What a year 2018 has been! Here are the top political stories that rocked SA this year.
1. Jacob Zuma resigned as the president of South Africa on February 14.
His resignation followed days of speculation and pressure from the ANC's national executive committee. Zuma's survival was diminished after Cyril Ramaphosa won the ANC presidency at the party's elective conference in December 2017.
2. Cyril Ramaphosa is sworn in as president of South Africa on February 15, a day after Jacob Zuma resigned.
Ramaphosa arrived with a message of a "New Dawn" which many saw as a step forward in renewing the damage caused by the Zuma presidency. He adopts the phrase "Thuma Mina" (send me), and launches a campaign encouraging citizen volunteerism to address the problems affecting communities in SA
3. The State of the Nation Address (Sona) was postponed for the first time in the country's democratic history.
The address was scheduled to take place on February 8 and was postponed for a week following threats of disruption. Opposition political parties like the EFF had disrupted Zuma's previous addresses for years.
4. In October, the SA Reserve Bank released an explosive report which focused on the Venda Building Society Bank (VBS).
The report was titled "The Great Bank Heist". The report detailed how almost R2 billion was looted from VBS by officials in charge of the bank and by politically connected individuals. A number of depositors lost their funds when the bank collapsed earlier this year. A number of municipalities lost millions which its officials deposited illegally into the bank, this is money these municipalities are unlikely to recover. Political parties such the EFF and the ANC found themselves drawn into the scandals as some of their officials were implicated.
5. Malusi Gigaba resigned as the minister of home affairs on November 13 and days later resigned as an ANC member of Parliament.
His resignation followed calls for him to be fired after the Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane found that he had violated the executive ethics code when he lied under oath in court. The Constitutional Court had also ruled against his appeal of a High Court judgement that found he had lied in the court matter involving the Oppenheimers over the VVIP terminal.
6. In December 2018 a court judgement that is expected to set a precedent, former president Jacob Zuma was ordered to pay back all the money spent by the state to fund his legal bill connected to his corruption charges.
The High Court ruled that the agreement struck between Zuma and former president Thabo Mbeki was illegal. Zuma will now have to fund his own legal costs in future and also find money, speculated to be in the millions, to pay back the state.
7. The much-awaited State Capture Inquiry began in August.
It has seen many former public servants and political heads appear before it. It has unpacked the extent of the Guptas influence on government. The inquiry also saw the downfall of Nhlanhla Nene as the minister of finance after he told the commission that he had met with the Guptas, a contradiction from his earlier remarks, in 2015, where he denied doing so.