Chris Steyn (00:01.335)

Both President Cyril Ramaphosa and Deputy President Paul Mashatile have been declared unfit because they are too ill to perform official duties. With me is Solly Moeng, political commentator. Welcome, Solly.

Solly (00:14.91)

Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it?

Chris Steyn (00:22.199)

Who's running the country, Solly?

Solly (00:25.718)

Yeah, well they should tell us. They shouldn't be telling us. Look, nothing stops people from being sick, of course. And the Constitution has got provisions for what happens when the president is in any way incapacitated. Usually the deputy president would become acting president or the president would designate a minister or cabinet would designate somebody if the other two, three steps are not possible, or the Speaker of Parliament takes over.

So in any case South Africa needs to know who is running the show while the two big forces are off sick. That's really what we need to know. Otherwise I don't think it should be considered a major Constitutional problem.

Chris Steyn (01:08.257)

Hmm. Deputy President Mashitile has been ill for a while. Maybe President Ramaphosa got ill along with other presidential delegates to the BRICS summit in India. There seems to have been a bit of a health issue.

Solly (01:24.358)

Yeah, I think if that were the case, the problem they probably wouldn't tell us, right? Out of diplomatic protocol, they would probably not want India to be made to think that it's not safe for them.

But yeah, yeah, let's hope that they get better any time very soon and they come back and tell us, you know, start doing the work they must be doing for South Africa. There's a lot that needs to happen.

I see that Ramaposa didn't go to the UN, but you know, Roland Lamola is there. He has not been denied a visa, so

Chris Steyn (01:53.643)

Well, the country is in crisis or the African National Congress rather, even more so, especially after those visa restrictions announced for South African officials by the United States.

Solly (02:09.347)

Yeah. Look, the US is not really giving us names. They've just described the kind of people who might have difficulties getting visas to enter the US. So far we have some officials. I mean I would expect that somebody like Lamola would not be allowed to go in. Apparently he's in the US already, the DG of Foreign Foreign Affairs or International Relations and Cooperation is in the US. A few other officials are there.

So maybe this law is yet to be applied or this decision, you know, I don't know how it works in the US, how soon things become implemented as soon as they are announced.

But yeah, we're going to see a lot of surprises, I think, in the coming months. We're going to see people, you know, purchasing tickets to go to the US and being stopped once they get there, especially if names are not given ahead of time.

So nobody knows. Everybody's going to be second guessing or taking chances. It's almost like traveling to the US or planning to travel to the US will be like a gamble for many people.

Chris Steyn (03:07.67)

So not a good start for Ambassador Roelf Meyer, a good friend of President Ramaphosa.

Solly (03:13.589)

Well I would say the fact that he has not been chased away is not a bad thing. Maybe he's already started conversations over there.

It's a good thing that he is of Afrikaans extraction, and maybe he can give a different view. I think he's stuck in between not you know, listening to the concerns of the Afrikaans community here, you know, of which he makes part, but also representing the country. Of course he represents the country over there. He cannot lie about anything.

And we should just hope that over time the US President and his administration will listen to this man and that this man will have the impact that he must have.

But I think at the same time, you know, I'm always worried about false patriotism, you know. I think that you know, look, I don't think that the US should be determining South African policies, I don't think so at all, or any other country. But I also think that we need to have a strong relationship with the US.

Trump is not going to be there forever. But where our own policies, any of our policies, require international scrutiny, I think it's a good thing.

Chris Steyn (04:21.644)

And then domestically, the African National Congress is in crisis after losing the court case against the Independent Electoral Commission to field candidates. 181.

Solly (04:34.918)

Yeah, it's been excluded. 181 candidates all together, but it's been excluded entirely from participating in two municipalities in the Eastern Cape, in one municipality in KZN. And I think it'll have you know, ward councillors in all the other six municipalities and PR councillors have been entirely excluded.

