POLITICAL parties have expressed different reactions to the announcement that Russian President Vladimir Putin is no longer coming to Mzansi.
The DA claimed the decision would not have been taken if they did not take the matter to court to force the government to arrest Putin if he set foot in our country.
"Getting Putin to bend the knee before the rule of law is no small feat, and the DA's victory to keep him out of our country is a victory for South Africa," party leader John Steenhuisen said.
The DA said no one, regardless of their position, should be above the law.
Build One South Africa (BOSA) Leader Mmusi Maimane described the decision as a victory for activism and the rule of law.
He said Putin's visit to Mzansi was not worth risking South Africa any further damage to the economy and said he was relieved that sense had prevailed.
"This is the victory of constitutionalism and the rule of law over the short-sighted ANC nostalgia for a past that is totally irrelevant to our present global political economy. The South African economy is already in dire straits and can ill-afford a governing party that places sentimentalism over what is in the best interests of South Africans, especially the unemployed and those reeling from high food, fuel and energy prices as well as high interested rates," said Maimane.
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But the EFF said Ramaphosa buckled under pressure from the West of losing financial and political ties unless he arrested Putin.
"In a typical Western imperialist fashion, South Africa faced threats. The United States of America (USA) even threatened to withdraw South Africa from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) as a form of pressure," said EFF spokeswoman Leigh-Ann Mathys.
She said in May, the US Ambassador to South Africa, Rueben Brigety, hosted twelve South African journalists and made explosive claims that weapons were loaded onto the US-sanctioned Russian cargo vessel, Lady R, during its docking at the Simon's Town naval base in Cape Town in December last year.
She said Poland humiliated Ramaphosa by denying his security detail entry into the country during transit to Ukraine for the intervention peace talks by African countries.
Mathys said: "As a result, the South African head of state had to travel to Kyiv in a compromised state, without his security detail, to attend the talks in a war zone. These are clear attempts by the West to undermine our sovereignty and independent foreign policy, pressuring our state to arrest President Putin upon his arrival."
