Nkosikhulule Nyembezi
Cape Town - A weakened President Cyril Ramaphosa probably suits most ANC’s National Working Committee members.
Political pressure is building on Ramaphosa to come clean over allegations that the president instigated a cover-up operation after millions of US dollars were taken in a 2020 robbery at his Phala Phala game farm in Limpopo.
Unfortunately for the party, those with the most to gain are in the opposite camps.
Few party members know exactly the implications of former MP Tony Yengeni’s insistence during the party’s NWC meeting that Ramaphosa must appear before the ANC’s integrity commission.
Few South Africans know precisely the implications of the chorus of voices in Parliament calling for the president to take leave while the police investigate the criminal case against him.
Ramaphosa has committed to appearing before the commission voluntarily, and this will be his second appearance in the past two years. He first appeared before the commission in November 2020 over the controversy related to his CR17 campaign for ANC presidency and the Public Protector’s investigation into whether he misled Parliament about donations from Bosasa to the campaign.
The flame was lit by former President Jacob Zuma’s ally and former State Security Agency Director General and later Correctional Services Commissioner, Arthur Fraser.
He laid criminal charges against Ramaphosa in connection with the robbery. He has accused the president of defeating the ends of justice, kidnapping and money laundering. Ramaphosa has denied the allegations and said they were politically motivated.
In the thinned ranks of ANC members who still support Ramaphosa’s bid for re-election as party leader and president of the country, few consider him a man of decisive action to wrestle corruption and usher in efficient government. Perhaps none.
Their loyalty can’t be composed of moral inspiration or shared principles to root out corruption across political factions.
After all, the president believes only in his crusade to prioritise party unity above clean government instead of using the existing evidence to fire corrupt politicians from public office.
Mostly it is fear of losing current privileges and hope of gaining new ones that underpin what remains of the shaky support he continues to enjoy.
Under Ramaphosa’s watch, the ANC has promised promotions and job security to several of its cadres deployed in critical positions in government.
Others cling to ministerial and public service jobs that would never have been available if competence had been the recruitment criterion.
Policy is not absent from the transaction. A wounded president without groundswell support initially thought to be a growing feature of the ‘Ramaphoria’ wave and, desperate for friends, is attractive to ideologues whose conditional backing at the ANC national conference in December can be wielded as a veto over the government’s economic recovery plans.
That is why there was a U-turn last month over whether key aspects of “a comprehensive social compact to grow our economy, create jobs and combat hunger”, promised by Ramaphosa within 100 days from his State of the Nation Address in February, will ever materialise.
The road to a social compact crisscrosses two significant pathways: restoring the existing social contract and achieving social cohesion. The National Development Plan refers to the social contract as “an agreement that outlines the mutual rights and responsibilities of citizens, their government, and other institutions in society”.
Many South Africans keep asking whether the ANC has completely broken the social contract, given the government’s ineffective response to the endemic political and socio-economic challenges.
Suppose neither the ANC policy discussion documents nor the social compact received sufficient attention at the ANC NWC meeting. Could that signal that the 100 days will turn into 100 working days or longer? Remember, the 100 (working) days deadline will coincide with June 16, or Youth Day, which commemorates the 1976 student uprising against apartheid education.
Or could it be that the 100 (working) days will instead prominently coincide with the Zondo Commission’s final report, due on June 15, which will include damning findings against the State Security Agency under Fraser’s leadership and could well recommend the criminal prosecution of Fraser?
The Radical Economic Transformation supporters gloated openly on social media in response to Fraser’s affidavit, brandishing that if the police charge Ramaphosa with criminal wrongdoing, he will be ineligible to seek re-election from the ANC in December.
This development could deny him a second term that he is most likely to win. Such a development could force Ramaphosa to suddenly contest the same step-aside rule that he pushed for, with unintended consequences of opening the door for figures like suspended ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule to claim the right to seek re-election in December, too.
The trouble is that the prevailing negative sentiments show that Ramaphosa is neither popular nor trusted – even among loyal ANC voters.
The governing party is right to fear electoral retribution. Ramaphosa involuntarily abandoned the national May Day rally organised by Cosatu in Rustenburg after angry Sibanye-Stillwater workers disrupted the proceedings and prevented him from addressing the televised gathering.
Different factions in the ANC, who hated the idea in the proposed social compact of relaxing labour laws in favour of profits for businesses in the name of employment creation threatened Ramaphosa with a vote of no confidence in the form of a withdrawal of electoral support by organised labour. He yielded.
Look at all the rebels in all wings of the political landscape. They are inside and outside Parliament, rather than in one organised faction. Their energy indicates how far the tremors caused by these allegations against the president have spread. A leader entirely on the hook to his political creditors is reliably biddable.
And then there is pressure to speedily implement the Zondo Commission’s report, ever-present in the ANC and Ramaphosa’s feuds. The old infidelity mounts it, constantly mentioned in the bickering stage of a marital tiff underpinned by the election manifesto promises upon which citizens entrusted their votes to the party, that gets blurted out when tempers flare.
As lamented earlier in this column, this commotion renders Ramaphosa a president on probation with his party.
He survives because those he oversaw their marginalisation in the disbanded leadership of the ANC Women’s League, the ANC Youth League, the MK Military Veterans Association and SANCO want him out of the office and are waiting for an opportune moment to strike.
This political manoeuvring is only delaying the inevitable. So some still don’t like this disreputable “glorious liberation movement” character they now see in front of them? They are looking in the mirror.
Nyembezi is a policy analyst and human rights activist
Cape Times