Sona 2025: Ramaphosa’s speech ‘must outline the priorities of GNU’

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s state of the nation address (Sona) will either expose the cracks in the government of national unity (GNU) or reveal a strong consensus among the coalition partners.

This is the view of political analyst Prof Theo Neethling from the University of the Free State.

Neethling said he expects Ramaphosa to discuss implementing controversial laws that are causing tension between the ANC, its coalition partners, and now with the United States government.

“The one issue is implementing National Health Insurance [NHI]. It would be interesting if he said something about the Bela [Basic Education Laws Amendment] and Expropriation Acts.

What is expected of Ramaphosa’s Sona speech

“The NHI is a major issue in the GNU and he will find a clever way to sideline it.”

Neethling said that despite the ANC’s responsibility for the GNU presidency, it is important to consider input from the junior partners in the GNU.

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“This is going to be a GNU Sona; in other words, it must outline the priorities of the GNU.

“The question is, to what extent will this be an inclusive Sona? So, to what extent will the ANC include the ideological angles of all the other parties,” he said.

He expected Ramaphosa to deal with economic growth, unemployment, development, and basic service delivery issues.

Economic growth, unemployment, development, and basic service delivery issues

“The president must say something about local government where things are bad, and these things bring a lack of legitimacy for government.

“The issues here range from electricity and water supply, which has become an issue. And then there is the safety issue because many South Africans are frustrated with crime,” Neethling said.

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Political economy analyst Daniel Silke said Ramaphosa was likely to boast about some improvements in certain sectors of the broader economy and talk about the potential of South Africa’s growth rate.

However, the analyst did not think anything is going to change in the foreseeable future.

“If you look at the broad projections for South Africa over the next decade or so, there is no indication that current policies or as would be claimed by Ramaphosa in the Sona, will really dramatically add to our growth rate,” said Silke.

‘We need serious policy review’

“We need serious policy review in South Africa, but that’s really not forthcoming because of political constraints.”

Silke said other areas impeding reforms by the ANC were the 2026 local government elections and likely leadership changes in the ANC 2027 national conference.

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“The ANC is simply too scared to take too many controversial policy changes away from centralised planning and away from the National Democratic Revolution style of thinking,” he said.

On global leadership, Roxanna Naidoo, head of global strategy at Latita Africa, said both South Africa’s presidency hosting of the G20 summit later this year and country’s role in Brics were bound to project the country as a capable world leader.

“This gives us the opportunity to shape global policy, while promoting South Africa’s reputation on the international stage, and the president is sure to touch on how this will benefit the nation,” Naidoo said.

SA’s G20 presidency

South Africa assumed the G20 presidency from Brazil late last year and would hand over the position to US President Donald Trump during the December summit.

Ramaphosa would obviously also touch on the controversial land expropriation issue, the ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo where 14 South African National Defence Force members were killed in battle, and expand on the planned National Dialogue envisaged for mid-year.

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