After 16 months of bickering, insults, deep ideological differences and threats of leaving or being thrown out of the government of national unity (GNU), its leaders have suddenly found that a two-day meeting, including a guided archaeological tour, enabled them to declare a new bond of unity and cohesion.
It is even more remarkable that after patting themselves on the back about their successes, they committed themselves to fight poverty, unemployment, crime and corruption; grow the economy; bring down the cost of living; improve service delivery; build and maintain infrastructure; and even collectively support a national dialogue — which some of them had previously rubbished — so that South Africans can tell these leaders what their problems are and how to solve them.
Even more disturbing is that the former leader of the opposition, now agriculture minister and apparently President Cyril Ramaphosa’s regular travel companion, John Steenhuisen, stated on television that our country has seen three months of stability and expressed the hope that the president, formerly his sworn political opponent, would continue his tenure until 2029.
The reality is that October 2025 was a month that brought our country’s murderers, mobsters, manipulators and high-level public service miscreants sharply into the spotlight and, with its scandals, public protests and reports of governance failures, revealed just how much of a sham the GNU’s so-called progress and performance is. It also showed how our delusional president has for years tolerated incompetence, turned a blind eye to corruption and allowed our fiscus to be stripped bare, and for too long presided over a nation now seriously in decline — bankrupt of political unity, vision, reality, morality and courage.
David Gant
Kenilworth
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