anchor: time for a checkup the headlines. the parliament of peru has rejected the movement to bring forward election as unrest grows with regions under a curfew and 18 people killed since the rest of the former president nine days ago. we have more from lima, peru. correspondent: as you can see, the center of the capital has been militarized. there are police here and there is an army also taking protecting some areas some

monuments here and the police is now moving in because there are people some people fighting behind us. uh this is what tensions are high in the country. anchor: ukraine facing blackouts after russia fired more than 70 missiles, damaging power infrastructure, hitting five cities, including kyiv in one of the biggest attack since the start of the war. the eu and united nations condemning elon musk for suspending the accounts of journalists critical of him and s elon musk said they should daa about him and his family. two killed in mali. the regional governor says there was an exchange of gunfire. mali has been struggling to contain violence by armed groups

and have displaced hundreds of thousands of people. rescue workers in malaysia searching for several people missing after a landslide hit a campsite killing 21 people in the highlands, close to a popular tourist resort outside while a number. they say -- kuala lumpur. a major increase in defense spending, citing growing threats from north korea and china, doubling the budget to 2% of gdp by 2027. so, those of the headlines. the news continues on al jazeera after "inside story". stay tuned. thanks for watching. bye for now. ♪ ♪ >> south africa's anc hosting

its national conference, facing morris handle -- more scandal with the president at the center of the cap controversy, but with elections within the next 18 months, what is up for the anc. this is "inside story", ♪ hello. welcome to the program. south africa's governing anc party has had a few challenging years with its last president resigning after facing dozens of corruption charges in the current president has been accused of wrongdoing linked to millions of dollars in cash found at his private residence. this, as the party prepares to elect the next set of leaders. how will it address the growing economic challenges in

unemployment? we will put that to our guest in a moment, but first it's report from johannesburg. correspondent: once celebrated as a liberation party that fought against racial segregation, in recent years, the south african anc has been riddled by corruption criticism, the party of respected and global african leaders such as nelson mandela. but 28 years into democracy, the anc is facing increasing condemnation for poor leadership and governance. since mandela, subsequent presidents were recalled or forced to resign. the current president is facing similar pressure in a scandal involving the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars. the anc reputation for many is in tatters. >> kleptocracy, nepotism, they have been there from the beginning of the anc government, which became a norm within the party and within the higher

echelons of government. so even when people are found to have sullied the record as it were, they still continue to be deployed as members of the anc, and as trusted members of the anc, and that is what has led to rampant correction. -- corruption. correspondent: record high unemployment, an energy crisis, and a multitude of scams have frustrated south africans. the party first won with a 62% majority, 57% in the last polls. support for the anc has been in decline for years and some protesters have protested by staying away from the polls. others have abandoned the governing party and voted for the opposition. the democratic alliance and economic freedom fighters dominate opposition voices good while the combined support of almost one third of voters cannot be ignored, the anc

parliamentary majority has often protected it's about leaders. >> the anc needed money and the people who supported the anc saw money as being something they could get their hands on. so the solution was you could relatively easily do what you wanted and get whatever tenders she wanted, provided you gave to caesar a portion of it and kept a portion for yourself. and it began thus. correspondent: this weekend, the party will hold a conference to choose a president and other senior figures. supporters hope the new leadership will revive the party , but for many south africans, it is the same old faces with the same old scandals. ♪ anchor: we did reach out to the anc for someone to come on the program but nobody was made available by the time we went to there.

let's bring in our guest now. a political analyst and former member of parliament for the anc under president nelson mandela and a former ambassador to ireland. chairman of the south african institute of international affairs joins us. and also in cape town, the executive director of corruption watch south africa. good to have you with us. let me start with you. with all of the scandal that is surrounding the anc and president ramaphosa, what do you expect out of this congress, what do you hope will happen, and are those two things the same? [laughter] >> thank you for having me. um i don't expect anything that dramatic at this stage. the big question for this conference is whether president ram impose that will

be elected for a second term and nothing seems to indicate he will not get that so i think he is fairly safe, and the interesting thing is who else will be in the top six office bearers of the anc and whether they are supportive of him, and this is important because it gives us a sense of whether president ramaphosa will continue to be president and for how long he will continue to be president. i certainly think that with all the problems, mistakes, scandals as you rightly point out, despite all of that, i still believe at this stage that president ram impose a is the best of the -- ramaphosa is the best candidate available, so the question only remains for how long would he then still remain president and at which stage would he hopefully in a peaceful and orchestrated manner hand over to presumably the person

who will be the deputy president , according to what we can see at this stage. anchor: is that how you see it? >> uh yes i think she is correct that ramaphosa will get reelected as president of the anc and he will continue as president of the country, but of course they are still investigations being carried out by state organs about the foreign that was found on his private farms, so obviously and if he is found guilty of that, he cannot continue as president. uh i think though there are many people who can replace him. i don't think there is anyone in this world who cannot be replaced. anchor: uh let's pick up on the

