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Patience is key as Ramaphosa works through
Zuma destruction
By Max du Preez
Many South Africans, including many political commentators, seem to yearn for a table-thumping, fiery sword-wielding demagogue as leader, someone who personifies their own anger and frustrations.
Cyril Ramaphosa is not that man.
Ramaphosa is a calculated, measured politician. He plays the long game. He works out his strategies and follows them doggedly, often surreptitiously.
It is this strength that is now seen as a weakness. And indeed, if this view of him prevails for too long, it will become a weakness. Time is the one gift he does not have, neither is his nation’s patience.
His “new dawn” is cheap talk; Ramaphosa is spineless; South Africa is in intensive care and we’re in as bad shape as we were before 1994, I read the commentariat saying.
It is easy to sing in the new depression choir. No-one will take you on. It is simply not politically correct to retain a modicum of hope and optimism.
I think political analysts have the responsibility to see through the national negativity, to ignore the noise and to find the substance. To create the context and backstory, rather than please audiences.
The fact is that we are indeed experiencing a major transition – a real one, not the “second transition” Jacob Zuma talked about when he was president.
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Inequality – It’s in our Hands
By Justin Foxton
During the 16th Nelson Mandela lecture, former US President Barack Obama humbly and vulnerably took issue with a side of humanity that few are ever brave enough to; the side that says that more is always better. He said: “Right now, I am actually surprised by how much money I got…There’s only so much you can eat. There’s only so big a house you can have. There’s only so many nice trips you can take. I mean, it’s enough.”
The questions we might ask when presented with this thinking is, what is a former US President’s definition of enough? What is my enough? What is your enough? But by asking such questions we lose ourselves in ‘for instances’ and ‘hypotheticals’ and we miss the essence of what he is suggesting; that inequality is – at least to some degree – in our hands to fix. He is basically suggesting that as long as one of our number is in lack whilst I am not, then I have more than enough.
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Claire Bisseker in last week’s FM reports “They say a recession is the one you talk yourself into. SA is in danger of making that mistake, judging from the rash of doomsday headlines that warn of recession, a fiscal cliff and a weak president beset by enemies.
The narrative that “Ramaphoria” has turned into “Ramaphobia” — a view fuelled by SA’s crushing first-quarter GDP numbers — is countered by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s progress towards his target of raising $100bn in new investment over the next five years. So far, he has raised $20bn from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, mainly in energy and tourism; a further R850m from the UK; and R10bn from Mercedes-Benz to expand its East London manufacturing plant.
...[read more]
THIS WEEK'S FAST FACT
Growth spurts:
Harvard’s Center for International Development (CID) predicts that the three fastest growing economies until 2026 will be India, Uganda, and Egypt, growing at 7.89%, 7.46%, and 6.63% respectively.
In contrast, South Africa is projected to grow at 4.9% annually until 2026, despite current projections of less than 1% growth in 2018. (http://bit.ly/2L0kvw7)
Source www.Eighty20.co.za
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