Against the Tide by Steven Friedman

The ANC has lost the trust of many of its voters but its January 8 statement shows that it has no credible plan to win it back. It hopes that doing things for voters will win trust when what it really needs to do is to listen to people and take them seriously. In this it is not alone - just about all our parties prefer talking to the people to listening to them.    

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Steven Friedman is a public commentator and an academic, currently employed as a Research Professor at the University of Johannesburg. He has been writing on South African politics for the entire democratic period both as a scholar and public commentator. He has published books on South Africa’s transition to democracy, the role of the trade union movement, and current South African politics. He has also written columns and articles for several South African newspapers. His writing seeks to use academic research to shed light on current politics but to ensure that this is conveyed in a way easily understood by people who have no academic training.