- President Cyril Ramaphosa made much of South Africa celebrating 30 years of democracy in his State of the Nation Address on Thursday.
- He admitted that there have been “challenges” and said state capture was perhaps the greatest challenge.
- Opposition parties were thoroughly unimpressed and accused Ramaphosa of being out of touch with ordinary South Africans’ realities.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s attempts to highlight the gains of 30 years of democracy in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday evening had opposition leaders accusing him of “living in a dream world” and being “Cyril in Wonderland”.
It is an election year, after all.
This was evidenced by the tenor of Ramaphosa’s speech, reflecting on glories past and minimising the governing ANC’s role in the “challenges” facing the country, and the opposition’s sharp criticism laced with an expectancy of change through the ballot box.
As expected, Ramaphosa made much of the fact that South Africa is celebrating 30 years of democracy after the fall of apartheid.
“Over the last three decades, we have been on a journey, striving together to achieve a new society – a national democratic society. We have cast off the tyranny of apartheid and built a democratic state based on the will of the people,” said Ramaphosa.
“We have established strong institutions to protect the fundamental freedoms and human rights of all people. We have transformed the lives of millions of South Africans, providing the necessities of life and creating opportunities that never existed before.
“We have enabled a diverse economy whose minerals, agricultural products and manufactured goods reach every corner of the world, while creating jobs in South Africa.
“As a country, we have returned to the community of nations, extending a hand of peace and friendship to all countries and all peoples.
“Just as we cannot deny the progress South Africans have made over the last 30 years, nor should we diminish the severe challenges that we continue to face.”
The challenges Ramaphosa ascribed to “events beyond our borders”, like financial crises and the Covid-19 pandemic, have held back our progress.
“There have also been times when events at home have shaken the foundations of our constitutional democracy,” said Ramaphosa.
“Perhaps the greatest damage was caused during the era of state capture,” said Ramaphosa, without mentioning that he was the deputy president and head of the ANC’s deployment committee when state capture reached its zenith.
“The effects of state capture continue to be felt across society, from the shortage of freight locomotives to crumbling public services, from the poor performance of our power stations to failed development projects.”
Despite several members of his party implicated in the Zondo Commission’s report still serving in his executive, Ramaphosa claimed that his “first priority was to put a decisive stop to state capture, to dismantle the criminal networks within the state and to ensure that perpetrators faced justice”.
He also claimed that “great progress” has been made in bringing state capturers to book.
Ramaphosa made much of improved living conditions and economic prospects for the majority of South Africans since 1994, and said that his administration over the “last five years has been a time of recovery, rebuilding and renewal”.
“We have come a long way in the last five years. We have built on the achievements of the last three decades and we have taken decisive measures to address the immediate challenges facing South Africans,” Ramaphosa said.
But opposition leaders weren’t buying what he was selling, with the general slant of their criticism being that Ramaphosa was out of touch with the reality of everyday life in South Africa.
DA leader John Steenhuisen described Ramaphosa’s SONA as “Cyril in Wonderland” to News24 after the address.
He added:
The South Africa that he painted today, is a very different picture to the South Africa in which most people live. Seventy-five people murdered every day. Gender-based violence on the increase. The highest youth unemployment rate in the world. A load shedding crisis that is getting worse, not getting better. These are the realities. A cost of living crisis where childhood malnutrition are [sic] stalking the country. These are all serious indicators that the country is moving in the wrong direction, and a very, very far cry from the Pollyanna picture the president tried to paint this evening.
IFP leader Velenkosini Hlabisa said SONA wasn’t inspiring at all.
“It was claiming empty victories, even where he was speaking of successes, he was speaking of things [that] when you look at it closely, there isn’t sufficient substance.”
He said Ramaphosa was even laughing at himself when what he was saying wasn’t reflected in what was happening on the ground.
“He spoke about state capture, that they are doing everything it takes to deal with state capture. State capture is a shame by the ANC. We haven’t seen senior people from the ruling party being taken to task for state capture. What he was saying, he himself even laughed,” said Hlabisa.
“The president knows he avoided the issue of Phala Phala because he knows it implicates him and the ruling party avoided taking proper action to probe the matter.”
FF Plus leader Pieter Groenewald didn’t think Ramaphosa painted an accurate picture of the country.
“In fact, it is quite clear that he is living in a dream world,” he said. “He is telling stories that is [are] actually nothing else than fables.”
He said Ramaphosa had told the country that through good governance over the past 30 years, the ANC government had created job and opportunities for young people, but yet there was a high level of youth unemployment.
“I also want to use the example of, he said that 95% of households have running water in the houses. The reality is, yes, 95% of households maybe have a tap in their house, but there is no running water in it, because of the collapse of the infrastructure.”
He described Ramaphosa’s administration as a disaster.
“It’s clear that he doesn’t know what we know. And we as ordinary people in South Africa know that there are hardships, it’s difficult for the people to survive, in terms of employment, in terms of personal budgets and everything.”
ATM leader Vuyolwethu Zungula also wasn’t convinced that Ramaphosa had painted a realistic picture of South Africa.
“And he conveniently tried to make a comparison [with] 1994 during the first democratic elections, during the end of apartheid – that was the state of the country versus now,” said Zungula.
“But he does not take into account that it is his State of the Nation Address; he was delivering his eighth State of the Nation Address, and he should have been able to say when he took over, this was the number of people living in poverty, now the number has gone down. But he can’t do that, because all of the indicators paint a picture that he has failed and he has led the country towards a downward spiral.”
In a statement, ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba said South Africans would be forgiven for believing they lived in a different country from Ramaphosa.
“The SONA was a political sleight of hand, where Ramaphosa appropriated the progress of the ruling party made under presidents Mandela and Mbeki while distancing himself from its failures and corruption during President Zuma’s state capture era,” he said.
“South Africans struggling with unemployment, rampant crime, and continuous rolling blackouts know the truth that belies this rhetoric. The reality outside the Ramaverse is that the president’s superficial, low-impact interventions have done little to demonstrate real accountability for corruption, address rolling blackouts, improve educational outcomes, or grow our job-killing economy.”
Another leader of a party not represented in Parliament, Rise Mzansi’s Songezo Zibi, said: “Ramaphosa failed to rise to the occasion by not speaking to the issues that face the people today, and the kind of future they deserve”.
“Instead, South Africans were subjected to a lesson in history, which [they] know very well. According to the outgoing president, all of the country’s problems are due to external factors rather than the political negligence of the ANC. Ramaphosa is equally responsible for the dire state of the country because of his proximity to former president Jacob Zuma as his lieutenant, and during his six wasted years as the occupant of the west wing of the Union Buildings.”
Taking a more measured approach, was GOOD secretary-general and MP Brett Herron.
He said Ramaphosa had taken the opportunity to reconnect South Africa to the nostalgia of 1994, and while there was no denying that there had been progress since then, there were still too many people not enjoying the fruits of democracy.
© News24