2019 Elections: Analysis: Western Cape: Ramaphosa ticks off trains and farmers in a tight stump programme By Marianne Merten marianne_merten
President Ramaphosa got rid of his train jinx. Three weeks ago he spent four hours on a snail’s pace crawling and stalling Johannesburg commuter train – not an unusual occurrence anywhere in the country for millions of daily commuters, but a presidential security nightmare and a great fracture in the normally tightly controlled optics around the President.
Tuesday’s train event, dubbed “The future is here”, was an opportunity for Ramaphosa to showcase delivery. It was an opportunity to show that the President doing something after slating as “unacceptable” the train delays he experienced on 18 March on a journey that should have taken 45 minutes, not 240.. And so the ANC piggybacked on Tuesday’s train do with the President.
Ramaphosa cracked a joke about having been stuck for four hours on one train one day, but quickly moved to emphasise, what he called, “the new future of the people’s train”. And that included recounting how the local train factory employed a majority of women both on the factory floor, but also in management.I’m the type of President who believes in high performance. We need to be the best in what we do,” he told the farmers towards the end of an over hour of responding to earlier questions.
On Tuesday it was bringing out his farming background to share the frustration about how it takes way too long to get permits. In his case, three years for a water use licence on his farm to plant maize. He didn’t apply in his own name, he told the farmers because he didn’t want to do that, but a trust made the application.
Ramaphosa sneaked in the “grow South Africa” ANC election motto when he pitched the need for a social compact for the country’s future: “I want us to work together to grow South Africa.” That sort of support, and appreciation, doesn’t come easily. Not in a province that has consistently voted DA for the past two elections, and a town like Stellenbosch that’s been DA for four local polls. And not from within farming communities that are widely regarded as conservative.
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