investigations uh such as they are that are going on around ramaphosa now in the scandal over his finances. do you expect those investigations to be credible and to lead to anything? >> um, nope, we have no reason to believe they would not be credible. the first hurdle was an independent panel that was appointed by parliament to assess whether president ramaphosa had a case to answer and should face an impeachment inquiry, and it came out that yes, he did have a case to answer but parliament voted down the acceptance of that report and through that close down the impeachment process, but there is an ongoing police investigation and ongoing investigation from the public protector, and these investigations could uncover criminal wrongdoing, certainly

ethical wrongdoing and you know will scrutinize the president's conduct comes that there is still a little bit of a gamut he has to go through in about these quite serious allegations that have emerged about his private business dealings. anchor: there is a question here as to whether the anc with all of these allegations of corruption that have been swirling around them, not just the current president, but his predecessor and his predecessor before that, there is a sense that the anc has lost its way to the extent that it faces a credible threat of losing power, is that how do you see it? >> well, undoubtedly the anc has lost a lot of support in terms of their own membership. it was just revealed in the last few hours that membership was down from 1.4 million five years ago to 600,000 now currently coming so undoubtedly the anc has lost a lot of support.

the only question is whether they this will be reflected in 2024 and to what extent it will be reflected at the next election in 2024. you know, there are lots of speculations, and part of the reason why i do not believe the anc will be totally annihilated and they will still be the majority party, the only question is, you know, how much will it be, how much will they have come up with a the under 50%, and if it is under 50% of support, how far under 50%, and part of the reason i started saying i don't believe that there will be totally -- they will be totally annihilated and remain the dominant party is because opposition is fragmented and extreme eweek. even though with all the frustrations and lack of service delivery and the problems we have in terms of electricity provision at the moment and the corruption issues as you rightly point out, all of those things yes will make a dent in anc port

-- support, but the only question is how much. what we saw with elections two years ago is traditional anc supporters did not move to another party to a large extent, there were some exceptions, but very little, they ask he did not come out to vote, so in that fact of course, impacted on our proportional voting system in this country, so in short to say yes, they have definitely lost support. i am sure this will be reflected in the national election unless they can seriously pull their act together in the next two years or so, but i do believe that they will stay the majority party. only question is whether it will be an outright majority over 30%. anchor: uh given the dominance that the anc has had in south african politics in the postapartheid era, how much of a dent will this put in their popularity and in the 2024 going forward? >> well, the 2024 elections are

still a long way away, up to 18 months away, so i think it is a bit premature to predict election outcomes that are coming in 18 months time. he has come at the anc is the largest single party in south africa, but at the end of the day, it is whether it gets 50% plus 14 it -- one for it to run the country, or it will need coalition partners to rule the country. what has been happening during the last five years, as has been pointed out, is that the anc, the traditional vote of the anc, a big part of it is the black working class in the major metropolitan areas, they are not

staying at home and working for the anc -- voting for the anc or the opposition either, but in that situation, the opposition benefits under our electoral system. anchor: if we talk more specifically about this particular scandal itself, the so-called cash in the sofa scandal as it has been cold, -- called, um, does the president's explanation stand up to scrutiny knowing what you know right now? >> well, you know, up to this point, the president has really not given a full public disclosure about what happened, so we have sort of piecemeal, pieces of information, representations of the president's story as were presented to the independent panel, so you know, it really remains to be seen exactly what

happened, what did the president know, was there an attempted cover-up? it is important to note that the allegations, you know, up this matter emerge from an implicated spy boss, someone implicated quite heavily in the state capture commission of inquiry, of the origins of the allegations come from a suspect source, but you know, we do know that the president has not fully developed it himself from his personal business dealings and there are basic facts that we have in place, such as the fact that the president received a large sum of cash in foreign denomination, which he did in fact, and that is really a red flag for the types of corruption challenges we face in south africa, challenges around an economy which is vulnerable to things like money laundering and financial flows, and the types

of allegations the president is facing really are the red flags that you see in a scenario where you know almost where you're looking at kind of an organized crime type of scenario, that the president must overcome these issues. i share the concerns of the fellow panelists in terms of the bona fides of the leadership of others in the anc who may come in this president's wake, and i think the anc will have a tough case to sell the general public ultimately about its stewardship in the fight against corruption. anchor: what is your take on this specific allegation here in the president's defense of it? >> i think it can be no doubt as was correctly said that the initial complaints and allegations are politically driven. there is no question about that. um, but the questions are arise

-- arise as to what extent there was some little bits of truth in these allegations. um and we will have to wait and see. you know everybody has mentioned that there are ongoing investigations from also a revenue service and reserve bank to check whether there have been any big mistakes made, and our president has said that he if any charges are laid against him, he will step aside and resign, and i do actually believe that, so we really have to wait and see. um i don't know if the other person will agree with me on this but personally i do not believe this is a president who is inherently corrupt. i also do not think he is stupid and will deliberately have made, you know hidden money from the reserve bank or our revenue services. he is rich enough. the amount is not that significant within his context of wealth, so there might have

