Speaker of Parliament Baleka Mbete has announced that the State of the Nation Address (SONA) has been postponed.
SONA, which was scheduled for Thursday, will no longer take place as scheduled. Mbete said on Tuesday at a briefing outside Parliament that a new date will be announced soon.
Presiding Officers had approached President Jacob Zuma to postpone the speech to allow room for the creation of a more conducive environment in Parliament.
“We met the President today and he was already writing to us asking to postpone. We want a conducive political environment… We have been dismayed at anarchy of the past four years. Developments this year have caused us great concern…” Mbete said.
In taking their decision, Mbete said Parliament had “looked realistically at developments that had taken place in the past week”.
Last week, Mbete led a briefing of the Presiding Officers, where she announced that plans to hold SONA were set to go ahead.
