a 5 day curfew, 18 people have been killed since the arrest of former president edward castillo 9 days ago. marianna sanchez as more from lima. as you can see, the capital, the center of the capital has been completely militarized. there's police here, and there's our army also taking, protecting some area, some monuments here. and the police is now moving in because there are people, some people fighting behind us. * all this is what you know attentions are very high in the country. ukraine is facing more blackouts after russia 5 more than 70 missiles, damaging par infrastructure. the barrage had 5 cities including cheese and one of the biggest attacks. this is thought of the war. the u. n. and the you are condemning twitter c o l m musk for suspending the accounts of several journalists who are critical of him. the billionaire says the reporter shared private data about him endangering his family to security personnel. but the un mission and molly had been killed in an attack on a police patrol, and tim, back to the regional governor, says one of the assailants and a soldier later killed in an exchange of gunfire. molly's been struggling to contain violence by om groups, which has displaced hundreds of thousands of people. rescue workers in malaysia are searching for several people still missing after a landslide had a campsite killing at least 21 people. it happened in getting highlands close to a popular tourist resort. outside the capital column for officials say the camping ground was operating illegally and demands government is approved. a major increase in defense spending, citing growing military threats from north korea and china. it'll double the budget to 2 percent of g d p by 2027. so those are the headlines and he's continues here on al jazeera after inside storage stage, and thanks so much bye. ah, south africa's a and see is holding a leadership hold during its national conference. it's facing more scandal with president seal rama poser, the center of a cache controversy with elections in 18 months. what's next? for the a and c. this is inside stored. ah hello, welcome to the program on hasn't seek and south africa's governing a n. c party has had a few challenging years. it's last president resigned after facing dozens of corruption charges and our current president sale ram. a poster has been accused of wrongdoing linked to millions of dollars in cash found at his private residence. but as the party prepares to elect its next set of leaders, how will it address the growing economic challenges and high unemployment? we'll put that to our guests in a moment. but 1st this report from from eda miller in johannesburg once celebrated as a liberation party that fought against racial segregation. in recent years of africa, the governing african national congress has been riddled by corruption and criticism . it's a party of respected global and african leaders such as oliver tumble and nobel peace prize laureate nelson mandela. but 28 years into democracy. the a n c facing increasing condemnation for poor leadership and governance since mandela subsequent president tub. when becky and jacob zoom out, were recalled or forced to resign, current president obama poses facing similar pressure in a scandal involving the 5th of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the game farm . the agencies reputation for many is in tatters. cryptography, nepotism, cadbury deployment from the very beginning of b and c government, which then became a norm within the party and within the higher echelons of government. so even when people are found to have sallied the day, the day they record as it were, they still continued to be deployed as members of the a and c and as trusted members of the n c. and that's what led to rampant corruption, a poorly performing economy record high unemployment and energy prices and a multitude of fraud scams of frustrated self africans. the party won the 1st in mccracken collections in 1994 with a 62 percent majority that dropped to 57 percent in the last polls support for the a. c been declined for years. some voters have protested against the amc by saying away from the poll. others have abandoned the governing party and voted for the opposition. the democratic alliance and economic freedom fighters dominate opposition voices while the combined support of almost a 3rd of voters can't be ignored. and a and c parliamentary majority is often protected. it's in battle leaders in c needed money. and the people who supported the ends, he saw money as being something that they could get their hands on. so the solution was you could relatively easily do what you wanted and get what ever tended you wanted, provided you gave to caesar a portion of it and kept a portion for yourself. and the rock began thus, this weekend, the party will hold an elective conference to choose a president and others junior figures support his hope. the new leadership will revive the party. but for many of africans it's the same old faces with the same old scandals. for me, the miller ultra 0 john is bug. ah, we did reach out to the a and c for someone to come on the program, but nobody was made available by the time we went to. let's bring in our guest now in cape town, moloney wood. she is a political analyst and form a member of parliament for the a and c under president nelson mandela, and a former ambassador to ireland. and janice, beg, malesky, and becky, chairman of the south african institute of international affairs, joined us. and also in cape town, we have cat, i'm sing executive director of corruption, watch south africa. good to have you with us. so maloney forward, let me start with you with all of