Charm offensive: President Cyril Ramaphosa not only wooed the
United Nations, he also championed the Gaza cause and found time for
Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelenskiy (right). Photo: Anadolu/Getty Images
Thursday.
Down here in the Kingdom, it was only a matter of time until our number one microphone snatcher, ANC chairperson Siboniso Duma, reverted to form and decided to try and steal his new boss Thami Ntuli’s thunder.
Duma, never one to pass up the opportunity to hog the camera, took advantage of the KwaZulu-Natal premier’s absence on Thursday morning to call a briefing on preparations ahead of a predicted snowfall over parts of the province early next week.
Duma teamed up with eThekwini speaker Thabani Nyawose to assure the public that they were on full alert for any snowfall, although none is predicted to fall in the city, or anywhere close to its outer boundaries for that matter.
The South African Weather Service isn’t particularly worried, predicting that the snowfall will be far lighter this time around, while the premier left agriculture MEC Thembeni Madlopha-Mthethwa in charge of the shop while he was away.
Neither of which was any form of a deterrent to Duma, who saw an opportunity to seize the mike — and the camera — and found himself unable to resist the urge to take it, protocol be damned.
One expects that Ntuli will have a word with Duma ahead of their briefing on the first 100 days of the government of provincial unity next week — and keep a firm grip on the microphone when they address the province, given the ANC chairperson’s history.
There is already a three-way drama unfolding between the province, eThekwini and the national government over the Section 154 intervention in the city by cooperative governance and traditional affairs MEC Thulasizwe Buthelezi.
Buthelezi is threatening to collapse the city administration, precipitating a conflict with both eThekwini and the presidency, which wants its deployee, mayor Cyril Xaba, to remain in place and lead the process of eThekwini’s recovery.
A much-needed intervention is being blunted by the political point-scoring taking place in the background, placing an unnecessary strain on relations among parties that are still working out how to relate to each other.
It also has the potential to sour relations across levels of government, if the chess game with the city’s future doesn’t prevail. So any further strain on Ntuli’s administration — optical or otherwise — is at best unhelpful.
Upstairs, things are vibing so far so good, as President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government of national unity approaches the 100-day milestone that many among us predicted his multiparty cabinet would never reach.
Ramaphosa has spent the week abroad, taking up Africa’s case for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council; leading the charge for an end to the genocide in Gaza and action against apartheid Israel; and flogging South Africa’s “second miracle” to anybody with an open ear — and an open chequebook.
Cyril also worked the G20 panel; the global leaders network and the New York Stock Exchange while attending the UN General Assembly — he was a voice for reason, decency and equity on the international stage.
The president even made time for a chat and an awkward selfie with Elon Musk and Volodymyr Zelenskiy on the sidelines of the UN visit before heading home for Friday’s repatriation service for the remains of 49 freedom fighters who had been buried abroad.
Cyril’s away game can’t be faulted — a bit like Mikel Arteta’s 2024 Arsenal, but with fewer red cards — and somewhat ironically, his form at home appears to have improved too, since his party lost the 50% plus one it needed to govern alone.
It’s almost three months to the day since Ramaphosa constituted his post-election cabinet in the wake of the ANC losing its majority nationally for the first time since 1994 in the 29 May elections.
Most of Cupcake’s critics predicted that his government of national unity wouldn’t last a month — a bit like my mates when I got married for the second time — but Ramaphosa and I both appear, on this point at least, to have proved the doubters wrong.
Conflicts with the Democratic Alliance (DA) over the Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Act and the National Health Insurance are still there and won’t go away anytime soon.
Neither will South African Communist Party (SACP) secretary general Solly Mapaila.
Solly told the South African Democratic Teachers Union congress this week that if he were president he would have fired Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube for boycotting the Bela signing.
That would have required the SACP to field its own candidates to contest the elections, something it has been threatening to do since Thabo Mbeki became ANC president in 1997.
It won’t, so expect Solly to still be moaning about the DA being in the unity government when he calls on the SACP’s membership to vote for the ANC in 2029.
Again.