Dear Mr. President

Dear Mr. President,

By Daily Maverick,

Oh. Dear.

President Ramaphosa, you just fumbled the ball, knocked on the kinda-promised public holiday and turned the opportunity to unite the country into an opportunity to kick off your election campaign, not to mention an attempt to soften the incoming blow of what appears to be a bruising Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement that will be delivered this week by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana.

Read the room, Mr President – South Africa is not interested right now in another State of the Nation Address full of sentences without meaning and hollow promises.

Our world champions deserve a celebration like we haven’t seen before – and that includes excluding politics.

Election campaigning, by its very nature, is about division. In your case, it is literally “we, the ruling party, are better than them”. What the Boks have just shown us, mere days ago, is that South Africa WORKS when we come together.

Their win is our win and it is about unity. South Africa, together.

The ANC and other political parties, you’ll get your time. Just don’t make it now.

Ramaphosa’s “family meeting” on Monday night was a stark reminder of what’s coming for us all in a few short months: the 2024 elections will once again bring division-sowing, finger-pointing, empty promises and high drama – all of it in times of raging disinformation chaos.

Before we become the “electorate” we have an opportunity right now as “South Africans”. We can celebrate the Springbok victory by honouring what they have achieved. Captain Siya Kolisi (someone please create the superhero comic book!) has repeatedly told the world media how their fight was about bringing hope to South Africa; it was what propelled them to become the best rugby team in the history of the game. They did it for all of us.

And now we have an opportunity to do something in return.

Hope alone is not enough. It requires action. It requires commitment to South Africa.

At Daily Maverick, we commit to:

• Keeping our journalism paywall-free for ALL South Africans so that every person in our country can know the truth (more important than ever);
• Continuing our investigations and playing our part in exposing the corrupt and the criminal;
• Keep demanding accountability from the government – they cannot green-and-gold-wash their failures;
• Adding an education desk that will demand better schooling but also provide much-needed resources to teachers, students and pupils;
• Continuing and accelerating our investigations and reporting on the climate crisis – nothing pushes climate further down the priority agenda like an election; and

• Keep cutting through noise and propaganda – Defend Truth.

All over South Africa, there are opportunities for us as individuals to contribute to making the country better; we just need to look up from our lives momentarily and ask: “What can I do for my country?”

If you appreciate the work we are doing and what we’re trying to achieve for South Africa, then become part of our community, Maverick Insider. It’s not just about helping to pay our journalists’ salaries – it’s about being part of something better, more hopeful: Daily Maverick.

It’s Hope + Action in the pursuit of Impact.