It's not clear to me if Lawrie's comments regarding a "shut down" are a threat or a prediction, or exactly what he means by a shutdown. If it's pulling the plug on the registry, that could, I suppose, be grounds for saying he's not serving the community adequately and there must be a redelegation?

South Africa's Independent Online now reports that current .za administrator Mike Lawrie denies that he would shut down .za. Also see their earlier coverage here and here. Assuming he had said or intended to shut it down, I think what was meant was that he wouldn't turn over the .za database to the South African government without ICANN approval. As ICANN took the Australian government and otherwise somewhat tepid (and allegedly trumped up) public support to take .au away from Robert Elz, I don't think it too likely that Lawrie could have counted on ICANN support. I also suspect that South Africa could (and from the quotes of government officials in the above articles, would) have taken action to obtain the database.

I don't know what it is that is infecting these southern climes, but I predict it will soon spread northward. -g