Key issues in the 2011 government elections: in conversation with Udesh Pillay

Abstract

Residents in townships and informal settlements have taken to the streets, emboldened by the president's recent State of the Nation address and a wave of nation-wide mass action over better wages. They have used as leverage the state's failure to deliver basic services and create jobs at the rate required over the past two years in which the Zuma administration has been in power.

The recent 'service delivery' protests in Wesselton township are a case in point. Residents living in conditions of poverty and squalor are beginning to flex their muscles ahead of the municipal elections scheduled for the end of May 2011.