Yesterday, the State of the Nation Address (SONA) debate concluded with Parliament descending into a ruckus during the speech of Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Ronald Lamola.
In his address, Lamola stated that the African National Congress’s Government of National Unity (GNU) partner, the Democratic Alliance (DA), needed to decide whether it was part of the government or in opposition.
He also criticised the uMkhonto we Sizwe Party (MK Party), arguing that its opposition to public-private partnerships contradicted the position taken by its president, Jacob Zuma, during his tenure in the ANC.
Lamola’s speech was repeatedly interrupted by MK Party members, eventually reducing the chamber to a shouting match.
Despite the disruptions, Lamola pressed on, emphasising South Africa’s role in confronting what he described as a shifting global order, in which some Western leaders were seeking a return to “colonial domination.”
He specifically referred to remarks made by United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference this past Sunday. In his address, Rubio called on Europe to embrace its heritage and traditions, attributing the decline of the West to “godless communist revolutions” and “anti-colonial uprisings.”
“The great Western empires had entered into terminal decline, accelerated by godless communist revolutions and by anti-colonial uprisings that would transform the world and drape the red hammer and sickle across vast swaths of the map in the years to come,” Rubio said.
Lamola concluded by referencing a recently published report by the World Bank, which he said demonstrated that South Africa’s economy remained untransformed and exclusionary, with the majority of Black South Africans still marginalised.
Addressing this lack of inclusivity, the DIRCO minister stressed the importance of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and affirmative action, describing them as constitutional imperatives that could not be overridden by GNU agreements.
“BEE must continue to empower and bring into the economy the marginalised and the excluded. Therefore, BEE is a constitutional imperative; it cannot be abandoned at the altar of political expediency. The GNU does not mean the abandonment of BEE, nor does it supersede the Constitution. Black Economic Empowerment and affirmative action are constitutional imperatives. This must sink in, even for the Democratic Alliance. We are in an alliance to transform this country in line with the Constitution. There is no document that supersedes the South African Constitution,” Lamola said.
Photo: @RonaldLamola
