Was successful G20 boost Ramaphosa needed to improve ANC's local election aspirations?

A diplomatic triumph.

That's how one political analyst has described South Africa's hosting (and handling) of the recent G20 Summit in Johannesburg.

The gathering of world leaders in Gauteng marked the first time the summit has been held on African soil.

Last night, in an address to the nation, President Cyril Ramaphosa thanked South Africans for 'ensuring and enabling our beloved country to host a series of successful G20 meetings'.

He related the praise that had been received by the foreign visitors and spoke of South Africans as being 'a currency no economy can print'.

Ramaphosa also described as 'regrettable' the absence of the United States and its leader, Donald Trump, from the Summit.

"It is even more unfortunate that the reasons the US gave for its non-participation were based on baseless and false allegations that South Africa is perpetrating genocide against Afrikaners and the confiscation of land from white people," he said.

Political analyst Dale McKinley says in the ongoing battle between the US and South Africa the G20 Summit was game, set and match to Mzansi.

"He had basically won a diplomatic triumph by hosting this, particularly in the face of the US boycott, and he was basically gonna take advantage of that."

McKinley says Ramaphosa's handling of the summit and his response to the US have positioned him as a much stronger voice of the Global South.

"What it really represented was the culmination, in the context of what Ramaphosa and the government would consider to be a very politically successful process that positioned them, not only internationally, in a more positive light, but domestically shored up Ramaphosa and his positioning in the ANC."

McKinley suggests Ramaphosa is likely to take advantage of the summit's success and ride the momentum of it into the local government elections in 2026.

"I think he's feeling stronger. The ANC's been bleeding support, so he's going to use this as a means of saying, 'I'm in control. We've pulled this thing off; we can do this domestically.'"

To listen to McKinley, click below.