the scandal there is surrounding the a and c and president ram, a post. what do you expect to come out of this congress? what do you hope will happen? and all those 2 things the same. thank you very much for having me. and i don't actually expect anything that dramatic, at this stage it, i mean, the big question for this conference is, is whether i'm, a poser will be re elected for a 2nd term. and at this stage, nothing seems to indicate that he won't get that. so i think he's fairly safe and then the interesting thing is then going to be who else is going to be in the top 6 of their nationally than their, their office bearers of the amc am and whether they are supportive of him. and, and this is of course important because it gives us a sense of who, whether i'm a pause, i will continue to be president and also for how long he will be continued to be president. i certainly think that with all the problems, all the mistakes, all the scandals as you rightly point out. and despite all of that, i still believe that at this stage from oppose a is the best of all the candidates available inside the a and c. and the question now and he remains then for how long would he then still remain president? and at which stage would he am hopefully in a peaceful and orchestrated manner, hand over to a presumably pull my should delay, who will be the deputy president according to everything we can see at the stage. malesky. and becky's or how you see it. yes, i tend to think that is correct, but so robin will get re elected as president of the n c. and he will continue as president of the conscience. but of course, they are still investigations that have been carried out by state of guns above the foreign currency veterans found on his private farm. so obviously if as the he's found guilty, let's go. you cannot continue as president. i think though, there are many people who can replace them. i don't think anyone in this world is cannot be placed. can i'm saying let's, let's pick up on those. the investigations such as they are that are going on around ram opposed to right now. and this is scandal over his over his finances. do you expect those investigations to be to be credible and to lead to anything? i've got no, we got no reason to believe that they wouldn't be credible. i mean, the 1st hurdle was an independent panel that was appointed by parliament to to assess whether the president grammar pause add a case to answer and should face an impeachment inquiry. that report came out and said, yes, he did have a case to answer. but parliament voted down the, the acceptance of that report and then to that sort of closed down the impeachment process. but there is a ongoing police investigation. there's an ongoing investigation from the south african, all good person, the public protector. and you know, these investigations could, could uncover a criminal wrongdoing, certainly ethical, wrong doing. and, you know, we'll scrutinize the president's conduct. so there's still the other still a little bit of a gamut that he has to, that he has to go through it. you know, to about these, you know, quite serious allegations that emerged about his private business dealings. ah maloney, there is a question here as to whether the a and c with all of this allegations of corruption that of it's been swelling around and not just over the current president, but his predecessor and his predecessor before that there is a sense that the a and c, a has lost this way to the extent that it faces a, a credible threat of losing power. is that how you see it? while undoubtedly the agency has lost a lot of support even in terms of their own membership, as was just revealed in the last few hours that their membership went down from. i think 1.4000005 years ago to about 600000. now currently. so undoubtedly the amc 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 general election. which as i said has been 2020 full. and the, you know, and there, there are lots of pic, ations and thought of the reason, of course, why i don't believe the agency will be totally annihilated. they will still be the majority party. the only question is, you know, how much will it be? how much will they have? would it be under 50 percent? and if it is under 50 percent of the support was how far i'm the 50. and part of the reason, as i thought it saying that i don't believe that there will be totally annihilated and will remain the majority party is because opposition is extremely fragmented. and weak and thus, even though with all the frustrations, all the lack of service delivery, the problems we have in terms of electricity provision at the moment, that corruption issues as you right to point out. all of those things. yes, they will make a date in the amc support. the only question is how much. and the interesting thing that we saw with our local government elections about 2 years ago is that the traditional agency support as did not move to another party to a large extent. they were some exceptions, but very little they, they actually just didn't come out to vote. so and that impact, of course, quite a lot on all proportional proportional voting system that we have in this country. so to ensure you say, yes, they have definitely lots support. i'm sure this will be reflected in the national election unless they can series people. they act together and the next 2 years or so. but i do believe that they'll stay the majority g. the only question is whether it will be an outright majority over 50 percent malesky and becky given the, the dominance that the amc has had in south african politics in the, in the post apartheid era. how much of a den do you think this will this will put in their popularity and in the election? 