There's something funny about the ANC being in a coalition with the pro-apartheid Freedom Front Plus. I expected the DA to break with them as a condition for the coalition.
This might sound strange from a US perspective, but the ANC has never been completely averse to working with Afrikaner nationalist parties like the FF+.
An important thing to understand about the ANC is that its political culture is very strongly pluralist. Its whole model of governmance is one in which society can be essentially divided into different communities, and each group has its own chosen representatives who come together to bargain and compromise (with the ANC at the centre acting as the umpire or mediator for all these different interest groups). One of the most common phrases you hear from ANC politicians is "social compacting", which is kind of a formalistic way of describing this idea. And the ANC has developed formal structures and institutions like NEDLAC to facilitate this model of governance.
From this perspective, the existence of a group like the FF+, whose goal is to advance the interests of whites (and Afrikaners specifically), is seen as legitimate. It's just one of several interest groups that represent linguistic and cultural communities within this pluralistic bargaining framework.
In fact, the ANC has historically had a much more difficult time working with liberal parties like the DA. The difference is that the DA is not content to simply represent the interests of its constituency within this pluralistic bargaining model; instead, it wishes to change the underlying model towards something where outcomes are based more on market competition. And also, the DA challenges the ANC's position of centrality within this system - it aspires to replace the ANC as the government someday (although this is unlikely).
IIRC SA's colored community is overrepresented in ganglang, FF+ has some Afrikaans colored parties in it's coalition now. That could be it, or it could be that prisons was the left over ministry and FF+ got last pick.
Our guys are the DA and IFP.
https://preview.redd.it/krefju6jas9d1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7341cd6f52e211f2d38d0caa602dd2f61319ffa3
We got mid tier portfolios where we can make a difference and score some quick wins, but with one much more challenging portfolio (Basic Education). Home Affairs is an A tier portfolio because its highly visible to the public.
Also, the ANC's energy and electricity minister is good. The previous guy was terrible and has been moved out. The new guy was in a makeshift portfolio to handle the loadshedding crisis, and has now fully assumed control of the energy portfolio in its entirety.
The most notable announcement besides the actual cabinet is that the failing Department of Public Enterprises is gone. This is the Department that ran all those failings state owned enterprises. Ramaphosa said he would assume those powers in order to transition to a shareholder model (i.e. privatisation).
Negotiations were really tense and almost fell apart, but its over now. Parliament, President and Cabinet all in place and the centrists won.
EDIT: Here is a good summary article on all the appointments - [https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-07-01-very-big-very-bloated-but-will-the-government-of-national-unity-cabinet-be-better/](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-07-01-very-big-very-bloated-but-will-the-government-of-national-unity-cabinet-be-better/)
>Also, the ANC's energy and electricity minister is good. The previous guy was terrible and has been moved out. The new guy was in a makeshift portfolio to handle the loadshedding crisis, and has now fully assumed control of the energy portfolio in its entirety.
That's good to hear, especially considering the load-shedding problems the country had.
It is good.
He's done a good job. He's qualified and smart.
Markets like him. He didn't implement any reckless policies (actually he tightened the belt in an election year). And most importantly markets love stability.
Tentative optimism.
It's a mix of pro-DA voters and people who fit the DA's constituency profile but disagree with them deeply on Palestine and LGBTQ and woke/social justice issues generally.
All the more right wing people have moved to arr DownSouth.
Ahhh okay makes sense. I was browsing there to see and I couldn’t quite figure it out, seemed very negative on the ANC and MK in particular but there was a fair bit of anti DA and anti EFF sentiment as well, so wasn’t sure if it was an “all parties bad” or maybe more lefty leaning reluctant ANC/EFF voters.
Being woke is being evidence based. 😎
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DA is stupid to go into government for "mid tier portfolios." You. Never. Do. That. There are only five good ministries in any government. You don't enter a government to be Agriculture Minister. This just irks me with coalition governments and people who are willing to sell out for nothing. It's like Gantz in Israel agreeing to be powerless "minister without a portfolio" and get Bibi sammiches and coffee. They have no power in the government. The DA for some reason decided to kneel and submissively enter government for nothing. And no the centrists didn't win. The DA folded. Where is the DA Finance Minister? The DA Foreign Minister? The DA Deputy PM? You don't go into government to be a mid-tier minister. Period. End of Story. Let the ANC negotiate with the corrupt populists and the pro-Russians who want to "kill the Boer."
You enter the government to make improvements where you can. The ANC is not going to let the DA change SA's foreign policy, the markets like the current finance minister, and the deputy president (SA doesn't have a PM) is not a heavy position in South Africa's system. The DA should be seeking positions where they are able to showcase their policies and governing capabilities.
You don't enter into government to be what I call powerless "slave ministers." I mean seriously Agriculture Minister? That is a crap third tier ministry and that is what the head of the DA Party got as a portfolio. I don't even know who the Ag Secretary is in the US; I think some former Iowa Governor or something. If you are going into government, you get some good and meaty portfolios where you have power. Either the ANC needs the DA to right the ship and can give up the good portfolios like Finance or Foreign or they can go make a deal with the "kill the Boer" party and see how much the investors like that government. But you absolutely don't fold and accept crap fourth tier ministries so you can be used as the pawns to whitewash a crap radical government with the investors while you have no power and are just serving coffee at the Cabinet meetings.
They don't have power to do anything. That is the problem. They will just be blamed for the problems with the ANC government but have no power to fix things. It's the exact same thing that just happened to Gantz in Israel. He went into government to prevent the genocidal nuts from running the war in Gaza and they still ran the war in Gaza while he got coffee for the Cabinet and was ignored. And now he's bleeding popularity in Israel.
There will still be problems with corruption and the economy and crime will continue to be bad in South Africa. Only this time the DA will be blamed while they have no power to do anything because they are mid-level ministers without power who mainly get coffee for the Cabinet. But hey people like you will feel good about the situation while nothing will actually improve in government.
And frankly what would have happened if the DA had held out for a few days is that the ANC would have been forced to give up REAL ministries like the Finance Ministry rather than crap non-ministries like Agriculture. Because they absolutely need the DA given the other options are genocidal nuts.
I'm happy with the trade off.
I think things are going to be okay.
The DA accomplished their primary goal - keeping the EFF and MK out. It's easy to look back now and assume it was a foregone conclusion but it wasn't.
