For the first time in nearly two decades a state of the nation address (Sona) in South Africa dialed down (though did not entirely abandon) the usual “transformationist” flair.
The speech still gestured towards economic empowerment and “inclusive growth” (growth that oddly never materialises), but it was noticeably lighter on the usual rah-rah around BEE and redistributive promises (like land expropriation without compensation, a staple in previous Sonas).
In their place, President Cyril Ramaphosa leaned into a different register, one of technocratic control and centralised problem-solving, wrapped in the language of co-ordination, task teams and oversight mechanisms. Ramaphosa is clearly not seeing what’s happening to technocratic governments around the world.
So this 2026 Sona was different, but not in the way it needed to be. Rather than the overtly racialised speeches of the past, the president went back to good, plain old centralisation. The speech leant on plans to consolidate state control, project fiscal discipline, and create new “mission-driven” committees and authorities to fix decades-old problems.
The language may be slightly different, with a nice government of national unity (GNU) garnishing, but in the end it is still a collection of grand promises, thin reform and a detachment from the daily realities of most South Africans.
We’ve seen this dance before
The pages of Sona speeches from the past 20 years are littered with unfulfilled dreams. In 2004 then-president Thabo Mbeki declared that by 2014 poverty would be halved and informal settlements eradicated. These were promises that in retrospect appear almost tragic in their optimism. The shack settlements still remain, and poverty persists in both urban and rural forms.
By 2009, Jacob Zuma stood before parliament with a dramatic vow to create 500,000 jobs in a single year, only for the country to lose nearly 900,000 jobs as the economy faltered under global and local pressure. His government would later revise the dream upward, promising 5-million new jobs by 2020. That target was never met. Not even close.
And then came the Ramaphosa era’s “New Dawn”, which quickly dimmed under the shadow of Eskom, scandal and economic stagnation. The past few Sonas under Ramaphosa were filled with their own moonshots. A smart city to rise in Lanseria. A bullet train speeding between major cities. A digital ID revolution. A youth employment tidal wave.
It is still a collection of grand promises, thin reform and a detachment from the daily realities of most South Africans.
So when Ramaphosa stood before parliament on Thursday and promised — once again — high-speed rail, the end of crime and rapid economic growth, the déjà vu was overwhelming. South Africans have been promised these things before. We’ve seen the same words, in slightly different arrangements, stretch across our screens in past Februaries. And, crucially, we’ve seen very little of the reforms actually necessary to make those promises real.
Where is the real reform of policing that would make a dent in violent crime? The speech promised more boots on the ground — 5,500 new police officers — but made no mention of addressing the corrupt, poorly trained and overstretched law enforcement institutions at the heart of the problem, or of giving capable municipalities devolved policing powers.
Where is the real liberalisation of transport or freight rail that would unlock productivity and competitiveness? Instead, we got more public-private “exploration” and committees that appease the need for actual privatisation without committing to the necessary reform.
The economic growth plan, if one can call it that, seems pinned on state-led infrastructure spending and the maintenance of macroeconomic stability. Important, yes. But insufficient. There’s no deep reckoning with the rigid labour market, suffocating regulation or the erosion of municipal governance that constrains local economies.
No sense of urgency in rethinking a failing skills pipeline or the burdens imposed by bureaucratic overreach. Instead, we get an alphabet soup of incentives and “mission-driven” presidential initiatives to solve everything from water delivery to crime.
Sona is performative
Which brings us to the now ritualistic performance of Sona itself. It is not a meaningful policy moment. It is theatre produced once a year for the benefit of political elites, broadcast to a public who have largely stopped listening. Over the past decade the Sona has become less a blueprint for change than a reflection of what is buzzy, clickable and socially resonant.
It has evolved into a kind of curated playlist of the country’s anxieties, with speechwriters weaving in the top trending phrases from news cycles and WhatsApp groups. This year, “water crisis” featured heavily, as did “cost of living” and “gender-based violence”, each of which has dominated media commentary and civil society activism in the past 12 months.
It is not a meaningful policy moment. It is theatre.
To be clear, these are real issues. Water infrastructure has collapsed in many metros. Food prices have spiked painfully for poor households. Gender-based violence remains staggeringly high. But the president’s nod to these problems felt more like a branding exercise than a governance one. These challenges didn’t appear in the speech because they were being actively addressed, they appeared because the ANC’s political class knows they must be acknowledged to maintain the appearance of relevance.
Indeed, the Sona has become a national exercise in managed impressions. Each new initiative announced (a new anti-corruption task force, a new water authority, a new employment platform) helps reinforce the illusion of action. And because the Sona is now part performance art, we must endure the red-carpet arrivals, the fashion commentary, the rote applause from dominant party benches. It is spectacle wrapped in a policy costume.
That’s why this year’s shift in tone, away from transformation and towards centralisation, is so revealing. It reflects not a change in strategy, but a change in spin. Where past leaders gestured towards radical change while quietly preserving the status quo, Ramaphosa has now dropped the radical language altogether.
In its place is a technocratic managerialism that promises to fix the state by building more of it. More state-owned companies. More oversight boards. More regulators. More presidential commissions.
But perhaps the most sobering takeaway from this Sona is that not only do we keep hearing the same promises, but we now seem locked into a new political language that sees centralised authority as the only route to national revival. In a country where local governments are failing and national government is overstretched, the idea that more bureaucracy will save us is as misguided as any moonshot smart city.
This Sona didn’t pick up the practical prose we need. In the end, it swapped one illusion for another. And until South Africans begin to hold these performances accountable, not for their style, but for their substance, we will keep tuning in, year after year, to watch the same show play out under different lighting, and who knows how many different venues, until the burnt-down parliament building is rebuilt.
• Eloff, a writer and nonprofit executive, is a legal adviser to the mayor of Cape Town. He writes in his personal capacity.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.