ANC HAS SQUANDERED ITS POLITICAL CAPITAL
IN HIS State of the Nation Address last week, President Jacob Zuma spoke like a president who was just getting into office, like he still has another 10 years to fulfill promises to the citizens of this country.
But the reality is he officially only has just over two years left before he completes his second term.
His punch statement during the speech was that political freedom without economic emancipation is not enough. He said political freedom is meaningless without the return of the wealth to the people.
This sounded too much like the ticket he used during his rise to the ANC’s top seat in 2007 and the presidency in 2009. He promised a better life for the people because he was a man of the people, in touch with their struggles, unlike his “aloof” predecessor, he claimed. (The irony is that this year he used the army to ensure as much distance between himself and the public during his Sona).
After the ANC’s Mangaung policy conference, the ANC and Zuma’s new slogan was the second phase of the national democratic revolution that was to focus on giving black people economic freedom.
Last week he merely regurgitated this very same line and sermon from his archive of radical rhetoric. He dusted it off, polished it and then presented it to the nation as if it was a novel product of an inventive mind, to the cheers of the ANC benches and the silence of the empty DA and EFF benches.
This is the ANC’s modus operandi. It is a tactic the ANC uses in every elective conference year and election campaign cycle. The party’s leaders brush up on their very old and tired act and think that the public won’t remember that they’ve seen the show before.
Many have criticised Zuma’s speech for offering nothing new. But what is the value of him presenting new plans when the ANC-led government has only partly delivered on its long-stated plans?