2024 election going forward? well, the day, the 2024 elections are still a long way away, up to 18 months away. so i think it's a bit, this is a bit premature to to predict election outcomes that are coming in 18 months time. yes, there is the largest part of africa. but at the end of the day, it's whether it gets 50 percent plus one for it to rule the country and its own. or it was me. it was me. well, i was need cooperation most to the country. what has been happening in the last 5 years as a point about it is that they say the traditional vote will be an see a big part of it is in black working in the major metropolitan and metro polls are not a staying at home and not voting for the agency, they are not voting for the survivor. but in that situation, at the opposition benefits and our electrical system. cat, i'm saying if we talk more specifically about this particular scandal itself, be care the so called cache and the sofa scandal as it, as it's been called does, does the president's explanation for the stand up to scrutiny as knowing what, knowing what, what you know right now, well up to this point, the president really hasn't given a full public disclosure about what happened. so we have sort of piece, meal pieces of information, representations of, of the president story as were presented to the independent panel. so, you know, it really remains to be seen and exactly what happened. what did the president know? was there an attempted cover up? you know, i mean, i think it is important to note that the allegations you know, of this matter emerge from an implicated a spy boss. someone that was implicated quite heavily in the state capture commission of inquiry. so the origins of the allegations come from a suspect source, but you know, we do know that the president has not fully divested himself from his personal business dealings. and there are basic facts that we have in place, such as the fact that the president received law a large sum of cash in for in a foreign denomination, which he didn't bank, you know. and that really is a red flag for the types of corruption challenges that we face in south africa. challenges around a, an economy which is vulnerable to things like money laundering and elicit financial flows. and you know, the types of allegations, the presidents facing really are the types of red flags that you see in a scenario where, you know, almost where you're, you're looking at kind of an organized, organized crime type of scenario. so the president must overcome these issues. i share the concerns of the fellow panelists and terms of the bonus, the days of the other leadership within the and see who, who may come in in this president wake. so yeah, i mean, i think the amc will have a tough case to sell, but the general public ultimately about it stewardship in the fight against corruption, maloney fur with what's your take on, on the specific allegations here and the president's defense of it. i think they can be no doubt as kermit greatly say that the initial and complaint and allegations are politically driven. there is no question about that. but the question then arises, all the questions arise to what extent. and there was some little bits of truth in the, in these allegations. and we'll have to wait and see, you know, if everybody has mentioned that they are still ongoing investigation from also from our revenue service and our reserve bank to, to check whether they have been any big mistake made. and our president have said that if he any charges laid against him, he will step aside. he will revive and i do actually believe that. so we really have to wait and see. i don't know, my late fee will agree with me on this. but personally, i do not believe that this is a president that is inherently corrupt. i also don't think he's stupid, that he will deliberately have made, you know, hidden money from the reserve bank or hidden money from our revenue services. he is rich enough. the amount is not that significant within he's context of wealth. and so i, they might have been in my view, they might have been some mistakes of oversight and of negligence. but i'm not, i'm yet to be convinced that this was a deliberate attempt by the president to commit fraud or to and to, to come to commit a crime by not declaring money or not banking it in time. well, let's say let's he does agree with you what was your take on this moleck seat? well, i mean, trying to think it was money. well, for him it was probably going. ready to the a and see how we ended up when he was fond of those issues. i don't know but i would rather not speculate on this matter, but because we just don't have enough information. that is the sudanese gentleman who says he bought a wild buffaloes from the president's farm for $580000.00 us dollars is still not clear how he knew that the president what far one, felling 20 buffaloes. and it's still not clear how much. how did you know that, how much to buffalos what we're going to do so so for so this my own suspicion that it had, and the buffalo, by the way, which were bored nearly 3 years ago, still on the president's farm. they have not been taken to, to sit down all way gentlemen. wanted to take this buffalo's to so you spend $400.00 to $580000.00 buying animals. admittedly, mister came the students called mr. king. he said to me as well, for $580000.00. that is p now. so i guess it doesn't matter. that is buffalo still in south africa 3 years later. but then why go to the trouble of buying them if you are not going to take them away? so, you know, i, like i said, i think the story for the investigators and until the president and the investigators