POLITICAL WEEK AHEAD: From Davos to Trump’s inauguration and SA’s home affairs, it’s all systems go

The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Annual Meeting 2025 is set to take place in Davos, Switzerland this week.

The event will bring together leaders from government, business and civil society to address global issues in a rapidly changing world.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken, French President Emmanuel Macron and key middle east leaders are slated to attend the WEF discussions, putting talks to end wars in Gaza and Ukraine at the top of the agenda for the global elite.

The 54th annual WEF gathering in the Swiss ski resort of Davos will occur against its most complicated geopolitical backdrop to date, its president, Borge Brende, said last week.

A challenging global economic picture, with shifting interest rate policies and rising debt, will also confront the central bankers, financiers and business leaders attending.

President Cyril Ramaphosa is scheduled to address the meeting on Tuesday. 

Ramaphosa will be pushing Africa’s agenda of debt relief for developing countries ahead of SA hosting the G20 leaders summit later this year. 

The Group of Twenty (G20) is an international forum of both developing and developed countries which seeks to find solutions to global economic and financial challenges. 

Before heading to Davos for WEF, Ramaphosa spent the weekend overseeing a discussion within the ANC on whether to disband the party’s KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provincial structures after it lost its majority in the May 29 general elections. 

The two provinces were the ANC’s biggest losers at the polls, dropping from more than 50% to 36% of the vote in Gauteng, while in KwaZulu-Natal the party declined from 54.2% in 2019 to 17%.

However, if the party’s national executive committee (NEC) disband its provincial leadership this could also kick start the party’s succession battle ahead of the the party’s national conference in 2027, as this is expected to be Ramaphosa’s second and last term as ANC president. 

The decision on the way forward in KZN and Gauteng ahead of the 2026 local government elections is expected to be announced on Monday. 

The public service bargaining council (PSCBC) is still waiting for feedback from unions representing the country’s more than 1.3-million public servants on government’s revised three-year wage offer. 

Parties met on January 8 at the PSCBC where the government revised its wage offer from 4.7% to 5% for 2025/26, leading to public service unions revising their demands down to 6%.

The unions cheekily started with an initial demand of 12%, revised down to 7.5%, which the government rejected.

Ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday and his many threats of what he will sign on his first day in office through executive orders, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is predicting lower global headline inflation this year but warning the policy plans of incoming US administration herald greatly increased uncertainty.

“If the adverse effects of tariffs and reduction in the labour force dominate, global activity as well as activity in the US might be affected negatively in the medium term,” the IMF said in its January world economic update released on Friday.

Trump has vowed to hike tariffs as part of his “America first” policies and to act against immigration, a key source of labour in that country. 

This coming Sunday (January 26) the ANC NEC, the party’s highest decision making body between national conferences, is expected to hold an extended lekgotla to discuss key economic policy changes ahead of the state of the nation address and budget speeches in February. 

Business Day reported that SA plans to trawl its coffers for R200bn to fund key infrastructure projects, hoping to demonstrate the government’s ability to deliver returns to the private sector to chip in with five times as much to revamp transport, water and logistics systems.

SA’s push for more capital spending from the private sector underscores its fiscal constraints. Public debt has been a mounting concern, with the debt-to-GDP ratio estimated to stabilise at 75.5% in the 2025/26 fiscal year. Budget deficits have added pressure to the already tight fiscal space.

omarjeeh@businesslive.co.za