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With five days to go before the local government elections, Prince Mashele told Alec Hogg what a good night and a catastrophe would look like for the ANC, and why he expected neither. He was blunt about Herman Mashaba, whose biography he wrote, and set out the offer he believed could tip ActionSA towards the ANC rather than the DA in Johannesburg. He dismissed Gayton McKenzie's kingmaker ambitions, said he was worried about what an MK win would mean for KwaZulu-Natal, and explained why South Africans stay loyal to parties the way they stay loyal to soccer clubs. Then he turned to his own plans: a movement due to launch in Soweto in March, with a leadership line-up he said would not shy away from talking about race.

Alphabet and Amazon both reported faster growth this week, and Wall Street still wiped roughly half a trillion dollars off Google's parent in a single session, its worst day since listing in 2004. In this Ricardo portfolio update, Alec Hogg explained what had really spooked investors: a cash machine that now needs shareholders' money, and an Amazon spending more on data centres than its business brings in. He set out why the Ricardo portfolio was holding on, the bear case he couldn't dismiss, and the very different picture back home on the JSE, where Reinet kept buying back its own shares and Prosus locked in a payout most investors could collect tax-efficiently by doing nothing at all.

South Africans had lost faith in the old order, Frans Cronje told Alec Hogg, but had not yet found a new one to trust, and Wednesday's vote would not close that gap. The SRF chairman set out the one deal he believed could hold the country together, why he thought voters were already there while the politicians were not, and how the ANC could come back to 55% if it made a choice it had avoided for a decade. He also turned a sceptical eye on the DA's record in Tshwane, Johannesburg and even Cape Town, explained why Helen Zille's Joburg run mattered more for 2029 than for next week, and described a country quietly reorganising itself into enclaves, from illegal miners under Johannesburg's streets to middle-class estates.

Victory Research CEO Gareth van Onselen tells Alec Hogg that no poll gives the DA a majority in Johannesburg, but it should be the largest party - and the closer it gets to 40%, the harder it is to justify shutting it out of coalition talks. Solly Moeng says everything points to Bejani Chauke, the former presidential adviser the Madlanga Commission wants answers from, having acted for Ramaphosa, while stressing nothing is proven. Donald MacKay wants fuller JSE disclosure on a case that could cost 10% of turnover. Bonitas on joining a medical aid early. Plus Alphabet's worst day.

In their weekly chat Chris Steyn and political commentator Solly Moeng dissect President Cyril Ramaphosa’s tough week on several fronts: The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry is seeking answers from his very influential former adviser, Dr Bejani Chauke, particularly in relation to WhatsApp chats with a notorious late taxi boss; his close friend and CODESA co-star, US Ambassador Roelf Meyer has been accused of political interference in Apartheid-era prosecutions; and election pollsters predict former President Jacob Zuma’s MKP could be heading for an outright majority KZN in next week’s Local Government Elections (LGEs). “I think that the only way that South Africa and the Presidency of South Africa can be saved, can be rescued, would be for serious political change, for people to go in there and change the system so that nobody ever comes in there with charming English, who wants to be hugged and who can hug you, and then who goes rogue on us and there's nothing we can do about them because the systems protect them,” says Moeng. Meanwhile, the President has resorted to door-to-door campaigning in KZN.