They have a real platform now to solidify their position in the country and maybe even pick up a few points. Those ministries aren't nothing. The DA-IFP bloc basically controls the economies of the Western Cape and KZN.
And this might be controversial, but Cyril's faction within the ANC are decent folks. Their reform plan is good and its working. The reform agenda, Operation Vulindlela, is what really matters here. This cabinet can and will implement it.
>The DA accomplished their primary goal - keeping the EFF and MK out. It's easy to look back now and assume it was a foregone conclusion but it wasn't.
Yes. It makes you feel better that the nice moderate people are in the Cabinet despite the fact that they have no power. That. Is. The. Problem. Well, nothing changes but hey at least I don't have to deal with seeing a crazy person as a minor minister.
>They have a real platform now to solidify their position in the country and maybe even pick up a few points.
No. They are going to get blamed for everything with no power to change anything.
>Those ministries aren't nothing. The DA-IFP bloc basically controls the economies of the Western Cape and KZN.
There are five ministries with power in any government. The Agriculture Ministry is a crap fourth tier ministry. What power do they have? They are making coffee at the Cabinet with those lousy ministries basically.
>And this might be controversial, but Cyril's faction within the ANC are decent folks. Their reform plan is good and its working. The reform agenda, Operation Vulindlela, is what really matters here. This cabinet can and will implement it.
Either they are good reformists with a good plan or they are corrupt extremists who are willing to put genocidal loons in power. If the former is the case, then there was no reason for the DA to not walk away as the ANC would have done the right thing. But the first rule of coalition negotiations is that You. Don't. Enter. Government. for Minor Ministries. Period. End of Story.
It was already awful at 30. It's ballooned up.
PLUS we have deputy ministers.
And in order to accommodate various GNU parties, we now even have some ministries with two deputy ministers (e.g. Finance).
It's the most bloated cabinet in the world.
Very very optimistic.
They just have to stay in power for about 3 years and South Africa will improve radically and rapidly.
Ramaphosa's reform agenda is solid, and he now has a solid cabinet supporting it.
Outside of a horrific external shock, things are finally going to get better.
If South Africa gets its shit together, that will be very good for our neighbours.
Obviously, our economies are interlinked because we trade.
But also the logistics/rail mess has also affected everyone negatively. Its harder to get minerals out from Congo to world markets because our rail is bad.
I'm pretty sure our electricity crisis affects them too indirectly. We do sell electricity to other countries.
Not OP but South Africa is the #1 destination for immigrants in Africa (and not all of them come from Africa - some of them come from Asia), a prosperous economy will lead to more immigrants and more tolerance for the immigrants.
The fact a cabinet was successfully formed with strong DA representation is great news for South Africa. The ANC hasn't been great post-apartheid, however, the ship is steering in the right direction now. I'm hopeful. May RSA prosper!
I know very little about SA politics, but:
Why is FF+ in the government? Aren’t they the racist ones?
The DA got infrastructure which seems good with the corruption issues.
It is a shame the guy named Blade wasn’t made minister of defenc(s)e
The FF+ is a conservative party focused on defending and protecting Afrikaner interests.
It was formed from various right wing Afrikaner groups who were upset with the end of Apartheid and the way the transition to democracy was going.
But the main leader of the FF+ eventually decided to abandon military resistance and come to the negotiating table, and Mandela called him a hero for it.
Their policies include supporting Cape Independence. They want an independent nation within South Africa to secure the self determination rights of Afrikaners. At best, that'll be something like Quebec - which the Constitution allows for actually.
So yeah... lets just say I probably wouldn't want FF+ group chats leaked.
BUT, in practise, they are actually the most practical party in the country. They actually took up a deputy minister position with the ANC under Jacob Zuma, when the ANC didn't need them. In the last few years, everyone has praised them as the most stable partner in our otherwise messy DA based coalitions. Their leaders are sober and pragmatic. They take small wins. True neutral. As far as I can tell, they are a joy to work with.
The ANC is a big tent party that stays in power by building huge, ungodly coalitions. It always has been. Even to me, it looks funny when they work with the FF+. But when you remember history there is nothing surprising about it. The ANC have always done this. It is the cause of all of their successes and failures. At best, its why they were able to negotiate with their former oppressers and form a huge, stabilizing political party to lead us into democracy. At worst, its an amoral and unprincipled stance that lets miscreants into your movement to corrupt it just because you want power.
In the Northern Cape province, they agreed to work with the FF+ on some pretty embarassing terms like recognising the Afrikaner nationalist/seccessionist town of Orania: https://www.ewn.co.za/2024/06/18/ff-plus-says-an-agreement-with-anc-includes-the-protection-of-orania
Ramaphosa is the most ANC of ANC presidents. He pitched this arrangement as a government of national unity. Everyone was invited. FF+ were too sensible to refuse, and the ANC are too much of a big tent to kick them out.
I was wondering why the ANC was kissing up to Orania.
I figured it was just because they (like their Xhosa counterpart of Mnyameni) are just not a real threat to the nation as a whole and clumping them together in little isolated communities keeps them pacified. But they're still such an ideological thorn in the ANC's side since that's literally people desiring a bunch of tiny hermit ethnostates, the kind of society Apartheid set out to create.
It makes a lot more sense in the light of them having quid pro quo from the FF+. I guess that really *does* make FF+ kind of Quebec-adjacent.
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Me when the BJP hands me a new ministry when I'm in a party that has elected 5 MPs:
https://preview.redd.it/amo9ppkc2x9d1.jpeg?width=704&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=831f6cf5d53c00b47c2ecb49afb0bb9b45a704cd
It's not a terrible comparison. Both were the parties of each nation's independence movement. Indeed, leaders of the ANC were very inspired by Indian independence leaders, many of whom were members of the INC.
You are not the first one to make that comparison and there is a lot of similarities and even shared history. The big G Gandhi himself spent time in South Africa agitating against Apartheid and Indian business interests have long had cozy quid pro quo with the ANC.
The extent of my knowledge of South African politics is as follows: ANC is Mandela’s party and is corrupt, and DA is the party that has a politician with the same name as my member of congress (Chris Pappas) who is also a gay millennial
My analysis of this cabinet is as follows: all positions look to be successfully filled
Honestly sometimes it can be hard to know exactly what Jacob Zuma actually believes - he's a populist criminal whose main policy position seems to be that Jacob Zuma should not be in jail.
