Tiisetso’s view
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa acquired some useful new friends in Washington this week. Unfortunately for him, they cannot solve either of his immediate problems.
The first is at home. The African National Congress, the once dominant party of Nelson Mandela, is taking a drubbing in the local government elections, threatening Ramaphosa as the ANC’s 2027 leadership contest approaches.
With more than two-thirds of the vote counted, a respected election modeling outfit projects the ANC at around 32%. This puts it on course for its worst-ever municipal performance and emboldens those arguing that the centrist political formula of Ramaphosa’s presidency is not winning over voters.
His second problem sits in the White House, where US President Donald Trump has waged a campaign against Pretoria over everything from race policies to its foreign policy choices, and has now put a preferential trade program, the African Growth and Opportunity Act, on the chopping block.
That said, Ramaphosa sees an opening, saying he predicted a “new era in world relations,” after Democrats captured both houses of Congress. Richard Neal, a top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, slammed the ejection of South Africa from AGOA as “grounded in grievance,” while Gregory Meeks and Jeanne Shaheen, the party’s senior voices on foreign policy in the House, warned the move could hand China a strategic advantage.
The catch is that a weakened Trump may be a Trump more inclined to target South Africa — a distant country whose post-apartheid racial politics can be repackaged to fit America’s own culture wars just as Ramaphosa’s political authority is shrinking at home.
Notable
The African National Congress (ANC) looks likely to hemorrhage votes in South Africa’s highly contested local elections, after a voting season marked by intense campaigns.
Source: www.yahoo.com