It's the making of its own people, the failure of its own people. And I think it's a good thing. I really think it's a good thing that the IEC pushed back and that the court said to the ANC, Look… you can’t just do whatever you want. So it's a good thing for our democracy that even the ANC can be told this far, no further.

Chris Steyn (05:24.938)

It's going to have a devastating effect on the outcome of the Local Government Elections for the African National Congress, at least.

Solly (05:33.059)

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Look, these candidates have not been formally rejected by voters. They've been rejected by the ANC's own failures. But I think that given the state of things in South Africa right now, there's a lot of anger against the ANC, which is justified. Maybe I don't know if they would choose to be rejected by the voters or by a system glitch or mistake or administrative error.

The fact is the ANC is not doing well.I think the ANC is heading where it should be after thirty three years, in very strong positions of power. I think it should be going down. So yeah, I don't know how many people feel too much sympathy for it, honestly.

Chris Steyn (06:12.972)

It seems that factional fighting, severe factional fighting, and tinkering and re-tinkering or alleged tinkering with election candidate lists can be to blame.

Solly (06:23.86)

Yeah. Yeah. Look, the ANC has always been a fictionalized body: it's often been described as a diverse church, right? But I think right now things are getting heavier. We saw that ANC leader in the Eastern Cape is taking his own party or threatening to take his own party to court and you know, throwing mud at Fikile Mbablua, the Secretary General

Obviously people who want are fighting for positions, but there are always also I think issues of who stands on the side of Ramaposa and who stands on the side of Mashatile in terms of leadership. So people are positioning themselves already for an after Ramaposa era. That's ANC style.

So it looks like it's going to face what it must face and maybe next year it'll have a leader who will unite. I doubt it. You know, ahead of the 2029 elections, it's going to continue to be offering a fabulous spectacle for South Africans to watch.

Chris Steyn (07:31.244)

Over to the law enforcement crisis. In Ekurhuleni, nine bodies have now been found: victims of a suspected serial killer or a group of men abducting women, raping them and killing them.

Solly (07:49.38)

Yeah. It's very painful. It really is. And I think a lot of times we talk about, we tell women what not to do in order to be safe. I think we should be turning a lot of our attention on men. In South Africa there's this element of primitive conduct, urges that remain unrestrained and I think that maybe the consequences that exist for those who get caught are not sufficient. I wouldn't call for a death penalty, of course.

But I think there's got to be more, maybe more training for socialisation of boys when they are young and maybe doing away with some of the cultural, traditional thinking in terms of relations between men and women. Because in current society in a modern society that we live in today, we cannot have men continuing to or boys growing up thinking that women are objects, they can do anything they want with…and that there should be consequences. I think that we cannot continue to live in a country where these sorts of things exist.

And I really do hope that whoever is responsible for these attacks on women, whether it's one person or several people, I hope they get caught. There's gotta be cameras, there's gotta be ways for these people to be spotted somewhere and arrested.

We have to have a conversation that focuses on the conduct and the attitude of men, just not just how women should be dressing or where they can run or not run. It's not enough.

Chris Steyn (09:21.644)

What did you make of Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi giving criminals in Ekurhuleni a day's notice that there's going to be a lockdown. It's like me calling you and saying, Solly, there's going to be a raid on your house tomorrow. So you have enough time to remove all incriminating material and go to Mauritius for a few days.

Solly (09:43.131)

First of all, anything of that nature coming from an ANC leader, given the state of the country, given that so much has been allowed to happen under their reign, it lacks credibility, right? They shouldn't be jumping up and down when things have gone bad. They should have created conditions long ago within their own reins, within the municipalities they run, around across the country for there to be serious zero tolerance of criminality.

So I don't know who takes him seriously and or and as you say what warning them as he has, is I don't know if it's going to be effective. I doubt it's going to be effective. And I think it's just political posturing, seriously.

Chris Steyn (10:32.588)

Solly, meanwhile, the tables are being turned on the dirty tricksters in the South African Police Force and related law enforcement bodies. National Commissioner Fannie Mamola, the National Prosecuting Authority, has dropped charges against him.

