President Cyril Ramaphosa is anticipated to deliver a centrist agenda at the OPA tonight. [Picture: Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters]
A political analyst has stated that President Cyril Ramaphosa would likely present a “centrist” agenda when he delivers the Opening of Parliament Address (OPA). This will be in contrast to previous ones, in which a more left-leaning approach was the agenda of the day.
Ramaphosa is scheduled to deliver the OPA in the Cape Town City Hall, officially designated as Parliament, at 7pm on Thursday. In previous years, the post-election speech was called the State of the Nation Address (SONA), but this has since changed.
What has also changed are the interests the president will attempt to manage. As the head of an 11-party coalition arrangement, an analyst predicts he will take a more centrist approach this time around.
“In that GNU, the president has got a more difficult task than he would have at any other Opening of Parliament Address, because it would have been predominantly ANC [but] now he has to pronounce on the policy of all these parties,” said Thabo Shole-Mashao, in an interview with SABC.
Describing the president’s task ahead as “a juggling act of note”, he said it was likely a shift in policy could draw the ire of the likes of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). Both are alliance partners to his African National Congress (ANC).
“A bit of a shift away from the left, and a bit centrist, to the disgust of COSATU, SACP and other left-leaning organisations … I suspect it’s going to be more centrist than any of them have been in the past,” said Shole-Mashao.
While the SONA is an opportunity for the president to inform the nation on the government’s plans for the year, OPA is for a newly-elected leader to outline the agenda for the next five years.
In years past, the ANC has attempted to address the pressing matters of the day – unemployment, poverty, crime and so on – from a largely socialist perspective. This, however, has failed as the country remains in dire straits.
