2026 Begins Without Guardrails: Venezuela, Trump and a World Coming Apart

Hosted by Justice Malala and veteran political commentator Mondli Makhanya, the show cuts through the noise with insight, honesty, and the kind of chemistry you only get when hosts actually love the conversation. No scripts. No spin. Just two voices breaking down South Africa’s political reality in a way that’s sharp, accessible, and unexpectedly entertaining.

In this episode of This Is Politics, Justice Malala and Mondli Makhanya interrogate the dramatic seizure of Venezuela’s president and what it reveals about a rapidly changing global order. Is this law enforcement, abduction, or something far more dangerous? And what happens when the world’s most powerful country decides that rules no longer apply? The conversation moves from Venezuela to Donald Trump’s return to hard imperial power, the erosion of international law, and the uncomfortable reality that South Africa’s leaders seem more animated by global outrage than by the deep crises at home unemployment, violence, poverty and stagnation. This is a wide-ranging, serious discussion about power, hypocrisy, global instability and the choices facing South Africa in a volatile year.

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