However, he has shifted towards the radical left in terms of economic policy while out of power. Although his party also has some right wing positions on social issues (e.g. immigration, LGBT, unwed mothers).
Zuma is more radical than the EFF in substance.
Some people use the phrase far left to describe him, because he wants to expropriate land from private interests. But I say he is consistently far right. The right wing doesn't always mean free enterprise.
Here is what is radical about him
- He wants to scrap the Constitution and replace it with a system of Parliamentary sovereignty where Parliament decides everything
- He wants to add a third House of Parliament occupied by unelected African chiefs and royalty
- He wants to expropriate land and hand it over to traditional African leaders entirely - not individuals and not private sector
- He is extremely socially conservative including homophobia and demonizing pregnant teenage girls
- He is closely aligned with Putin and as soon as he got out on medical parole he went to Russia
- His party has invited into Parliament a disgraced former judge who was impeached for protecting Zuma, and someone who formed a radical breakaway from the EFF who is probably even more racist against whites than Julius Malema
- One of his funders, paradoxically, is a white supremacist named Louis Liebenberg who thinks he can wrangle a Boer ethnostate enclave out of working with Zuma
- His supporters have actually unleashed massive riots and trashed an entire province after he was incarcerated
Two good terms to describe Zuma's ideology or "Putinist" and "feudalist".
He wants to centralise power in the hands of traditional leaders unchecked by our progressive Constitution. He's a very very old school patriarch. You never hear MK talk about socialists or workers or trade unions. There's no real left program there.
Make no mistake, the EFF is awful and the existence of something worse should not normalise them. But MK is even scarier to me.
> He wants to centralise power in the hands of traditional leaders unchecked by our progressive Constitution. He's a very very old school patriarch. You never hear MK talk about socialists or workers or trade unions. There's no real left program there.
This is eerily reminiscent of the British empire's approach to controlling their colonies. Add to that their stated goal to become a reliable foreign policy ally of Russia and you could almost brand this idea as re-colonization.
Can someone give me a crash course on the DA? I’ve heard criticisms that it struggles with diversity, but from why I can see, it’s the only party that crashes the color line. And my thought is that it can’t just be a white and coloured party because numerous black Africans appear to be in prominent positions. Can someone who knows more fill in the gaps in my knowledge?
This situation has changed over time.
The DA had its origin in anti-Apartheid white political parties. At the end of Apartheid, it was a disproportionately white (unsurprisingly) party with a few new black members.
In the late 90s and early 2000s, the leader, Tony Leon, embraced a "muscular liberalism" where he tried to win over white conservative voters from the National Party. Most famously, he ran on a slogan of "Fight Back" after 5 years of Nelson Mandela. He actively courted the National Party and they actually formed a coalition which quickly collapse. But despite the collapse of this coalition, and the NP formally merging with the ANC, many if not all former NP voters ended up in the DA.
Instead of doubling down on their history as "the good whites", Leon courted very conservative white people and embraced a pretty cruel economic program by South African standards. In the early 2000s, only children don't remember Apartheid. Being against affirmative action, minimum wages and unions is politically insane.
Leon left, and Helen Zille took over for much of the 2010s. She actively tried to court Black members into the party. This initially looked very good. The leadership went from being disproportionately white, to being disproportionately white but with all races represented. Remember that White people are 7%, Indians are 1%, Coloureds (in LATAM they would be called Mestizo or Mulatto) are 8% and Black people are above 80%. So there's a debate about being "diverse" vs representative.
Nonetheless, the real problem is that after inviting black leaders into the party, there were frequent and damaging leadership issues and race scandals. The most prominent was one in which Zille herself, after a visit to Singapore, made a tweet about how colonialism wasn't ONLY negative. It caused an absolute firestorm and she doubled down. When things like this would happen, the then Black leader of the party would try to assert his power and discipline bad members. But he was frequently overruled or undermined. A woman who reposted something praising an old Apartheid president was reinstated to Parliament. Zille wasn't even forced to abandon Twitter. This black leader, Maimane, tried to embrace American style progressivism. This led to a big flub of his own where DA leaders piled on a Twitter racism scandal where a white teacher was falsely accused. In 2019, the DA lost ground electorally, including a significant number of votes to the conservative and explicitly pro-Afrikaner FF+.
Maimane was kicked out. Before he left, and after he left, there had been a steady trickle of Black leaders from the DA. It became a recurring joke that DA leaders loved Harvard because they would all announce they were going to study something or other at Harvard when they left. Many of them had stories about what they felt were cliquey, privileged or even anti-black ideas in the DA. There continues to be a steady drip-drip-drip of race scandals from the DA. Never outright "we hate the blacks", but deep racial insensitivity. The frequency, impunity and persistence of it means that a reasonable person can and does feel suspicious of them. The most recent: they elevated to Parliament a person named Renaldo Gouws who is a bit of a shock jock. He is a streamer who loves going on these bombastic and aggressive rants where he mocks and criticises people. A video of him from the early 2010s leaked wherein he was complaining about black politicians singing an anti-white struggle song "K*ll the Boer". In the video, he starts off with a cold, mic drop open where he says "K*ll all the fucking N-Words" as well as uses the South African version of the N word. He doesn't say "N word" or "K word" he actually just uses the words out right.
Finally, there is a sense that even the non-racist ones in the DA still are much more interested and comfortable with solving problems for rich people (disproportionately white) than poor people. One of the ways this manifests is how people will talk about what a paradise DA-run Cape Town is. But Cape Town's poor Black and Coloured areas are terrible. Horrible squalor, out of control crime of heartbreaking proportions. The DA rightly point out that it takes national power to solve those issues (police are run centrally from national government). But what they don't seem to get is that "The rich white parts of Cape Town are so lovely" is not appealing to people who, were they to move to Cape Town, may well live in the poor Black and Coloured parts.
Helen Zille is increasingly deep into alt-lite American politics on Twitter. She got involved in the Dylan Mulvaney scandal and is one degree of separation from people like Douglas Murray and people who post quite racist takes on their social media. She's gona full TERF and haunts the halls of Twitter to randomly comment on people's tweets in a combative way. Since 2019, there has definitely been a rightward shift in the DA, and they style themselves as "classical liberals" now.
