All technological breakthroughs start with a small "elite". Think about cellphones, for example. Now just about everyone has one. The same will happen to innovations such as Twitter.

We will see at the end of the day. I don't like to speculate. Our goal in this election is to do better than in the last one.

For the ANC to cry 'sabotage' the night before crucial local government elections shows just how desperate they are to disguise their incompetence and mismanagement.

Perhaps because the challenges we face in our country are so daunting, we are also tempted by shortcuts. We tell ourselves that if we invent a new acronym, or write a new empowerment charter, we can avoid some of the back-breaking work that sustained progress requires

The best tribute we can pay Madiba is to ensure that our political debate focuses on issues of how best we can ensure that each South African child, whatever the circumstances of their birth, inherits freedom they can use.

Between Twitter and Facebook I have nearly 70,000 followers, so my colleagues receive the responses. They show some of them to me, and I am always interested to read what people have to say. I filter all the information that reaches me, from letters in the newspaper, to conversations. There are many influences that shape my decisions, and often people on Twitter are thinking along the same lines as I do on an issue.

Connecting with people is an important part of my role [as a politician].