I was terribly disappointed by what we saw at the State of the Nation Address, or like everything these days with an acronym, SONA for short.  Firstly, the ANC clearly had a plan to muzzle reporters and the public in the event that things got out of hand in the chamber.  They introduced devices that jam cell phone signals to stop people communicating with those outside Parliament.  Luckily, the parliamentarians were having none of that, and basically insisted that the speech could not proceed until the jamming devices were switched off. That was then attended to.  The EFF made the predictable fuss that one was expecting, and whether one agrees with them or not, because it was not the appropriate time to interrupt proceedings, there is no doubt that much of the nation is frustrated by Jacob Zuma’s continued ignorance of the Nkandla deal and trying to pretend that he did not want any of the upgrades while his own architect supervised them.  

There is no doubt that the Speaker of Parliament, Baleka Mbete, dealt with proceedings in a very high-handed and poor fashion.  She appeared to be reading from a script at times and was quite prepared to just escalate the situation as quickly as she could without actually reacting to what was actually going on in front of her.  The parliamentarians are entitled to ask questions and raise points of order, and she simply fobbed them off before they began speaking and essentially told them she knew what they were going to say, which she probably did, and had them tossed out.  That is not how democracy works.  It is certainly not democratic either to march in police carrying guns to remove people from Parliament and everybody will have to sit back and decide if this is the way that we want to proceed in South Africa.  The most scary part of course is that this is all about the ANC protecting Jacob Zuma and essentially where one man tearing the country apart at the moment.   Let’s be honest, it is not just about Nkandla, there is a background too of the bribes and the corruption charges, etc.