Solly (10:50.671)

Yeah, look , first of all we didn't know the nature of the allegations and they were not tested in any court of law. Obviously, you know, the revelations that have come out in subsequent months or weeks have gone to the point where it doesn't make sense to keep the charges against Masemola. But if I were him I'd still want those charges to be disproven. All right. But it's a good thing if there's nothing to be proven against him or to be given everything considered without having gone to the courts. I think it makes sense that they give him time to come back and explain and do the work that he must be doing to hopefully stabilise the situation.

But look, it's not going to be enough to drop a few names anyway within these structures. We have seen that there's a lot of evidence of networks working across the Hawks, SAPS, JMPD and all the Ekurhuleni police. So I think that more is going to need to be done to ensure that these networks that are not just dodging police, they're working through the police, they're using the existing systems to do the the things that they're doing across to South Africa. A lot more is going to have to be done.

And I hope that Masemola, if it comes out that he's the innocent man that he is, would lead the charge, - especially after seeing what he would have seen, after hearing what he would have heard, would ensure that whatever remains of all these networks within the SAPS and the Hawks and all these the criminal justice system is stopped and you know, people are identified.

Maumela must be called. He has still been called. And there's work that needs to be done. I think that everything we've seen so far is just a very small tip of a big toxic aspect.

Chris Steyn (12:42.156)

And today marks a year since the first sitting of the Matlanga Commission of Inquiry into police and political capture.

Solly (12:52.658)

Yeah. Like its look, it's a good thing. I mean I might complain about names that are yet to be called that have been mentioned, people who've managed to either get shot or to be hospitalized. We hope those people will still be called. But over all, above everything else this commission has been a much better commission than all the other commissions you've seen in this country.

I think they deserve the credit and the praise and the respect that they're receiving from South African because it's a good thing that criminal charges began to roll even before the commission finished its work. And I hope but we should hope that nobody gets spared.

I mean look, Malema has been named, Maumela has been named. People are talking about these things. I don't think that the Madlanga commissioners and whoever speaks on their behalf are not aware that South Africans are expecting a lot more. South Africa is happy with the work they're doing thus far, but South Africa wants more. We don't want just a spectacle like another soap opera. We want to see the consequences. We want to get to a point where even people who've been calling for the assassination of innocent South Africans are named. Not just the ones who pull the trigger. But those people who are yet to be named must still be named. I think the Madlanga Commission knows what South Africa is expecting of it - and I hope that they live up to the name and to the reputation.

Chris Steyn (15:59.693)

Sollly, what would you like to rant about this week?

Solly (16:04.754)

Well I want to rant about men in South Africa. I want to rant about this annual festival of things happening to women. We talk about it, we talk about crimes against GPV and you know violence against children, but every year it happens again. Every year these things happen. I think we need to get to a point where we have different conversations but we also have different consequences. So the problems that South Africa faces do not just come, do not all come from politicians or the failure of those people in power. Many of them are owned problems.

The other thing is littering. You know, we litter. We live in a dirty country. I have no idea why South Africans continue to do what they do. And people in the neighbourhood, people walking in the streets, children, people throwing stuff out of their cars.

You know, Chris, maybe we need to take some responsibilities. Maybe we need to start thinking about obligations, not just rights, what the world or the country or the government owes us. We should talk about what kind of country we want to live in and be active participants in redesigning or repainting or re or creating, building the countries that we want to live, start with ourselves, start with not protecting our brothers and sisters who commit crime and but also looking at ourselves in the mirror to say and asking ourselves, What am I doing to contribute to this country? Littering is bad. Women violence against women and children is bad. What are you doing? Do you know somebody who is responsible: your neighbour, your cousin, your friend - and what role are you playing to solve it?

Chris Steyn (17:38.124)

Indeed, thank you. was political commentator Solly Moeng speaking to BizNews. I'm Chris Steyn. Thank you, Solly

Solly Moeng: BOTH Cyril AND Mashatile are too ill to run the country