tell us what the real story. i think we can spend all day speculating. let me get your take on this kid i'm saying, regardless of what happens out of this particular investigation there, all those who say that over the years, the a and c corrupt corruption, allegations of corruption have dog d. a and see to such an extent now that it's, it's become almost the norm is, is this something that the can really affect them long term? this is something that they really, they really need to shake off. yeah, absolutely. i mean, you know, the n c has been the governing party since 1994. when tell africa at its 1st a democratic elections. it oversaw the establishment of the constitution and democratic governance in south africa. but since that time we've seen the kind of the creeping shadow of endemic corruption, we saw grand corruption very early on in south africa. democracy with that with the arm steel. and then we saw sort of at least 10 years of state capture for which we've just completed a long traditional commission of inquiry. all of that happened on the n c's watch. if you look into the details of those on the commission's report and the state capture the complicity of the a and c, and it's not just jacob zoom, it's a leadership prior to jacob zoom. and we've seen, you know, significant gram corruption scandals since jacobs in the left the scene. so this is the a and c is legacy. this is what the n c goes to the polls on. and, you know, we've already spoken about other issues such is, you know, declining a services and the challenges of building a, a capable developmental state. so, you know, it's feeding ground for opposition parties to, to, to, to put a different case to the, to the electorate. but as, as the, you know, the panelists have said, the likelihood is that the n c will still remain a majority party, possibly below 50 percent. and we could be moving into an, an era of coalition government. and perhaps that, that, that will be sufficient to, to shift the political narrative, you know, towards a more kind of coherent, appointed and dedicated fight against corruption. up to this point, we're really been dealing with the wake of state capture and trying to revitalize institutions like the revenue service and the prosecuting authority that we're really hobbled. so yeah, it's, it's a window of opportunity, but all still needs to happen. let's talk a little bit more then about some of the, some of the issues beyond corruption, then maloney, fer, would the south africa is facing some real problems right now. as a battles with sore and commodity prices to fall out of the rushes war and ukraine power cuts for the dense to and economy the still reeling from from the cobra. 1900 pandemic. is the government properly equipped to deal with all of this? is it handling it in the right way? i believe it is fair to say, i think the one thing that we mustn't the lake to say is that yes, they've been corruption in south africa a large scale. nobody can deny that. and but prior to the he is, i mean, even the state and so, and they were investigations into that and it was exposed and it was dealt with. well, some of it still being dealt with under there's, in my years, of course corruption did becoming demick and it wasn't treated correctly. and that wasn't prosecuted to the extent that it should have. and it grew to a point which was totally unacceptable. but since i'm opposed, i've been there to has at least been attempt from his side and from the amc side, even though there was a lot of pushback as well from 2nd coat as those who were involved to really try and cut down and corruption. and to really deal with the issues. so i just think it's important to mention that in particularly to a foreign audience is not always aware of the detail, the minute shows what's going on in south africa in terms of the challenges that face south africa. and they are enormous, they will always enormous and they haven't reduced in size. they most probably have grown for example, one of the biggest problems we currently have as impacting very negatively on our economy and on just social and economic welfare is in general is of course our problems with our electricity providers. and those are not problems that are going to go away quickly and they are largely through the making of, of the a and c government. and so is the a and c government equipped to, to deal with it. and it's a bit of a yes, no answer for me. i don't know if anybody else is much better equipped to deal with it. but the challenges i huge is going to take time and, and it's not something that's going to pause in the next few years for us and south africa. alright, well just briefly malesky and becky in the, in the less than a minute we got left big problems in south africa right now beyond just allegations of corruption is you have confidence that this government can deal with it. well, the government has been in power since 1994 and with that 144 percent unemployment of africa and has been and as i mentioned, the electricity supply which is the backbone of employment creation. it has been erotic for the last 15 years. the government has not been able to solve the problem, so they answer for me. no, i don't expect the, the government will be able to solve the major economic problems that are faces in the company. 10 years since it couldn't solve them in the last, merely put it on that. now we're going to have to leave it. thanks very much to all 3 of you. melanie, forward, malesky and becky and kat am saying thanks so much for being on inside story. and thank you, as always for watching, remember you see this problem again? 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