April 22, 2014
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Motshabi Hoaeane.
Making headlines:

Public Protector Thuli Madonsela probes the use of food parcels for votes.

A poll reveals that South Africa's ruling ANC is set to win a two-thirds majority in the national elections.

And, Libya's constitution-drafting body starts its work.
 

 

Public Protector Thuli Madonsela has received three complaints against the African National Congress allegedly using state resources for its election campaign.

"The Public Protector received three complaints – one from the [Democratic Alliance] and two from Agang SA," said spokesperson Oupa Segalwe.

He said the Public Protector was at this stage investigating whether there were grounds to launch a full investigation.

A Sunday newspaper reported that the DA was set to take the ANC and the South African Social Security Agency to court over the alleged distribution of food parcels at ANC election rallies.

 

The African National Congress (or ANC) is on course to win nearly a two-thirds majority in the May 7 elections, a poll showed on Sunday, confounding analysts who had predicted a fall in support for South Africa's ruling party 20 years after the end of apartheid.

The survey was conducted on April 4, after Public Protector Thuli Madonsela published a damning report into a $21-million state-funded security upgrade to President Jacob Zuma's private home.

The poll said the ANC was likely to win 65.5% of the vote, only a shade lower than the 65.9% it won at the last national elections in 2009.

While overall support for the ANC remained largely unaffected by the Nkandla

scandal, the poll said Zuma's personal approval ratings had slipped to 62% from 65% before Madonsela delivered her findings.

 

A special body to draft a new constitution for Libya convened in the volatile east on Sunday, a milestone in the bumpy transformation of the North African country since the 2011 ouster of Muammar Gaddafi.

The 47 elected committee members gathered in the city of Bayda east of Benghazi, in the building that housed parliament when the country gained independence in 1951.

The body, drawn equally from all regions, will have 120 days to draft a constitution, though analysts expect the process to take much longer given growing chaos as well as tribal and political divisions.

"The constitution should be finished in eight months," Mohamed Al-Tumi, a member from the capital Tripoli, said after a brief ceremony attended by tribal and community leaders.
 

Also making headlines:


Ex-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and leftist Hamdeen Sabahi are expected to run for the Egyptian presidency.

And, gunmen kill an Egyptian intelligence officer and a policeman on a road outside Cairo. 
 

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.