Your editorial opinion refers (“The return of the politics of spectacle”, June 30). Taking a “both sides” position on this suggests the ANC’s approach to the government of national unity (GNU) has been in good faith.
Given the amount of humiliation and beating the DA has taken, there is no doubting that for its part it has done so. Yet the ANC, in your own words, scarcely takes the DA seriously. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s actions have been petty and childish, and he has demonstrated not a shred of respect for the DA or John Steenhuisen, blindsiding them at every turn, even describing Steenhuisen as “his” white minister in the White House and now playing this “gotcha” card over Andrew Whitfield’s travel.
This is not the “politics of spectacle”, as described by Business Day, but the sunset of Ramaphosa’s term, and with it his reputation. What the DA could have been expected to do (short of the “nuclear” option) when the other clearly considers a working relationship to be of no use is anyone’s guess.
Why, pray tell, would it be “misguided” to think the DA could not mount a successful vote of no confidence in Ramaphosa? Of course it would need the support of the “doomsday parties”, but given that they have consistently called for Ramaphosa’s head, why would they not take the gap?
We need to be frank here — the ANC does not place any value in the GNU, and probably never did. It is blinded by its own hubris. Steenhuisen & Co need to take their medicine and ignore this national dialogue talk-shop, killing it off in the process.
Martin Neethling
Via BusinessLIVE
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