Ranette Taljaard Interview

Farrel — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 19:43:00 -0500

The Sunday Times has an interesting article on Ranette Taljaard, the one time DA MP and rapidly rising star of SA politics. She tries to be diplomatic but her opinions on various topics come through clearly. Here she is on Tony Leon:

She refuses to put Leon in a bad light, she says. But since leaving Parliament, she has been “absolutely delighted to reclaim my intellectual independence. That, to me, was the biggest sacrifice.”

On South Africa’s proportional parliamentary system with it’s pseudo constituencies.

Ask any MP how easy it is to parachute into an area that didn’t elect you and where there may be four other MPs from four other political parities doing exactly what you’re doing in an alleged constituency. It’s farcical, I’m sorry. It’s a farcical system.

Ranette is now director of the Helen Suzman Foundation.

And speaking of now gone political rising stars, where the hell is Roelf Meyer?

Politics.za: Ranette Taljaard Interview

Ranette Taljaard Interview