South African President Cyril Ramaphosa delivers his annual state of the nation address on Thursday February 10 but, symbol of the malaise that South Africa is experiencing, he will do so at Cape Town Town Hall and not in Parliament, the traditional place of this solemn address, set on fire in January.
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In an economic context weakened by two years of pandemic, growing dissatisfaction with the failures of public services, against a backdrop of permanent suspicion of corruption at all levels, the president will have to try to reassure and convince.
"
He can't paint a bleak picture.
He really has to give a forceful response, but one that is both practical and credible
,” said political scientist William Gumede.
Among other indicators, unemployment recently hit a new high of 34.9%, down from 30.8% a year earlier.
Among young people, this rate reaches 64.4%.
Dangerous divisions in the ANC, the presidential party
Will he be able to redress a degraded situation, while he is facing strong opposition within his own party, the ANC, Nelson Mandela's historic formation.
The faction loyal to his predecessor Jacob Zuma, whose presidency (2009-2018) was marred by so many corruption scandals that South Africans coined the term "
state capture
", blows on the embers continuously, leaving him little respite.
The first incidents which served as a trigger for the July riots - more than 350 dead, the worst violence the country has known since the end of apartheid - were attributed to supporters of Jacob Zuma, furious that he should go to jail after a conviction for obstruction of justice.
In January, Cyril Ramaphosa remarked that “
divisions and factions within the ANC (were) becoming a threat to our democracy
”.
“
The factional struggles within the ANC have become a serious source of instability,
” say experts commissioned by the government to investigate these riots.
In addition, the ANC is organizing its internal elections by December.
If Cyril Ramaphosa wants to stay in power,
Corruption as a key theme
Some 1,500 km south of Pretoria, the seat of the executive, the president will deliver his speech at 5:00 p.m. GMT, expected not far from Parliament, destroyed by arson on January 2, the day after the funeral of Bishop Desmond Tutu, great moral figure since apartheid.
The state of the nation address was once a celebration of the progress South Africa has made since its white supremacist past.
The deputies presented themselves there in finery more suited to a Hollywood red carpet.
Corruption, is the obsessive subject within South African society, than a party.
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Cyril Ramaphosa, ex-pet of Mandela and self-made man appreciated by his fellow citizens, took office in 2018, inheriting gangrenous government structures.
A series of reports published since late December expose the stories and details of how Jacob Zuma sold the keys to the state to a clique of wealthy businessmen.
A commission of inquiry, which has been working on this question for four years, has already published more than 1,400 pages of conclusions and is not finished yet.
Cyril Ramaphosa gave few clues about the tenor of his speech.
His office said the speech should "
encompass all sectors of society and reflect the lived experience of all South Africans
" and address "
the values that bind the nation together and the actions needed to build and sustain our common future
" .
.
But these platitudes will perhaps not be enough to reassure a country which notably sees its crime increase and which regularly suffers from power cuts.