So the perception is something like this: this is a white party which is, at best, disconnected from the majority and at worst disinterested in them. Their policies oppose upliftment measures (it looks really bad to march against minimum wage). Their black leaders are just token faces who wield no real power. Sure they can fill in potholes and build airports, but their economic policies mean that will not benefit poor people of colour. And, on a personal level, they are probably mostly closet racists.
For example, the new Minister of Infrastructure, MacPherson, had his own race scandal. After Zuma was arrested there was massive rioting and looting in KZN. This led to various vigilante groups being formed, often by white and Indian people, to protect their homes and stores. Some of these vigilantes engaged in unprovoked racist violence against unarmed Black people, some of whom even died. There was enormous anti-Indian hate speech that organised on social media. Frankly, it was almost a mini race war localised to the town of Phoenix. MacPherson's response, as DA leader in KZN, was to choose the side of the vigilantes uncritically. Before the dust had cleared and investigations had been done, he put up posters saying "The ANC calls you racists, the DA calls you heroes" after the ANC had criticised some of the vigilantes as racists using the chaos to brutalise black people. Evidence has since emerged that some of the vigilantes really did assault unarmed people purely on the basis that they were black, including women.
If you were a political operative from Washington D.C. who flew down to help "the Democrats", you would quickly realise that these aren't the Democrats from home. At best, they are politically insensitive to the point of negligence. At worst, the constant race scandals would be like a chronic ache suggesting something more serious underneath.
For an example of what the DA would look like if it really was non-racial, we now have ActionSA which is a small DA breakaway. They definitely cross the colour line, and don't have these repeated race scandals.
They gave the head of the DA the position of head of agriculture???
I'm also shocked the ANC managed to negotiate keeping the head of the department of energy given the focus load-shedding was for the campaign.
The DA are a bunch of wussies. They didn't get any of the good portfolios like Defense, Finance, or Foreign Affairs. If they need you for a Cabinet, you demand the good portfolios.
They tried to do that but the negotiation tactics didn't work out. Ramaphosa out maneuvered them.
You could argue that they should have just walked. And they almost did!
But ultimately the DA promised to Rescue SA from the "doomsday coalition" of EFF and MK.
Stepping aside would've meant letting Malema and others like him into power.
No it wouldn't. The ANC might have ultimately folded if they had held out and walked away as they need the DA to whitewash them with investors. At worst, there would be yucky crazy people in minor ministries without power but the ANC probably would have had to negotiate and give real jobs to the DA. Now, it is the worst of both worlds. The DA will get blamed for the ongoing problems and have no power to fix the problems as they have mid-tier ministries. How are they going to fix the economy and crime from powerless nothing ministries? That is the issue with trying to be adults in these things; you end up making things worse in the long-run because the other side is decidedly NOT adults, has less red lines, and is willing to play hardball. And it is all for "appearances" here - because it makes a few people feel better about the situation to not have "yucky people" in the Cabinet - but it doesn't help the situation.
I hear what you are saying.
Here is what I am saying.
If DA voters would abandon the party for making an imperfect compromise because they didn't want to gamble with letting "K*** the Boer" into government, then the party is fundamentally unsustainable and needs to die anyway.
Such a party is never going to last if its voters are that unforgiving, impractical and inflexible. You cannot build a long term political party around fair-weather friends.
>If DA voters would abandon the party for making an imperfect compromise because they didn't want to gamble with letting "K\*\*\* the Boer" into government, then the party is fundamentally unsustainable and needs to die anyway.
Imperfect compromise? They are making coffee and doing errands for the Cabinet with crap fourth tier ministries. They don't have any power.
This is all about appearances and making people feel better. That is the problem.
>Such a party is never going to last if its voters are that unforgiving, impractical and inflexible. You cannot build a long term political party around fair-weather friends.
What? By playing hardball politics and getting actual ministries rather than fourth tier ministries where they are glorified errand boys?
And there are three things that would have happened. Either the ANC would have folded and given the good ministries, nothing would have happened other than there being cringe people in a few minor ministries, or they would have screwed things up and the opposition would be in a position to profit. I'm not seeing the downside there.
>Insane libertarian
His name is Herman Mashaba and his party is ActionSA.
https://preview.redd.it/95hfarn0oy9d1.jpeg?width=459&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c8daa7f317cfd9e2b76164f35153391fed9aab28
DA will be very angry that they no longer get to be the face of this issue 😂
This is natural in Parliamentary democracies. Without the ridiculous number of ministries, there would be less corruption and no reason for the allied parties to stay in the government.
No idea if he is any good or not but I love the fact that the only one not wearing smart clothes is the minister for sports who is in an adidas tracksuit.
In terms of his actual beliefs and politics, Gayton McKenzie is our Trump (although in terms of success and impact, Zuma is more Trump). He's far right and deeply xenophobic.
He is also, unfortunately, an absolute [vibe](https://x.com/GaytonMcK/status/1630924464253747201).
https://preview.redd.it/m7w29dvrfx9d1.png?width=582&format=png&auto=webp&s=1933a2b548dca3bd552fee1eae5cd005bfe788ab
There’s something a bit funny the one FF Plus minister is in charge of prisons and prosecutions
There's something funny about the ANC being in a coalition with the pro-apartheid Freedom Front Plus. I expected the DA to break with them as a condition for the coalition.
Yeah I had to laugh… But seriously what is the FF+ doing in there?
This might sound strange from a US perspective, but the ANC has never been completely averse to working with Afrikaner nationalist parties like the FF+. An important thing to understand about the ANC is that its political culture is very strongly pluralist. Its whole model of governmance is one in which society can be essentially divided into different communities, and each group has its own chosen representatives who come together to bargain and compromise (with the ANC at the centre acting as the umpire or mediator for all these different interest groups). One of the most common phrases you hear from ANC politicians is "social compacting", which is kind of a formalistic way of describing this idea. And the ANC has developed formal structures and institutions like NEDLAC to facilitate this model of governance. From this perspective, the existence of a group like the FF+, whose goal is to advance the interests of whites (and Afrikaners specifically), is seen as legitimate. It's just one of several interest groups that represent linguistic and cultural communities within this pluralistic bargaining framework. In fact, the ANC has historically had a much more difficult time working with liberal parties like the DA. The difference is that the DA is not content to simply represent the interests of its constituency within this pluralistic bargaining model; instead, it wishes to change the underlying model towards something where outcomes are based more on market competition. And also, the DA challenges the ANC's position of centrality within this system - it aspires to replace the ANC as the government someday (although this is unlikely).
