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Freedom Front Plus leader Corné Mulder tells BizNews the government of national unity could technically run to 2029, but Parliament can dissolve itself from May next year and a new ANC president elected in a year's time could recall Cyril Ramaphosa. Mulder also reveals the DA agreed early on to leave international relations to the ANC, and says the FF+ has declared a dispute under the GNU's deadlock-breaking mechanism over the US standoff. Plus DA Western Cape leader Tertuis Simmers on the premiership, Donald MacKay on what really hollowed out manufacturing, Willem Els on the Ballito teen, and Wall Street.

A six-year-old girl was critically injured in a school stabbing this morning allegedly by a former pupil who also planted a homemade bomb at a Ballito Mall in March. Describing the attack, Willem Ells of the Institute for Security Studies and the Security Initiative for Africa, says: “He was armed with a homemade firearm as well as a kitchen knife with a six-inches long blade. And apparently he discharged the firearm and it did not function. So there could have been some more fatalities there, but then he attacked the little girl.” Els recalls a previous interview in which he spoke to Steyn about how the “Lone Wolf” teenager had “idolised the Columbine shooters in America and that he wanted to do the same in order to cement his name in history…” As for why this teenager was roaming the streets after the failed bomb attack, Els - who is also an explosives experts - charges: “I think we need to ask those questions high up and more questions should be asked because what we gathered is that the police that attended the scene handed the IED back to his parents. That is completely, completely against the law to do that. “

A week after an ANC committee chair floated treason and suggested stripping critics of their citizenship, Corné Mulder joked that the state had better move fast, because his tax return was due. Then he got serious. The Freedom Front Plus leader told Alec Hogg why he believed the threat had no constitutional footing, why he had moved to invoke the GNU's deadlock-breaking mechanism rather than fight it out in a cabinet he called stacked against his party, and why he thought the ANC was misreading Washington. He also told the story of a grandfather sentenced to death for a killing that never happened, set out who he would and wouldn't govern with in Tshwane, Joburg and the Western Cape, and explained why he expected the FF+ to be the good story of the 4 November vote.

The DA finished first in Ekurhuleni, the metro that once carried the ANC over the line in Gauteng, but by less than two percentage points, and with no party anywhere near a majority. Wayne Sussman took Chris Steyn through the first eNCA MarkData metro poll and explained why the East Rand mattered more than many people assumed. In Hermanus, the DA's Western Cape leader Tertuis Simmers told Alec Hogg he would never govern with the Patriotic Alliance. Asked whether the DA took coloured voters for granted, he answered with job-seeker databases, housing lists and a lottery draw for public works jobs, and described the message he believed the PA was selling. Boxer chief executive Marek Masojada described what happened in his stores once grant-week money ran out, and what his shoppers had stopped putting in their trolleys. Reuters closed with oil's jump after attacks on a Saudi airport, a reminder of the fuel costs Masojada said were already squeezing South African households.

Boxer's shoppers fill their pantries in grant week and run short by mid-month. Diesel has pushed up taxi fares, rice is selling for a fifth less than a year ago, and like-for-like sales barely moved. Yet the discounter sold nearly 4% more goods, opened its 600th store and cleared its long-term bank debt. On results day, chief executive Marek Masojada told Alec Hogg what his customers are leaving on the shelf, how AI went from taking meeting minutes to the core of the business in six months, how deals with controlling shareholder Pick n Pay are kept at arm's length, and what stands between Boxer and a thousand stores. He also named the question he expected investors to press hardest.