President Cyril Ramaphosa delivering his 2024 Sona address. Image: GCIS.
Leaders from various political parties have reacted to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (Sona), saying he is disconnected from reality if he truly believes that South African children have thrived since the inception of democracy 30 years ago.
Many specifically cited the Tintswalo analogy, where he recounted the story of a young girl whose life was purportedly transformed by the ANC’s efforts over the past three decades to improve the circumstances of black people in South Africa.
RISE Mzansi National Leader national leader, Songezo Zibi, said that President Cyril 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.
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“While President Ramaphosa tried to draw parallels between himself and the founding President of our Democracy, Ramaphosa is in fact closer to President Jacob Zuma. It was 9 wasted years, followed by 6 more wasted years.
“It is clear that South Africa needs new leaders with the answers and solutions to the issues that oppress families and communities every day.
Meanwhile, the Congress of South African Trade Unions championed President Ramaphosa’s address, stating that Ramaphosa’s tasks have been the most difficult of any President since our democratic state was born in 1994.
The union said that Ramaphosa inherited a state devastated by a decade of state capture and corruption.
Cosatu said it believes that President Cyril Ramaphosa has since tackled significant challenges, including state capture and the Covid-19 pandemic, by effectively removing corrupt officials, managing the pandemic with labour and business cooperation, and implementing measures such as releasing funds from the Unemployment Insurance Fund, reducing load shedding, and addressing unemployment through programs like the Presidential Employment Stimulus.
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader, John Steenhuisen said that none of the promises made by President Cyril Ramaphosa in his last five SONA speeches have ever been kept, and that “not a single piece of pragmatic, workable legislation has been tabled at the National Assembly to realise Ramaphosa’s ‘New Dawn’.”
“President Ramaphosa’s recital of the story of Tintswalo, the child of democracy, makes glaring omissions of the ANC-created struggles that many in her generation now face.
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“In South Africa today, there is a 70% chance that Tintswalo will be unemployed. There is a 50% chance that she is one of the 30 million people who live below the poverty line.
“Any day, Tintswalo could become one of the 75 people murdered, or one of the 115 women who are raped or subjected to gender-based violence each and every day.
“Should she get sick, Tintswalo may die in a state hospital that has no electricity due to load shedding. And when she opens her taps, there is no longer any water coming out. The fact of the matter is that Tintswalo’s hopes and dreams as a child of democracy have been stolen by the ANC,” Steehuisen said.
President of ActionSA, Herman Mashaba, said that listening to tonight’s Sona, South Africans could be forgiven for thinking they live in a different country.
“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, ” Mashaba said.
“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,” he added.
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