been in my view some mistakes of oversight and of negligence but i am yet to be convinced this was not a deliberate attempt by the president to commit fraud or to commit a crime by not the clearing money or not banking it in time. anchor: well let's see if that person does agree with you. what is your take on this? >> i think it wasn't money, money wasn't used personally for him. it was probably going to the anc . how it ended up on his farm in all those issues, i do not know. but i would rather not speculate on this matter, because we just do not have enough information. um there is a sudanese gentleman

who says he bought while buffalos from the president farm for $580,000. it is still not clear what the president was selling, 20 buffalos, and it is still not clear how did he know how much 20 buffalos were going to be sold for? so my own suspicion is that, in the buffalos, by the way, but nearly three years ago, are still on the farm and have not been taken to sedan -- sudan or wherever this gentleman wanted to take these buffalos to, so he spent $580,000 buying animals,

admittedly mr. hakeem, the sudanese man, 580,000 dollars in his world is peanuts, so i guess it does not matter that his buffalos are still in south africa three years later, but then why go to the trouble of buying them if you're not going to take them away? so, like i said, i think the story for the investigators until the president and the investigators tell us the real story, i think we can spend all day speculating. anchor: uh let me get your take on this. regardless of what happens out of this particular investigation , there are those who say over the years that the anc corruption allegations of corruption have dogged the anc to such an extent now that it has become almost the norm.

is this something that could really affect them a long-term? is this something that they really need to shake off? >> yeah, absolutely. i mean, the anc has been the governing party since 1994 when south africa had its first democratic elections and oversaw the establishment of the constitution and democratic governments in south africa, but since that time we have seen the creeping shadow of endemic corruption. we saw grand corruption early very early on in south africa's democracy with the arms deal, and then we saw at least 10 years of state capture, for which we have just completed a judicial commission of inquiry. all of that happen on the watch of the anc. if you look into the details under the commission's report on the state capture and the complicity of anc, and not just jacob zuma, but leadership prior

to jacob zuma, and we have seen significant grand corruption scandals since jacob zuma left the scene, so this is the anc's legacy and what the anc goes to the polls on, and we have already spoken about other issues such as you know declining services and the challenges of building a capable develop mental state, so, you know, it is feeding ground for opposition parties to put a different case to the electorate, but as the panelists have said, the likelihood is the anc will still remain a majority party, possibly below 50%, and we could be moving into an era of coalition government, and perhaps that will be sufficient to shift the political narrative you know towards a more kind of coherent appointed and dedicated fight against corruption. up to this point, we have been

dealing with the wake of state capture and trying to revitalize institutions like the revenue service in the prosecuting authority that were really hobbled so yeah, it is a window of opportunity but also needs that. let's anchor: talk more then about the issues beyond corruption. south africa is facing some real problems right now as it battles with soaring commodity prices with the fallout of russia's war in ukraine, power cuts, further dents to an economy reeling from the covid-19 pandemic. is the government probably equipped to deal with all of this? is it handling it in the right way? >> let me just for say i think the one thing we must not neglect to say is yes, there has been corruption in south africa, large-scale and nobody can deny that, but prior to the jacob zuma years, even the arms deal and so on but there were

investigations into that and it was exposed and dealt with, well, some of it is still being dealt with. under the jacob zuma years, corruption became endemic and was not treated correctly and prosecuted to the extent it should have anchored to a point where it was totally unacceptable, but since ramaphosa, there has been an attempt from his side and from the anc's side even though there was pushback from certain quarters of those involved to really try to cut down on corruption and to really deal with the issues, so i just think it is important to mention that, in particular to that for an audience not always aware of the detailed my new show as to what is going -- detailed my new show small things going on in south africa. they have not reduced in size and probably have grown. for example, one of the biggest proms we currently have that is affecting our economy negatively in social and economic welfare is in general that are problems with our electricity providers.

um those are not problems that are going to go away quickly and they are largely through the making of the anc government. and, so, is the anc government equipped to deal with it? um it is a bit of a yes/no answer for me. i don't know if anyone better is equipped to deal with it, but the challenges are huge and will take time, and it is not something that will happen in the next few years for us in south africa. anchor: all right, just briefly, in less than a minute we have left, big problems in south africa now beyond the allegations of corruption? do you have competence this government can deal with it? >> well, the government has been in power since 1984, and we are sitting -- 1994, and we are sitting on 64% unemployment in south africa, and as we mentioned, the electricity

supply, which is the backbone of employment creation, has been erratic for the last 15 years. the government has not been able to solve the problem comes that the answer for me is no, i do not expect the anc government will be able to solve the major economic problems that faces south africa in the coming 10 years, since it could not solve them them in the last nearly 30 years. anchor: on that note, we leave it. thank you to all three of you. thank you very much for being on "inside story". and thank you for watching. you can see this program any time on our website, al jazeera.com, and for further discussion, go to our facebook page. you can also join art the conversation twitter. -- join the conversation on

twitter. for me, and the whole team, bye for now. ♪

pppxxxx■]■t■]■o [punk rock playing] justin hall: "love and rockets" is actually the closest thing we have to the "great american comic book." esther claudio moreno: they created this beautiful mix between fantasy and reality that nobody was doing before. ♪ carolina miranda: this is a consistent series written and drawn by the two same artists over a period of 40 years. [funk music playing] ♪