about South Africa in the abstract. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced a new visa restriction policy aimed not at the country, but at named officials inside the Pretoria government, over land seizures, race-based discrimination and incitement. No names were published, but the bar for inclusion is deliberately low, and family members with a US visa, a green card, or a child studying in America could be caught up in it too. Within hours, US Ambassador Brent Bozell was on X calling it "only the first step in a series of escalatory measures." Alec Hogg traced the arc from Trump's February 2025 executive order through the Oval Office ambush, where a 2020 roadside memorial became "over a thousand" burial sites on camera, to this week's announcement, and laid out what it actually changes for anyone with capital, a career, or a conscience invested in South Africa.

Action Society's Juanita du Preez tells BizNews six bodies in Kempton Park finally forced a multidisciplinary task team, years after the Gaby Ndaba case stalled on DNA backlogs, while the station tops the country for kidnappings with 76 in three months. DA eThekwini mayoral candidate Haniff Hoosen says the ANC is finished in the city and rates his chances against MK at 50/50. Leon Kluge recounts how Cape storms nearly sank South Africa's Chelsea Flower Show display. Plus Amodei, Altman and Musk's AI slowdown call, and a Wall Street selloff as the Senate blocks Trump's crypto bill.

Leon Kluge pulled off a hat-trick no South African had managed before: three straight gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show, the world's most prestigious garden show. But this year's win very nearly didn't happen. Storms and flooding tore through the Western Cape days before the harvest, cutting farmers off from the airport and leaving Kluge with no backup plan and no government funding to fall back on if the flowers didn't land in time. He sat down with Alec Hogg at the Chelsea Flowers exhibition in Stanford to explain why fynbos, the smallest and strangest of the world's floral kingdoms, cannot survive without fire, why a single protea sells for twenty-five pounds in the London flower market, and what a plant that farms its own assassin bugs reveals about survival in the wild.

Haniff Hoosen made the trip from Durban to BizNews's Hermanus studio with a blunt message: the ANC is finished in eThekwini, and what replaces it could be worse. The DA's mayoral candidate walked through how a metro that once out-drew Cape Town for tourists now loses 65% of its water to 13,000 active leaks, why he believes MK is running a placeholder candidate to make way for a scandal-tainted former mayor, and why he isn't arguing with The Economist's description of South Africa drifting into a "mafia state." He also put a number on his own chances in November: five out of ten, a coin flip between the DA and a party he says is already broke.

In this BizNews interview, Chris Steyn and Juanita du Preez, the national spokesperson for Action Society, talk about the killing spree of a suspected serial rapist (or group of rapists) in Ekurhuleni. By yesterday (Monday), five bodies had been found, four in Kempton Park, one in Olifantsfontein, and this morning (Tuesday), another one in Kwa-Thema. Four of the bodies were found in Kempton Park where the police station has a 0.4% success rate in solving crimes. Kempton Park is also the kidnapping capital of South Africa with 67 reported kidnappings between April and June this year (2026). Among the victims identified so far is Elizabeth Tsontso Moselakgomo, who disappeared while out running. Many women reported missing are still unaccounted for as Ekurhuleni sits on thousands of cold cases. SAPS has now dispatched specialist investigators, but Du Preez fumes: “Now that the bodies are piling up, now all of a sudden we get a multi-disciplinary task team investigating. Why now? Why must we have six bodies for things to start moving around? We are in a national disaster for GBV if I'm not mistaken.”

Nineteen times out of twenty, the man Cape Town's police catch red-handed with an illegal gun walks free. JP Smith explains why, and why he's taking national government to court over it. Intelligence analyst Jasmine Opperman lays out something most South Africans haven't clocked: 14 active Bitcoin wallets linked to Hamas, offices operating in the open, and Islamic State using our own organised crime networks as a door into the country. Then, at the close of BNC#9, David Shapiro and Piet Viljoen make the case for staying, both with their money and their outlook: undervalued JSE stocks paying investors handsomely just to hold on, and a reminder that South Africans, whatever else is going wrong, are still hopeful, resilient and friendly to strangers. And on Wall Street, an AI-fuelled selloff runs straight into a Federal Reserve decision this week.

JP Smith has spent years being told his city is one of the world's most violent. He didn't dispute it. He explained why. Nearly every gun his officers pulled off the street came back to bite them: nineteen times out of twenty, the man caught red-handed walked free, because Cape Town cannot investigate its own arrests. That fight over investigative powers, now heading to court against national government, ran alongside almost everything else that landed on his desk this fortnight: a pet bylaw row that briefly convinced half the city it was about to be taxed for owning a cat, a cabinet minister repeating a gangster's phone call on camera, a R3 billion construction site with a 28s gang boss's family on the books, and a straight answer to the question everyone keeps asking him: would he help Helen Zille fix Johannesburg. Alec Hogg sat down with the MMC for safety and security to get all of it on the record.

Retired senior advocate Chris Marnewick spent six years on the Pistorius trial record and tells Alec Hogg the conviction should have been culpable homicide, not murder, blaming social media groupthink for a "big lie" of gender-based violence. Analyst Jasmine Opperman reveals 14 active bitcoin wallets in South Africa channelling funds to Hamas. Financial Mail's Rob Rose unpacks how the Competition Commission wrongly named salesman Bryan Brownrigg in its rand-rigging case, wrecking a decade of his life. TymeBank's Coenraad Jonker says AI will enable bankers, not replace them, and Sakeliga's Piet le Roux takes employment equity quotas towards international courts.