Pieter van der Merwe

Twenty-one case dockets, six arrests, five matters already before the courts. That is the tally of election-related crime South Africa’s security authorities put on record in Pretoria on Tuesday evening, as the National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure briefed the media on its handling of electoral incidents ahead of Wednesday’s poll. Deputy National Police Commissioner Tebello Mosikili, the structure’s co-chairperson, confirmed that police have opened the dockets since Monday.

When India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar stood before an audience in April 2026 to unveil the theme and logo of the Fourth India-Africa summit, he framed the relationship in terms people on both sides could feel directly: “Africa occupies a central place in India’s foreign policy.” The summit itself was later postponed because of the Ebola epidemic, but the commitment behind those words did not stall.

Russian President Vladimir Putin used the third Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow on Wednesday to position his country as Africa’s most reliable partner, telling assembled leaders that Western powers, still shaped by what he described as a colonial mindset, continue to seek to exploit the continent’s resources and to use debt as a tool of restraint.