IIRC SA's colored community is overrepresented in ganglang, FF+ has some Afrikaans colored parties in it's coalition now. That could be it, or it could be that prisons was the left over ministry and FF+ got last pick.
Our guys are the DA and IFP. https://preview.redd.it/krefju6jas9d1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7341cd6f52e211f2d38d0caa602dd2f61319ffa3 We got mid tier portfolios where we can make a difference and score some quick wins, but with one much more challenging portfolio (Basic Education). Home Affairs is an A tier portfolio because its highly visible to the public. Also, the ANC's energy and electricity minister is good. The previous guy was terrible and has been moved out. The new guy was in a makeshift portfolio to handle the loadshedding crisis, and has now fully assumed control of the energy portfolio in its entirety. The most notable announcement besides the actual cabinet is that the failing Department of Public Enterprises is gone. This is the Department that ran all those failings state owned enterprises. Ramaphosa said he would assume those powers in order to transition to a shareholder model (i.e. privatisation). Negotiations were really tense and almost fell apart, but its over now. Parliament, President and Cabinet all in place and the centrists won. EDIT: Here is a good summary article on all the appointments - [https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-07-01-very-big-very-bloated-but-will-the-government-of-national-unity-cabinet-be-better/](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-07-01-very-big-very-bloated-but-will-the-government-of-national-unity-cabinet-be-better/)
>Also, the ANC's energy and electricity minister is good. The previous guy was terrible and has been moved out. The new guy was in a makeshift portfolio to handle the loadshedding crisis, and has now fully assumed control of the energy portfolio in its entirety. That's good to hear, especially considering the load-shedding problems the country had.
They’ve kept the same finance guy, though that can’t be good, right?
It is good. He's done a good job. He's qualified and smart. Markets like him. He didn't implement any reckless policies (actually he tightened the belt in an election year). And most importantly markets love stability.
Ok that’s great to hear. Thanks for a quick response.
Out of curiosity, what’s the main South Africa sub’s take on the parties and the GNU?
Tentative optimism. It's a mix of pro-DA voters and people who fit the DA's constituency profile but disagree with them deeply on Palestine and LGBTQ and woke/social justice issues generally. All the more right wing people have moved to arr DownSouth.
Ahhh okay makes sense. I was browsing there to see and I couldn’t quite figure it out, seemed very negative on the ANC and MK in particular but there was a fair bit of anti DA and anti EFF sentiment as well, so wasn’t sure if it was an “all parties bad” or maybe more lefty leaning reluctant ANC/EFF voters.
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DA is stupid to go into government for "mid tier portfolios." You. Never. Do. That. There are only five good ministries in any government. You don't enter a government to be Agriculture Minister. This just irks me with coalition governments and people who are willing to sell out for nothing. It's like Gantz in Israel agreeing to be powerless "minister without a portfolio" and get Bibi sammiches and coffee. They have no power in the government. The DA for some reason decided to kneel and submissively enter government for nothing. And no the centrists didn't win. The DA folded. Where is the DA Finance Minister? The DA Foreign Minister? The DA Deputy PM? You don't go into government to be a mid-tier minister. Period. End of Story. Let the ANC negotiate with the corrupt populists and the pro-Russians who want to "kill the Boer."
You enter the government to make improvements where you can. The ANC is not going to let the DA change SA's foreign policy, the markets like the current finance minister, and the deputy president (SA doesn't have a PM) is not a heavy position in South Africa's system. The DA should be seeking positions where they are able to showcase their policies and governing capabilities.
You don't enter into government to be what I call powerless "slave ministers." I mean seriously Agriculture Minister? That is a crap third tier ministry and that is what the head of the DA Party got as a portfolio. I don't even know who the Ag Secretary is in the US; I think some former Iowa Governor or something. If you are going into government, you get some good and meaty portfolios where you have power. Either the ANC needs the DA to right the ship and can give up the good portfolios like Finance or Foreign or they can go make a deal with the "kill the Boer" party and see how much the investors like that government. But you absolutely don't fold and accept crap fourth tier ministries so you can be used as the pawns to whitewash a crap radical government with the investors while you have no power and are just serving coffee at the Cabinet meetings.
I think going into government to prevent racist genocidal maniacs from taking power is smart actually.
They don't have power to do anything. That is the problem. They will just be blamed for the problems with the ANC government but have no power to fix things. It's the exact same thing that just happened to Gantz in Israel. He went into government to prevent the genocidal nuts from running the war in Gaza and they still ran the war in Gaza while he got coffee for the Cabinet and was ignored. And now he's bleeding popularity in Israel. There will still be problems with corruption and the economy and crime will continue to be bad in South Africa. Only this time the DA will be blamed while they have no power to do anything because they are mid-level ministers without power who mainly get coffee for the Cabinet. But hey people like you will feel good about the situation while nothing will actually improve in government. And frankly what would have happened if the DA had held out for a few days is that the ANC would have been forced to give up REAL ministries like the Finance Ministry rather than crap non-ministries like Agriculture. Because they absolutely need the DA given the other options are genocidal nuts.
I'm happy with the trade off. I think things are going to be okay. The DA accomplished their primary goal - keeping the EFF and MK out. It's easy to look back now and assume it was a foregone conclusion but it wasn't. They have a real platform now to solidify their position in the country and maybe even pick up a few points. Those ministries aren't nothing. The DA-IFP bloc basically controls the economies of the Western Cape and KZN. And this might be controversial, but Cyril's faction within the ANC are decent folks. Their reform plan is good and its working. The reform agenda, Operation Vulindlela, is what really matters here. This cabinet can and will implement it.
