Thomas Johnson - The Blog

Media, political and business commentators have greeted the grand coalition, or government of national unity (GNU) as the ANC calls it, with hope. Leftwing mainstream commentators are now reverting to their default ANC and Ramaphosa-centric positions after the last few years of pessimism and abandonment. Like the previous, original Ramaphoria (v1.0), they expect a lot from him and the GNU, his purported, exaggerated qualities advertised, his failures forgotten. One typical example of Ramaphoria v2.0 is Daily Maverick 168's editor Heather Robertson last week. She fulsomely wrote of citizens' paradoxical initiatives in Johannesburg and Durban, where municipal and goverment services have collapsed due to ANC incompetence, corruption and mismanagement, to remedy government duties as optimism.  It's one thing to volunteer - back in the day I was a volunteer in my community including police forum to help rectify the near collapse of the local police station's management; we l...

 A government of national unity is used in extraordinary times, not when the incumbent party loses an election. Ramaphosa presented the county in crisis because the ANC lost the majority. But then the ANC has always conflated party and state. Mainstream media analysts credit Ramaphosa personally with the GNU, describing it as a masterstroke. Shaking off recent disappointment, their Ramaphoria is reborn. Ramaphoria 2.0. The supreme "negotiator" is back, they say. That the ANC's centre went into coalition with centre-right DA is due to his genius. It's irrelevant the EFF and MK made this possible with their predictably provocative demands. Had they not, the ANC's partners would have been them. So must we thank Ramaphosa's putative genius or EFF's and MK's stupidity for us not having ruinous coalition? Doesn't matter to the Ramaphorias.  From Ramaphosa's inauguration speech, the clamour project positive things for the GNU, though based on a coalit...