With the 2026 SONA a few weeks ahead, many DA supporters and other politically-interested audiences will be wondering how the DA will position itself when responding to President Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address.
In the film “Gladiator”, General Maximus encouraged his men to face the enemy with “Strength and Honour”.
Will the DA be the gladiator party of old? Will the party of Suzman, Van Zyl Slabbert, Eglin, De Beer, Worrall, Leon, Zille, James Selfe and Harry Schwarz speak with “Strength and Honour”, or will it be the acquiescent political captive of the President, being gagged in his GNU and fearful of publicly attacking him and his government’s failed policies, programmes and practices.
For that matter, all parties, whether inside or outside of the GNU, should use SONA 2026 to challenge the President on why his words never turn into deeds, why his promises are never kept and why his plans are never implemented. Sadly, political sycophancy will mute most GNU parties, and the usual ranting of the MK and EFF is unlikely to be constructive or dignify the occasion.
In the case of the DA, there are some recent SONA precedents they may want to consider.
In February 2023 in his SONA speech, DA leader and then Leader of the Opposition John Steenhuisen lambasted President Ramaphosa for his lack of credibility, describing his presidency as a “farce,” the promised new dawn as a “false dawn” and Ramaphoria as an “illusion”. He heavily criticised the President for talking about a no-tolerance stand on corruption, but still appointing alleged corrupt ministers to his cabinet, including Vice President Mashatile. Steenhuisen vociferously and robustly rattled off a raft of national crises caused by ANC-led governments under Ramaphosa’s watch.
In February 2024 Steenhuisen delivered a stinging repudiation and rejection of President Ramaphosa’s SONA “Tintswalo” address, in which the President fantasised about the fictional character, and how the ANC-led government had transformed her life into one of promise, progress and prosperity. Steenhuisen appropriately brought the President sharply back to the reality of SA’s young citizens by highlighting the misery, frustration, sense of hopelessness and betrayal the years of ANC misrule had wrought on “Tintswalo”, and her family’s prospects for a better life. Inter alia, Steenhuisen cited the crises facing millions of ordinary citizens: poverty, unemployment, homelessness, inadequate health care and education, basic service delivery failures, power outages, crime and murder in our streets and a government bankrupt of competence and funds. The DA’s ideological and policy differences with the ANC were clearly identified.
In February 2025, no longer the Leader of the Opposition, a role regrettably held by a “gross misconduct”-impeached judge, but still as leader of the DA and a member of the Cabinet sitting alongside the likes of the alleged corrupt Mashatile, the DA deserter De Lille, the gallivanting Gayton McKenzie and other dubious role-players in Ramaphosa’s executive, Steenhuisen strongly defended his party’s decision to share a political bed with the ANC and other irrelevant bedfellows in the GNU. He did, nevertheless, declare that the country was in “crisis”, but assured the nation that the DA would “turn things around”. He warned the President that “we cannot redress the past by compromising the present or risking the future”.
Sadly, notwithstanding Steenhuisen’s positive pronouncements and the DA presence in the Executive, nothing has really been turned around, and the still ANC-dominated GNU continues to try to redress the past by compromising the present and risking our future. With the exception of the devastating years of load shedding, the multitude of crises highlighted in Steenhuisen’s SONA speeches since 2023 are still with us, and have worsened.
ANC race-based policies continue, with promises from the President of much more to come. Property rights are under threat, with the EWC bill intact. Crime, murder and mayhem in our streets and corruption have escalated out of control, and basic service delivery has deteriorated resulting in daily public protests. Inadequate economic growth, poverty, unemployment, homelessness, pollution and porous borders characterise our debt-ridden failing state.
Our bloated cabinet, with Presidential and ministerial trips here, there and everywhere, ill-managed SOE’s, bankrupt municipalities, laborious long-winded commissions of inquiry, ad hoc committees, government appointed “Boards”, and now a ridiculous national dialogue continue to bleed our fiscus dry of funds better spent elsewhere.
After the municipal elections, possibly still a year away, even the most experienced and intelligent newly-elected Mayors (Helen Zille perhaps?) will find it almost impossible to “fix” their municipalities without massive funding allocations from the national fiscus. But because the lack of adequate economic growth limits tax revenues, this well is drying up!
Inconsistency, poor diplomatic cadre appointments and unnecessary insulting utterances from ANC and DIRCO officials dominate our foreign policy and put our “future at risk”. These deliberately antagonise President Trump and the US Congress which can easily apply damaging tariffs and sanctions as a consequence. Hypocrisy contaminates our foreign policy. Our inability to denounce or disassociate ourselves from Iran/Hamas and dictators, autocrats and despots like Venezuelas’s Maduro, Russia’s Putin, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini and others around the world, the debacle of the naval exercises in Simon’s Town and our dismal failure in the DRC diminish our global respectability and trustworthiness. Is this GNU-approved foreign policy or is it the ANC’s?
So, if the DA is serious about increasing its power and influence in “Affairs of State”, it should review its previous SONA stances and ask itself what has really changed. If it is honest with itself, the answer is ‘very little’, and the SONA 2026 position should robustly reflect that.
Being part of the GNU should not preclude the DA or its incumbent leader from publicly calling out and challenging ANC policies and practices that cause our nation to regress. Its leader should demand, in the manner of President Reagan when made his “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall” speech in 1987, that President Ramaphosa slash the size of his cabinet, fire corrupt and incompetent ministers and officials, come clean on Phala Phala, repeal race-based laws and other legislative impediments to foreign and domestic investment, and abandon the futile costly national dialogue.
The DA should demand a massive reduction in government public service expenditure to make way for increased social-services spending, including health care, education and grants. Infrastructure-building and maintenance should be properly privatised, and so should many of the SOEs. The DA should demonstrate how it would unleash foreign and domestic investment to ensure economic dynamism.
The DA should insist on a much faster passage through parliament of its bills supporting and advancing the establishment of a Chapter 9 anti-corruption institution outside of the Executive, as ordered by the Constitutional Court years ago.
The DA should avoid generalities and well-worn clichés. Everybody knows that we all need economic growth and jobs to survive, irrespective of political ideology: ANC, MK, EFF or others. DA leaders and spokespersons should use SONA and the Budget debates to be specific about how the party would realistically generate this desperately-needed economic growth and these jobs.
It is therefore to be hoped that in his 2026 SONA speech, the DA leader will speak, not as a Ramaphosa-appointed Cabinet Minister within the GNU, but as the leader of the Democratic Alliance: a political party that opposes the ANC’s policies and practices, that recognises the catastrophic and continuous failures of ANC-led governments and is committed to get enough electoral support to oust the ANC from government dominance and replace it with a new DA majority or DA-led coalition government.
It is also to be hoped that like-minded parties overcome their petty personality issues, recognise the poor state of our nation, put South Africa first and merge their respective political establishments to form a political, economic and social game-changer that truly brings about a thriving nation committed to and capable of implementing the rule of law, advancing individual freedoms and providing human dignity for all our citizens.
Will the DA use SONA 2026 to grasp the political thistle, take the lead in this endeavour to form a new national government and regain its reputation as the party of “Strength and Honour”, or will it reflect a lack of real ambition, a propensity to remain relatively mute in the GNU, and be satisfied to sleep with the enemy whilst patiently waiting for it to wither away? We shall find out shortly.
[Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/governmentza/54312277670/]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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