Justice Malala on CNN

Tonight, February 24th, South Africa's prison system was featured on CNNi's (DStv 401) flagship show, Amanpour. The segment started with CNN's South African based correspondent, David McKenzie, going inside Pollsmoor prison, speaking to inmates about conditions there. Hd also spoke to officials about the prison system.

This was then followed by a live discussion with Justice Malala, who was in Johannesburg and is the host of eNCA's The Justice Factor, and Peter Hain, a South African political analyst.

Malala was listed as being a 'South African Political Analyst.' Something I found eyebrow raising from Malala's commentary is that he openly supported the #ZumaMustFall movement, which is strange from someone that is expected to host a down the middle politcal chat show every week on eNCA, without ever mentioning that he supports one side more than the other. How do you conduct an impartial interview with an ANC official after that?

Malala was joined by Peter Hain, who was in CNN's London studio and spoke about how the ANC has betrayed Mandela's legacy.

Both analysts displayed somewhat of an optimism for South Africa's future. Malala felt that race will continue to be an issue going forward considering that the country is made up of both black and white individuals, not a colonist that left the country.

At the end of the segment, Christiane noted that the show had reached out to the South African government to comment, but was told no one was available.

You can watch the full segment at amanpour.com

[As most long form South African features on the show, I found the segment to be a bit too negative and exaggerated. I also don't get where this segment came from just so randomly. There were other more contemporary issues to discuss, like the economy and the budget which was tabled to there, or the student movement, which included the event sat UFS this past Monday, but they focused on the prison system for some reason ]