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President Cyril Ramaphosa might not have been under any illusions about the perilous state of the South African economy when he delivered his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday evening, but he certainly spoke like a president trying to work some bygone magic.
In many ways, the speech was exceptional: it was the first SONA in the Covid-19 era, and it showed. The subdued pomp and ceremony of the R100 000 affair was as clear as the sparsely populated National Assembly during the hybrid sitting.
While Ramaphosa did not look to downplay the perilous state of the South African economy, he did outline a set of interventions, "masterplans" and policies which seem aimed at casting a spell on the economy in a bid to convince it that it was not on its knees.