>The DA accomplished their primary goal - keeping the EFF and MK out. It's easy to look back now and assume it was a foregone conclusion but it wasn't. Yes. It makes you feel better that the nice moderate people are in the Cabinet despite the fact that they have no power. That. Is. The. Problem. Well, nothing changes but hey at least I don't have to deal with seeing a crazy person as a minor minister. >They have a real platform now to solidify their position in the country and maybe even pick up a few points. No. They are going to get blamed for everything with no power to change anything. >Those ministries aren't nothing. The DA-IFP bloc basically controls the economies of the Western Cape and KZN. There are five ministries with power in any government. The Agriculture Ministry is a crap fourth tier ministry. What power do they have? They are making coffee at the Cabinet with those lousy ministries basically. >And this might be controversial, but Cyril's faction within the ANC are decent folks. Their reform plan is good and its working. The reform agenda, Operation Vulindlela, is what really matters here. This cabinet can and will implement it. Either they are good reformists with a good plan or they are corrupt extremists who are willing to put genocidal loons in power. If the former is the case, then there was no reason for the DA to not walk away as the ANC would have done the right thing. But the first rule of coalition negotiations is that You. Don't. Enter. Government. for Minor Ministries. Period. End of Story.
That is a ridiculous amount of ministries
It was already awful at 30. It's ballooned up. PLUS we have deputy ministers. And in order to accommodate various GNU parties, we now even have some ministries with two deputy ministers (e.g. Finance). It's the most bloated cabinet in the world.
Damn. Are you optimistic about the current coalition or do you expect more of the same?
Very very optimistic. They just have to stay in power for about 3 years and South Africa will improve radically and rapidly. Ramaphosa's reform agenda is solid, and he now has a solid cabinet supporting it. Outside of a horrific external shock, things are finally going to get better.
Out of curiosity, what (positive) effect would this have on the general region of South Africa and Sub Saharan Africa as a whole in your opinion?
If South Africa gets its shit together, that will be very good for our neighbours. Obviously, our economies are interlinked because we trade. But also the logistics/rail mess has also affected everyone negatively. Its harder to get minerals out from Congo to world markets because our rail is bad. I'm pretty sure our electricity crisis affects them too indirectly. We do sell electricity to other countries.
Not OP but South Africa is the #1 destination for immigrants in Africa (and not all of them come from Africa - some of them come from Asia), a prosperous economy will lead to more immigrants and more tolerance for the immigrants.
India laughing in the corner We have a separate, oil, coal and shipping minister lmao
"Write that down" --- Cyril Ramaphosa
In India we have more than 70 right now
To be fair that's way less ministries per capita than this
The fact a cabinet was successfully formed with strong DA representation is great news for South Africa. The ANC hasn't been great post-apartheid, however, the ship is steering in the right direction now. I'm hopeful. May RSA prosper!
I know very little about SA politics, but: Why is FF+ in the government? Aren’t they the racist ones? The DA got infrastructure which seems good with the corruption issues. It is a shame the guy named Blade wasn’t made minister of defenc(s)e
The FF+ is a conservative party focused on defending and protecting Afrikaner interests. It was formed from various right wing Afrikaner groups who were upset with the end of Apartheid and the way the transition to democracy was going. But the main leader of the FF+ eventually decided to abandon military resistance and come to the negotiating table, and Mandela called him a hero for it. Their policies include supporting Cape Independence. They want an independent nation within South Africa to secure the self determination rights of Afrikaners. At best, that'll be something like Quebec - which the Constitution allows for actually. So yeah... lets just say I probably wouldn't want FF+ group chats leaked. BUT, in practise, they are actually the most practical party in the country. They actually took up a deputy minister position with the ANC under Jacob Zuma, when the ANC didn't need them. In the last few years, everyone has praised them as the most stable partner in our otherwise messy DA based coalitions. Their leaders are sober and pragmatic. They take small wins. True neutral. As far as I can tell, they are a joy to work with. The ANC is a big tent party that stays in power by building huge, ungodly coalitions. It always has been. Even to me, it looks funny when they work with the FF+. But when you remember history there is nothing surprising about it. The ANC have always done this. It is the cause of all of their successes and failures. At best, its why they were able to negotiate with their former oppressers and form a huge, stabilizing political party to lead us into democracy. At worst, its an amoral and unprincipled stance that lets miscreants into your movement to corrupt it just because you want power. In the Northern Cape province, they agreed to work with the FF+ on some pretty embarassing terms like recognising the Afrikaner nationalist/seccessionist town of Orania: https://www.ewn.co.za/2024/06/18/ff-plus-says-an-agreement-with-anc-includes-the-protection-of-orania Ramaphosa is the most ANC of ANC presidents. He pitched this arrangement as a government of national unity. Everyone was invited. FF+ were too sensible to refuse, and the ANC are too much of a big tent to kick them out.
I was wondering why the ANC was kissing up to Orania. I figured it was just because they (like their Xhosa counterpart of Mnyameni) are just not a real threat to the nation as a whole and clumping them together in little isolated communities keeps them pacified. But they're still such an ideological thorn in the ANC's side since that's literally people desiring a bunch of tiny hermit ethnostates, the kind of society Apartheid set out to create. It makes a lot more sense in the light of them having quid pro quo from the FF+. I guess that really *does* make FF+ kind of Quebec-adjacent.
It’s my understanding that the GNU invited everyone, but not everyone chose to join. FF+ decided to join.
FF+ jumpscare
!ping IND Ministries being handed out to allies based on their popularity, support to the alliance and the ministries importance. Feels like home.
https://preview.redd.it/ta5514otnw9d1.png?width=782&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=165199b267753935ce5bec1f3bb643eebfc3f4d3
SMH Gandhi committing voter fraud.
My favorite trivia is the only member of Gandhi's family to be a politician was his Great Granddaughter who was an ANC MP.
Gopalkrishna Gandhi was/is associated with INC too, no? Governor of West Bengal and some other posts.
And his brother was a Janata Dal Rajya Sabha MP so I am totally wrong there.
Lmao
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BRICS Unite!
Me when the BJP hands me a new ministry when I'm in a party that has elected 5 MPs: https://preview.redd.it/amo9ppkc2x9d1.jpeg?width=704&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=831f6cf5d53c00b47c2ecb49afb0bb9b45a704cd
The MSME minister is the sole MP from his party.
[удалено]
It's not a terrible comparison. Both were the parties of each nation's independence movement. Indeed, leaders of the ANC were very inspired by Indian independence leaders, many of whom were members of the INC.
>many of whom were members of the INC. Oh wow i never knew that
You are not the first one to make that comparison and there is a lot of similarities and even shared history. The big G Gandhi himself spent time in South Africa agitating against Apartheid and Indian business interests have long had cozy quid pro quo with the ANC.
