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00:00South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will be sworn in for a second term in
00:04Pretoria on Wednesday after his African National Congress struck a government
00:09coalition deal following disappointing elections. The May 29th polls produced no
00:14overall winner and the ANC suffered its worst score since the end of apartheid
00:19in 1994. Ramaphosa came to power promising to tackle corruption and South
00:24Africa's energy crisis but his time in office has been plagued by power cuts
00:28and rising unemployment and for more on this we can bring in Stephen Chan
00:32professor of politics and international studies at SOAS in London and a
00:37specialist on South African politics. Good morning Stephen. Cyril Ramaphosa is
00:42sworn in for a second full term today. Can this be considered a victory for the
00:47South African president? It's a temporary victory. He had to put this coalition
00:52together underneath a very great deal of stress and pressure. It remains to be
00:57seen whether this coalition will work. It does mean compromises all the way
01:03down the line for the next five years in terms of government policy and whether
01:08or not this will allow redress of situations like the electricity cuts and
01:12increase in employment and things of that nature. We'll have to see whether
01:16there's an actual unified government or a divided one that hinders all of these
01:21efforts. Under the election last month its fallout has brought South Africa a
01:27coalition government for the first time with at least five parties involved. How
01:31is this going to affect Ramaphosa's own manoeuvres? Basically five parties gives
01:38in fact Ramaphosa some room for manoeuvre because there has to be
01:42consensus among the parties for major government decisions. In a way having
01:46smaller parties in the coalition allows Ramaphosa to try to outflank the major
01:52party in the coalition the Democratic Alliance that has been putting a great
01:56deal of pressure on Ramaphosa. But what this means is that you're going to have
02:00an administration for the next five years of constant manoeuvre, constant
02:04politics and it remains to be seen whether the kind of decisive action the
02:09government needs to take will be able to be taken. And how is this new era of
02:14politics going to change the political landscape in South Africa be it the
02:19former opposition Democratic Alliance which is entering government for the
02:22first time or for instance the left-wing economic freedom fighters? The
02:28economic freedom fighters together with Jacob Zuma's MK party will be an
02:33opposition, quite a strong opposition. In terms of government depending on the
02:39shape of the former coalition and the portfolios haven't been announced yet
02:43sometime after the inauguration perhaps they will be announced but what you're
02:48going to have is a jockeying for position and basically the 2029 election
02:54campaign starts now as each of the parties in the coalition seeks to
02:58outshine the others. So the whole idea is not so much to work for the common good
03:04but to work for party advantage to poise it for taking power in a decisive
03:08fashion five years down the line. And as Simo Ramaphosa came into office as a
03:14new broom following the corruption-tainted presidency of Jacob Zuma
03:18is the president still considered to be a difference from what has gone before?
03:23He's more technocratic of course than Zuma and he did put up with Zuma as a
03:28deputy in the Zuma government. So what you have is a mixture. He's obviously
03:34extremely intellectually well put together. The real problem is not just
03:38the president. What you've got is a party the ANC has fallen way behind at
03:44the times. The president may have technocratic instincts but the party
03:48itself is full of people who are not at all technocratic. There's no emerging
03:53youth wing. What was the youth wing left to form the Economic Freedom Fighters
03:58because they thought they were not encouraged to come through. So you've got
04:02as it were a fossilized ANC and the party is going to be a drag on any
04:08president no matter which party he comes from in a unity government. Clear skies
04:13thinking, new thinking, technocratic thinking. That is not a great skill set
04:18in South Africa right now. And finally, South Africa has continued to grapple
04:23with serious problems during Ramaphosa's time in office such as energy
04:27shortages, crime and rising unemployment. Is there any prospect of the new
04:32government moving the needle on those problems over the next five years?
04:37Infrastructure renewal because a lot of infrastructure is beyond repair and
04:42basically has to be reconstructed from scratch. That's going to cost billions in
04:47terms of investment. So the new government has got to give at least
04:52the impression of stability to attract international investment because there
04:56quite simply isn't enough money in South Africa itself to do all of this.
05:01Infrastructure that works, particularly electricity, will encourage industry.
05:06Industry would encourage employment. What you've got is a cascading cause and
05:11effect situation in South Africa. But they've got to start with infrastructure
05:16before anything else starts to work.
05:19Thank you very much for that, Stephen Chan, Professor of Politics and
05:22International Studies at SOAS in London.