February 8, Johannesburg, In a significant speech to the legislature on Thursday, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa highlighted the accomplishments of his party over the previous 30 years, but he provided little information about how he intended to handle the nation’s pressing issues.
Coming into its most competitive campaign to date is Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) party, which has ruled since Nelson Mandela led it to victory in the first post-apartheid democratic election in 1994.
It will need to select a coalition party in order to maintain power if it is to lose its absolute parliamentary majority in a vote that is anticipated to take place between May and August, according to numerous polls.
The most industrialized country in Africa is experiencing record power outages and a logistics crisis at rail and port operator Transnet, which are choking business and slowing growth. Ramaphosa mentioned these issues in his yearly State of the Nation Address. However, he offered few fresh ideas.
Millions of South Africans’ lives have been changed over the past thirty years by providing for their basic needs and opening up opportunities that were previously unattainable, according to Ramaphosa.
He claimed that the ANC had successfully led South Africa through difficult times like the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread corruption, and that the previous five years had been a period of “rebuilding and renewal”.
The ANC came to power as the liberation movement that fought racist rule in South Africa. But many of today’s young voters were born after freedom was won and have grown up instead in an era marked by disappointment and disillusionment with the country’s leaders.
South Africa remains among the most unequal countries in the world with a gaping wealth disparity. Repeated corruption scandals have tarnished the party and undermined its moral authority in the eyes of many. The unemployment rate is at its highest ever, with more than 30% of South Africans out of work.
The type of institutionalized political corruption that typified Ramaphosa’s predecessor Jacob Zuma’s tenure is known as “state capture.” However, a few lawmakers made fun of him when he bragged about his combating corruption. In 2022, Ramaphosa made it through his own corruption scandal.
He made a policy news statement in which he said, without providing more information, that the state would expand and enhance the social grants that it had instituted during the COVID pandemic.
Leading opposition Democratic Alliance party member John Steenhuisen referred to the speech as “a laundry list of recycled projects and promises that have been made since 2018 that haven’t come to fruition.”
by Sam Mchunu
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