[imagesource: Reuters/Sumaya Hisham]
SONA 2020 – same as the other SONAs.
I’m tired of writing these stories, every year, about the EFF disrupting SONA, before either walking out or being ejected, but here we are.
This year, it was the former.
We will steer well clear of the red carpet nonsense (last year’s Pieter Groenewald interview was hard to top), and focus what went on inside the building.
Or didn’t, as SONA was suspended for the first time in history, before eventually getting underway.
We will give you a quick summary of what President Cyril Ramaphosa touched on soon, but let’s get to the farcical action pre-speech.
Here’s TimesLIVE:
The EFF walked out of parliament on Thursday night after delaying President Cyril Ramaphosa’s state of the nation address for more than an hour.
EFF leader Julius Malema told Ramaphosa that their problem was his refusal to fire public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan, as well as the presence of former apartheid president FW de Klerk.
Let’s watch it play out, starting with the FW de Klerk objections:
With the EFF, you can never really know if they mean something until they chant it, lemming-style:
Spare a thought for the sign language interpreters, who were kept busy throughout the night.
If you’re wondering what it would like signing those chants, you’re in luck:
The interpreter had a good time #SONA2020 pic.twitter.com/dICUsi7QaL
— Mzwesh #No.1Hustler®️ (@MzweshNgwenya) February 13, 2020
She was actually SONA’s second interpreter, and the first had a good time, too:
I love my country
— #RainbowMusicVideoIsOut (@_ColoursofSound) February 13, 2020
Here’s part of the EFF”s attack on Gordhan:
Yes, there were chants, too:
#SONA2020 | EFF is leaving the National Assembly, they chant Pravin must go. pic.twitter.com/as8Y8MZeyu
— SABC News Online (@SABCNewsOnline) February 13, 2020
It’s all so tiresome.
Reports suggest that costs this year were kept around the R2 million mark, although that doesn’t factor in all of the costs associated with getting the MPs to Cape Town, their hotel bills, and the other perks.
Every single cent of that was wasted. Please, next year, just ask Cyril to send an email that lands in our spam folders and be done with it.
Some thoughts via Twitter:
So boring and so predictable, but their supporters eat it up, and the cycle continues.
We’ll finish on a more lighthearted note.
Many opposition MPs raised their concerns about the behaviour of the EFF. Given her resemblance to the Karen ‘speak the manager’ meme, the DA’s Natasha Mazzone was asking for trouble when she rallied against the EFF’s behaviour:
To her credit, she reposted the meme herself. Fair play, Natasha. Maybe Jeremy Loops could learn a thing or two.
It says a lot about the state of this country that last night, with one eye on the first episode of The Bachelor SA, and the other on SONA 2020, it was the latter that made me feel dumbed down.
I can’t wait until next year, when we do it all again.
[source:timeslive]
