Although they do their utmost to impress, members of parliament will take a back seat as all eyes fixate on President Jacob Zuma tonight.
Rising unemployment, diminishing electricity supply, economic decline, the strike in the platinum sector and implementation of the National Development Plan are topics expected to be covered in Zuma’s address, which will be televised on SABC 2 at 7pm.
After having been absent from the public spotlight for more than a week, however, Zuma needs to show South Africans that he is up to the task of leading the country for a second term.
The buzz on the twitter hashtag #SONA makes it clear that South Africans hope the president’s speech will deal more with current issues and less with the same-old rhetoric. Some lobby groups have even tweeted their suggested additions to the agenda. Predictably, tweets touching on ‘the good’ of the address were outnumbered by tweets about ‘the bad’. Many were just plain ugly.
The good:
@mthombothi said “Zuma delivers SONA this evening but many will be taking a closer look not in what he says but in how he looks,” and asks, “Is he ok?”
@DanielSilke believes “Zuma can still succeed in SONA by creating a sentiment shift in re-affirming the need for the State, Labour & Business to find each other”.
@Bradleychingobe said “South Africans will be given the state of the nation address by pres Zuma today. A ” luxury” Zambians don’t have under the PF govt”.
The bad:
@Brenton_Shaw said “There is nothing Pres[ident] Zuma can say or do today with the SONA to stop us from heading into [a] recession”.
@Senwamadi said ” Zuma has to return today & do the #SONA, bad time 2 return 2 office afta a “long & arranged check up”. Will be stuttering away in parly [parliament]”
@PhetoloZA commented that “Zuma reading these speeches and looking unprepared is actually a reflection of the team in presidency”.
The ugly:
@Naked_dee1 said he would “rather watch paint dry than watch SONA”.
@BenjaminFogel said he had “never understood why [people] care about SONA”, adding that “Zuma is always going to deliver a contentless boring speech that is gonna be forgotten”.
@Bra_banbani said “Zuma must come onto the poidum and scream “We won b*tches!!!!!” and [then] #SONA must be over. We all want to watch Brazil anyway”.
