Ramaphosa enigma will haunt the opposition

Published Oct 26, 2012

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Cyril Ramaphosa, the former chairman of the constitutional assembly who is best known for not having been selected as the heir apparent to President Nelson Mandela as he was pipped to the post by Thabo Mbeki, is back in the spotlight.

There are suggestions that he would return, formally, to centre stage as ANC deputy president. Depending on what arrangements are made, such as allowing Kgalema Motlanthe to hold the state post of deputy president while Ramaphosa does the party job, it seems the ANC would prefer Ramaphosa as its ultimate leader.

That would be in seven years’ time, when President Jacob Zuma bows out as the country’s president in 2019. Zuma would have by then, one assumes, relinquished the role as party president at the 2017 elective conference. That would allow Ramaphosa to take that post before assuming office as the country’s president then.

How ironic that the former National Union of Mineworkers’ general secretary is now seen as the voice of reason to people who believe in the free market, with the state playing a lesser role in people’s lives. One senses that the ANC Youth League is smelling blood. The league called on Ramaphosa, who holds a black economic empowerment stake in Lonmin, to apologise to the families of those killed at Marikana in August. This follows advocate Dali Mpofu, who represents the miners, telling the Farlam Commission that Ramaphosa had allegedly sent an e-mail before the massacre to the Lonmin management, the mineral resources and police ministers suggesting “concomitant action”, whatever that means.

Of course, Ramaphosa was behind the disciplining of Malema, so he isn’t exactly popular in those circles. The youth league probably wish to put a stop to any political ambitions he may harbour. The league said Ramaphosa had “lost any credibility as a genuine leader of the people… and as a revolutionary committed to the cause of the working class”.

The opposition parties are faced with the conundrum that if Zuma is re-elected, which can be assumed, the spillover will be to their advantage. At worst there will be a core of voters, traditionally aligned to the ANC, who will simply not vote.

Another five-year Zuma presidency will be a canvassing agent for the opposition. However, if Ramaphosa is viewed as the heir apparent, more centrist voters may stick to “the devil we know”, the ANC.

If he is there to lead the rump of the party when the increasingly loony left leave, which is a distinct possibility, he could build the nucleus of what is left behind into a mighty, but centrist, force.

Ramaphosa, who has turned into a multibillionaire businessman since he left Parliament in 1996, will also appeal to the business elite who would benefit from his defence of a well-regulated free market model which he is likely to defend.

Motlanthe hasn’t demonstrated that he is a gladiator for the free market or what one could dub the “Harvard consensus model” of financial and fiscal prudent management characterised by the Trevor Manuel era. He also sends mixed signals on policy issues and appears to sit on the fence. Motlanthe was this week asked about the integrity of the “war on poverty campaign” when over R200 million was being spent on President Zuma’s private Nkandla homestead. This Motlanthe said “is unrelated to the war on poverty”.

Opposition parties may secretly hope that the league stops Ramaphosa in his tracks. It will be in their interests to do so, but possibly not in the interest of economic stability and investor attractiveness.

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