It’s been a while since President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation at what some insist on calling a “family meeting”.
Sunday night’s foreign policy address came as a timely surprise. It was the first coherent policy statement from the president after more than 18 months of policy confusion and contestation sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It was a masterpiece of fence-sitting, or a master stroke of mollification, depending on one’s viewpoint. But Ramaphosa sought to stay friends with all sides in a fractious world order in which SA has severely damaged its reputation and put its most important trade and investment relationships at risk. Arguably he succeeded.
He expressed support for the Brics expansion. He pushed the “non-aligned” line again and SA’s rather naive belief it can solve Russia’s unconscionable attack on Ukraine by getting everyone to play nicely. But he also supported the “rules-based international order” that is so core for Western democracies and made much of how much SA looks forward to hosting the US and Africa at the Agoa talks in November and the EU-SA summit later this year.
It was an important exercise in heading off disaster ahead of the Brics summit that is likely to be distinctly anti-Western in tone, which could have risked further alienating SA from its crucial Western trading partners. Welcome too, but perhaps less
believable, was Ramaphosa’s declaration that SA’s foreign policy rests on principles of human rights, and trade and investment.
In practical terms our chaotic foreign policy has achieved neither. Perhaps the president’s new focus on the issues might prompt change for the better, and his speech was a good reset.
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