Weakened by scandal and policy missteps, South African President Jacob Zuma pledged in a state of the nation address on Thursday to revive the country’s economy and cut excessive spending. However, the speech was delayed and repeatedly interrupted by opposition lawmakers who angrily demanded his resignation.
In a sober address that experts had considered critical to shoring up his presidency, Zuma focused largely on the stagnant economy and on repairing some of the recent damage caused by what some see as his mishandling of the finance ministry.
Analysts say that South Africa’s economy, Africa’s second largest and its most sophisticated, could slip into a recession because of government mismanagement, severe drought and the economic slowdown in China.
Acknowledging that the country’s government debt was at risk of being downgraded to junk status, Zuma highlighted measures — including policies to facilitate investment, streamline state enterprises and pursue nuclear energy — that were clearly designed to fend off such a move by credit agencies.
Zuma did not directly address a long-standing spending scandal involving his private residence that has now reached the nation’s highest court.
Zuma, in his ninth state of the nation address since taking power in 2009, faced the country and parliament more humbled than he has ever been.
In the days leading up to the address, Zuma, who has typically handled his critics by mocking them, made a point of listening to South Africans: meeting with business leaders in Cape Town and talking to drivers and customers at a taxi stand in Pretoria.
During Zuma’s address, opposition lawmakers demanded that he explain his firing in December last year of a well-respected finance minister who had clashed with one of Zuma’s closest allies and replacing him with a little-known lawmaker. It was a decision that further eroded investors’ confidence in the country’s economy and the health of its institutions.
Zuma reversed himself a few days after the initial firing by firing the new minister and reappointing a former finance minister.
The reversal, which further weakened the South African currency, the rand, and placed the nation at greater risk of a credit downgrade, is believed to have eroded Zuma’s standing within his own party, the African National Congress, and in business circles close to it.
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