First comes SONA, and then comes the SONA debate.

We’ve covered the first of those in pretty decent detail (Zapiro summed it up best), and yesterday, South Africa’s politicians gathered once more to grandstand debate the contents of President Ramaphosa’s address last week.

DA talisman Mmusi Maimane grabbed headlines with his fiery rhetoric, going to town on Ramaphosa’s earlier statement about ‘nine wasted years’.

We’re all trying our best to buy into the Ramaphoria, but Mmusi has a real point here.

Cyril, you were there:

Naturally, with this being election year, the whole debate descended into electioneering – more on that over on the Daily Maverick.

Then there was EFF spokesperson Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, who used the opportunity to call the parliamentary air-conditioning racist.

Yes, he’s trying to be funny, but the EFF race card is surely punched out by this stage?

WATCH: Ndlozi accuses Parliament air conditioner of being racists pic.twitter.com/6Zt023TKsh

— SABC News Online (@SABCNewsOnline) February 12, 2019

Speaker Baleka Mbete obviously got the joke, because she agreed with Ndlozi and asked for the aircon to be turned down.

What’s the joke? Here’s the Citizen:

Linking air-conditioning to race is a common joke in South Africa, where black people often complain that white people put the temperature much lower than their black counterparts.

When a light-hearted Facebook post calling on black South Africans to ask their white counterparts questions went viral, a Facebook user identified only as Cee Mac responded with an open letter asking white folks to “refrain from setting the air-conditioner”.

The open letter went as follows:

“Dear White People of Corporate South Africa.

Standard Room Temperature is 23°c. Can you kindly refrain from setting the airconditioner to ‘uit die BLOW van onse hemel’

Kind Regards

Black South Africans,” he wrote.

Cee Mac will be happy to know that ours is set to a cool 25°c or so.

The biggest laugh of the day came via Minister in the Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, although she wasn’t trying to be funny.

When talking about the ANC, she actually said that “we are going to win the elections because we are very honest”.

A fair reaction below:

#SONADebate

‘The ANC is going to win the election because we’re very honest’

NDZ pic.twitter.com/jSHceC6ehX

— Tumi Sole (@tumisole) February 12, 2019

Imagine saying that the ANC is honest with a straight face?

[sources:dailymav&citizen]