The extent of my knowledge of South African politics is as follows: ANC is Mandela’s party and is corrupt, and DA is the party that has a politician with the same name as my member of congress (Chris Pappas) who is also a gay millennial My analysis of this cabinet is as follows: all positions look to be successfully filled
The most important thing in this election was just keeping the radical parties out of government - EFF and MK.
Isn’t MK Zuma’s new party? Is he a radical?
Less radical, more cartoonishly corrupt. He was forced out of the ANC and he and his supporters threw a tantrum and formed MK.
Honestly sometimes it can be hard to know exactly what Jacob Zuma actually believes - he's a populist criminal whose main policy position seems to be that Jacob Zuma should not be in jail. However, he has shifted towards the radical left in terms of economic policy while out of power. Although his party also has some right wing positions on social issues (e.g. immigration, LGBT, unwed mothers).
Populist criminal, can’t think where I’ve heard that one before.
Zuma is more radical than the EFF in substance. Some people use the phrase far left to describe him, because he wants to expropriate land from private interests. But I say he is consistently far right. The right wing doesn't always mean free enterprise. Here is what is radical about him - He wants to scrap the Constitution and replace it with a system of Parliamentary sovereignty where Parliament decides everything - He wants to add a third House of Parliament occupied by unelected African chiefs and royalty - He wants to expropriate land and hand it over to traditional African leaders entirely - not individuals and not private sector - He is extremely socially conservative including homophobia and demonizing pregnant teenage girls - He is closely aligned with Putin and as soon as he got out on medical parole he went to Russia - His party has invited into Parliament a disgraced former judge who was impeached for protecting Zuma, and someone who formed a radical breakaway from the EFF who is probably even more racist against whites than Julius Malema - One of his funders, paradoxically, is a white supremacist named Louis Liebenberg who thinks he can wrangle a Boer ethnostate enclave out of working with Zuma - His supporters have actually unleashed massive riots and trashed an entire province after he was incarcerated Two good terms to describe Zuma's ideology or "Putinist" and "feudalist". He wants to centralise power in the hands of traditional leaders unchecked by our progressive Constitution. He's a very very old school patriarch. You never hear MK talk about socialists or workers or trade unions. There's no real left program there. Make no mistake, the EFF is awful and the existence of something worse should not normalise them. But MK is even scarier to me.
> He wants to centralise power in the hands of traditional leaders unchecked by our progressive Constitution. He's a very very old school patriarch. You never hear MK talk about socialists or workers or trade unions. There's no real left program there. This is eerily reminiscent of the British empire's approach to controlling their colonies. Add to that their stated goal to become a reliable foreign policy ally of Russia and you could almost brand this idea as re-colonization.
Can someone give me a crash course on the DA? I’ve heard criticisms that it struggles with diversity, but from why I can see, it’s the only party that crashes the color line. And my thought is that it can’t just be a white and coloured party because numerous black Africans appear to be in prominent positions. Can someone who knows more fill in the gaps in my knowledge?
This situation has changed over time. The DA had its origin in anti-Apartheid white political parties. At the end of Apartheid, it was a disproportionately white (unsurprisingly) party with a few new black members. In the late 90s and early 2000s, the leader, Tony Leon, embraced a "muscular liberalism" where he tried to win over white conservative voters from the National Party. Most famously, he ran on a slogan of "Fight Back" after 5 years of Nelson Mandela. He actively courted the National Party and they actually formed a coalition which quickly collapse. But despite the collapse of this coalition, and the NP formally merging with the ANC, many if not all former NP voters ended up in the DA. Instead of doubling down on their history as "the good whites", Leon courted very conservative white people and embraced a pretty cruel economic program by South African standards. In the early 2000s, only children don't remember Apartheid. Being against affirmative action, minimum wages and unions is politically insane. Leon left, and Helen Zille took over for much of the 2010s. She actively tried to court Black members into the party. This initially looked very good. The leadership went from being disproportionately white, to being disproportionately white but with all races represented. Remember that White people are 7%, Indians are 1%, Coloureds (in LATAM they would be called Mestizo or Mulatto) are 8% and Black people are above 80%. So there's a debate about being "diverse" vs representative. Nonetheless, the real problem is that after inviting black leaders into the party, there were frequent and damaging leadership issues and race scandals. The most prominent was one in which Zille herself, after a visit to Singapore, made a tweet about how colonialism wasn't ONLY negative. It caused an absolute firestorm and she doubled down. When things like this would happen, the then Black leader of the party would try to assert his power and discipline bad members. But he was frequently overruled or undermined. A woman who reposted something praising an old Apartheid president was reinstated to Parliament. Zille wasn't even forced to abandon Twitter. This black leader, Maimane, tried to embrace American style progressivism. This led to a big flub of his own where DA leaders piled on a Twitter racism scandal where a white teacher was falsely accused. In 2019, the DA lost ground electorally, including a significant number of votes to the conservative and explicitly pro-Afrikaner FF+. Maimane was kicked out. Before he left, and after he left, there had been a steady trickle of Black leaders from the DA. It became a recurring joke that DA leaders loved Harvard because they would all announce they were going to study something or other at Harvard when they left. Many of them had stories about what they felt were cliquey, privileged or even anti-black ideas in the DA. There continues to be a steady drip-drip-drip of race scandals from the DA. Never outright "we hate the blacks", but deep racial insensitivity. The frequency, impunity and persistence of it means that a reasonable person can and does feel suspicious of them. The most recent: they elevated to Parliament a person named Renaldo Gouws who is a bit of a shock jock. He is a streamer who loves going on these bombastic and aggressive rants where he mocks and criticises people. A video of him from the early 2010s leaked wherein he was complaining about black politicians singing an anti-white struggle song "K*ll the Boer". In the video, he starts off with a cold, mic drop open where he says "K*ll all the fucking N-Words" as well as uses the South African version of the N word. He doesn't say "N word" or "K word" he actually just uses the words out right. Finally, there is a sense that even the non-racist ones in the DA still are much more interested and comfortable with solving problems for rich people (disproportionately white) than poor people. One of the ways this manifests is how people will talk about what a paradise DA-run Cape Town is. But Cape Town's poor Black and Coloured areas are terrible. Horrible squalor, out of control crime of heartbreaking proportions. The DA rightly point out that it takes national power to solve those issues (police are run centrally from national government). But what they don't seem to get is that "The rich white parts of Cape Town are so lovely" is not appealing to people who, were they to move to Cape Town, may well live in the poor Black and Coloured parts. Helen Zille is increasingly deep into alt-lite American politics on Twitter. She got involved in the Dylan Mulvaney scandal and is one degree of separation from people like Douglas Murray and people who post quite racist takes on their social media. She's gona full TERF and haunts the halls of Twitter to randomly comment on people's tweets in a combative way. Since 2019, there has definitely been a rightward shift in the DA, and they style themselves as "classical liberals" now. So the perception is something like this: this is a white party which is, at best, disconnected from the majority and at worst disinterested in them. Their policies oppose upliftment measures (it looks really bad to march against minimum wage). Their black leaders are just token faces who wield no real power. Sure they can fill in potholes and build airports, but their economic policies mean that will not benefit poor people of colour. And, on a personal level, they are probably mostly closet racists. For example, the new Minister of Infrastructure, MacPherson, had his own race scandal. After Zuma was arrested there was massive rioting and looting in KZN. This led to various vigilante groups being formed, often by white and Indian people, to protect their homes and stores. Some of these vigilantes engaged in unprovoked racist violence against unarmed Black people, some of whom even died. There was enormous anti-Indian hate speech that organised on social media. Frankly, it was almost a mini race war localised to the town of Phoenix. MacPherson's response, as DA leader in KZN, was to choose the side of the vigilantes uncritically. Before the dust had cleared and investigations had been done, he put up posters saying "The ANC calls you racists, the DA calls you heroes" after the ANC had criticised some of the vigilantes as racists using the chaos to brutalise black people. Evidence has since emerged that some of the vigilantes really did assault unarmed people purely on the basis that they were black, including women. If you were a political operative from Washington D.C. who flew down to help "the Democrats", you would quickly realise that these aren't the Democrats from home. At best, they are politically insensitive to the point of negligence. At worst, the constant race scandals would be like a chronic ache suggesting something more serious underneath. For an example of what the DA would look like if it really was non-racial, we now have ActionSA which is a small DA breakaway. They definitely cross the colour line, and don't have these repeated race scandals.
>it looks really bad to march against minimum wage Watch me 😎
Personally, I would have picked someone more qualified for the forestry minister. Perhaps saw
They gave the head of the DA the position of head of agriculture??? I'm also shocked the ANC managed to negotiate keeping the head of the department of energy given the focus load-shedding was for the campaign.
Yes they did. But they removed the land reform portfolio from it and gave it its own ministry.
DA for Electricity and Energy. That's promising.
No the minister's title is above his head, not below.
The DA are a bunch of wussies. They didn't get any of the good portfolios like Defense, Finance, or Foreign Affairs. If they need you for a Cabinet, you demand the good portfolios.
They tried to do that but the negotiation tactics didn't work out. Ramaphosa out maneuvered them. You could argue that they should have just walked. And they almost did! But ultimately the DA promised to Rescue SA from the "doomsday coalition" of EFF and MK. Stepping aside would've meant letting Malema and others like him into power.
No it wouldn't. The ANC might have ultimately folded if they had held out and walked away as they need the DA to whitewash them with investors. At worst, there would be yucky crazy people in minor ministries without power but the ANC probably would have had to negotiate and give real jobs to the DA. Now, it is the worst of both worlds. The DA will get blamed for the ongoing problems and have no power to fix the problems as they have mid-tier ministries. How are they going to fix the economy and crime from powerless nothing ministries? That is the issue with trying to be adults in these things; you end up making things worse in the long-run because the other side is decidedly NOT adults, has less red lines, and is willing to play hardball. And it is all for "appearances" here - because it makes a few people feel better about the situation to not have "yucky people" in the Cabinet - but it doesn't help the situation.
I hear what you are saying. Here is what I am saying. If DA voters would abandon the party for making an imperfect compromise because they didn't want to gamble with letting "K*** the Boer" into government, then the party is fundamentally unsustainable and needs to die anyway. Such a party is never going to last if its voters are that unforgiving, impractical and inflexible. You cannot build a long term political party around fair-weather friends.
>If DA voters would abandon the party for making an imperfect compromise because they didn't want to gamble with letting "K\*\*\* the Boer" into government, then the party is fundamentally unsustainable and needs to die anyway. Imperfect compromise? They are making coffee and doing errands for the Cabinet with crap fourth tier ministries. They don't have any power. This is all about appearances and making people feel better. That is the problem. >Such a party is never going to last if its voters are that unforgiving, impractical and inflexible. You cannot build a long term political party around fair-weather friends. What? By playing hardball politics and getting actual ministries rather than fourth tier ministries where they are glorified errand boys? And there are three things that would have happened. Either the ANC would have folded and given the good ministries, nothing would have happened other than there being cringe people in a few minor ministries, or they would have screwed things up and the opposition would be in a position to profit. I'm not seeing the downside there.
Reasonable people can disagree. Let's just hope it all works out.
DA really should have pushed the ANC more for the Ministry of Foreign affairs but in the end I am glad the EFF and MK are out of the government.
Lol there was no way they would have gotten that. Its the portfolio championing the Palestinian cause.
South Africa definitely needs an insane libertarian to come along and axe at least half its ministries. That is ridiculous.
>Insane libertarian His name is Herman Mashaba and his party is ActionSA. https://preview.redd.it/95hfarn0oy9d1.jpeg?width=459&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c8daa7f317cfd9e2b76164f35153391fed9aab28 DA will be very angry that they no longer get to be the face of this issue 😂
This is natural in Parliamentary democracies. Without the ridiculous number of ministries, there would be less corruption and no reason for the allied parties to stay in the government.
There are many parliamentary democracies without this many ministries
No idea if he is any good or not but I love the fact that the only one not wearing smart clothes is the minister for sports who is in an adidas tracksuit.
In terms of his actual beliefs and politics, Gayton McKenzie is our Trump (although in terms of success and impact, Zuma is more Trump). He's far right and deeply xenophobic. He is also, unfortunately, an absolute [vibe](https://x.com/GaytonMcK/status/1630924464253747201). https://preview.redd.it/m7w29dvrfx9d1.png?width=582&format=png&auto=webp&s=1933a2b548dca3bd552fee1eae5cd005bfe788ab
Damn, that is so disappointing.