The US political free-for-all includes court trials and political battles; South Africa wrestles with a new political reality; and in several other nations, citizens judge the future of their national leadership.

In South Africa and the US, the past few days have been filled with all manner of "miracles and wonders" as their political processes have kept many on the edges of their seats. In both, much remains to play out before there is anything approaching political clarity. And that political clarity is just the tip of the iceberg. What effect the elections will have on all manner of domestic and foreign questions also remains unclear.

In the US, the unending soap opera of the life of Donald Trump has had yet another script rewrite. This time it has been the outcome of his trial for concocting fraudulent business records to hide payments to a porn star -- Stormy Daniels -- just before the 2016 presidential election. This hush money was meant to obscure Trump's behaviour to positively affect his chances in the 2016 election.

The seven-week trial in New York City on state (not federal government) charges brought by District Attorney Alvin Bragg relied on testimony from Trump's former bagman and attorney Michael Cohen, who made the payments and was then reimbursed from Trump business accounts fraudulently showing the payments were for legal work.

But beyond Cohen's testimony, there was...