Cape Town - DA leader John Steenhuisen has reiterated his stance that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s speech last Thursday was straight from the DA’s playbook.
He said there was no doubt that Ramaphosa read from the DA’s manifesto, as he mentioned key policy positions in the party’s manifesto.
He said the difference between the DA and the ANC was that the former implements its decisions as has been the case in the Western Cape and other municipalities where it governs, but the latter does not implement them.
However, Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele said the difference between the DA and the ANC was that the official opposition pursued racial politics.
Steenhuisen said Ramaphosa had picked up on DA policies in his State of the Nation Address (Sona) because they were implementable.
“This is a strange Sona to debate, because large parts of the president’s speech are straight from the DA’s playbook.
“Let’s be clear: that’s a good thing. What we need, if we want to fight poverty, is agreement on where and how jobs are created. And for the first time someone from that side of the House seemed to get it,” Steenhuisen said.
“On Thursday evening the president didn’t sound like a man leading the ANC, a party obsessed with centralised control of the economy and reliant on a massively bloated public sector. Channelling the DA, he said: ‘Government doesn’t create jobs; businesses create jobs … government must create the conditions that will enable the private sector’.
“What remains unclear though is which of these views represents the real ANC.”
Gungubele said the DA must not think that they share the same ideas and policies.
“The DA’s difference is a racial difference because you see it in Gugulethu, Philippi and Oudtshoorn. You see it in police stations in Gugulethu and Bishopscourt,” said Gungubele.
Political Bureau