SONA DEBATE: MK Party calls for South Africa to deepen ties with BRICS countries

The Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party has said the US's recent bullying tactics are a clarion call for South Africa to deepen its economic relationship with the BRICS countries. 

In what the MK Party Deputy President John Hlophe called the “Real State of the Nation Address,” the party said that its leader, former President Jacob Zuma, foresaw and politically knew that South Africa’s developmental and growth path could not depend on the imperialist and neo-colonial West, arguing that Zuma built a “far-reaching and sustainable partnerships” with countries that have no colonial and neo-colonial aspirations over South Africa and the African continent.  

“BRICS accounts for 31% of the Global Gross  Domestic Product, 41% of the Global Population, and a significant voice in regional and global political and economic affairs.

“We now have in the progressive BRICS family, the Federal  Republic of Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates, the Islamic Republic of Iran, República Argentina, Arab Republic of Egypt, and Kingdom of Saudi  Arabia who can be sustainable and dependable trading partners and not bullying off-takers of goods and services produced and made in South Africa,” said Hlophe.

He added that while the country waited for Trump to end the imperialist war of NATO in Russia and to disassociate from the neo-colonial and dishonest so-called green energy transitions imposed on the developing world, the MK Party disagreed with him and his promotion of white supremacists who “claim they are facing genocide” in South Africa.

IOL