Under President Ramaphosa, South Africa has seen economic stagnation, rising corruption, and increasing divisions.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Picture: Jacques Nelles
It is said that it takes one rotten apple to spoil the barrel.
In South Africa’s case, we have more than just one rotten apple in the decaying and filthy barrel – we also have a lot of bruised and conflicted apples.
This barrel-damaging approach is led by President Cyril Ramaphosa who has shown that he has no interest in our country and its people.
His interest lies in antagonising the country’s allies and trading partners while discarding and trampling on the ideals and hopes of the people he claims to represent.
As a president, he has worked hard to divide the nation according to race and gender, forever playing his worn-out race card.
With his additional endeavours to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, he has sacrificed meritocracy for cadre wokeness.
He is the most divisive president South Africa has had since democracy.
And its wealthiest, something no-one seems to question as he was never a true businessman but a beneficiary of the ANC’s BEE policies.
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He never started, nor ran, a successful company – he just took from others that were doing so.
There is no denying that under Ramaphosa, the government is more corrupt and leaderless than ever before.
Yet it clings to its antiquated revolutionary ideals, disregards its citizens and their anguish and increases its dysfunctionality daily.
Who can forget that our president was the chair of MTN when it functioned as force multiplier for the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)?
This action, knowingly or unknowingly, aided terrorist attacks in Iran and Afghanistan between 2011 and 2016, which resulted in numerous Americans being wounded or killed.
A US lawsuit in 2023, stated that MTN did “business with Iranian terrorist front companies that financed deadly terrorist attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan”.
The case alleged the technology MTN provided to the IRGC was unique as it helped their proxy forces monitor American movements, avoid detection, clandestinely communicate, build and detonate more effective bombs and develop more lethal rockets.
How can a chair of a company be unaware of such activities? And where else has he followed a similar playbook?
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No doubt the president will take to the podium and vehemently deny it and claim it to be another racist colonial plot to discredit his leadership and legacy.
If any other citizen in SA was caught with hundreds of thousands of dollars stuffed in his sofa, there would be legal repercussions. But not our president.
As the South African National Defence Force’s commander-in-chief, he oversaw their great defeat at the hands of a rebel group in Democratic Given that he has chased away investors and destroyed the economy, who will pay for this new social welfare state he so desires?
His intent to marginalise business communities with his expanded B-BBEE has wrecked the economy and hampered genuine black entrepreneurs. It has destroyed the entrepreneurial spirit in black society.
Similarly, he has killed off non-black businesses with his policies of exclusion and marginalisation.
This is the same president who wants to decolonise everything, yet runs to those who colonised to beg for money under the guise of “development”.
This is proof that his hypocrisy has no limits. His failure as a president has given rise to numerous whispers within his own party to oust him before he can do more damage.
Names such as Paul Mashatile, Fikile Mbalula, Senzo Mchunu and Jeff Radebe are apparently among those being mentioned in the growing anti-CR group.
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What is clear is that the people must stand together and cast out the rotten apple.
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