State of the Nation Address Today

South Africa’s Parliament holds a joint sitting today, of the National Assembly (where laws are made) and the National Council of Provinces (where old politicians are mothballed, and young ones shoot spitballs at each other). Members of Parliament will, erm, sit, and listen to President Thabo Mbeki deliver his annual State of the Nation Address.

In the past few years, for this particular speech, President Mbeki’s oration style has slipped a gear. Where once he toyed with bolshie flourishes, and was wont to invoke the glory of the freedom struggle, now he reads what sound like the minutes of a large corporation’s Annual General Meeting, and is wont to put everyone to sleep. This bodes extremely well for South Africa’s future. As the old African proverb says, When the jargon of the revolutionary is swapped for the jargon of the businessman, the chickens roost with clean feathers.

• Follow Mbeki’s speech (in all seriousness, forecast to treat economic growth, service delivery, and corruption stamping-out): Mail&Guardian | Google News
• Visit the Official Opposition: Democratic Alliance