Sowetan

What are you going to do to stop this evil plan?

Zuma's strategy is plain to see:, cause turmoil to stay out of jail while turning the pblic purse into his family’s piggy bank

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A coup d’état is underway in the ANC. It is a conspiracy of Shakespear­ean proportion­s – directed from a village in Nkandla. The mastermind of the coup has been exposed to little formal education, but he has spent many years being trained by the KGB on how to destabilis­e a state and engineer the downfall of those who are in power.

To be sure, the coup has been long in the making. It began right there on the floor of the ANC’s Nasrec conference. When Cyril Ramaphosa’s narrow victory was announced, mischievou­s broadcaste­rs turned their cameras to focus on the mastermind, whose face was momentaril­y frozen by a crippling pang of disbelief.

To regain composure, the mastermind licked his lips and silently vowed to revisit his KGB teachings – to do everything in his power to unseat Ramaphosa.

That Ramaphosa himself successful­ly plotted the early removal of the mastermind from the Union Buildings made the schemer even more vengeful. And now the coup d’état is in full swing. Its goal is simple: remove Ramaphosa as soon as political intrigue makes it possible.

One of the KGB’s destabilis­ation strategies is to shake the tree for the monkey to fall. That is precisely what the mastermind is doing. His contemptuo­us refusal to appear before the Zondo commission and his blatant disregard for the Constituti­onal Court are meant to shake Ramaphosa’s tree.

Like a troubled monkey, Ramaphosa has now lost all balance. Even his “trusted” finance minister has recently announced that he will give no further funding to the Zondo commission. In other words, the commission will be starved to death by Ramaphosa’s own cabinet.

Aware of Ramaphosa’s uselessnes­s, some of his ministers are now positionin­g themselves behind the mastermind.

The adroitness of the mastermind has even whetted the appetites of those who once declared themselves his archenemie­s. A young pseudo-revolution­ary who took part in looting money from a black bank recently had sordid tea in Nkandla.

There is a convergenc­e of motives between the pseudo revolution­ary and the mastermind. The pseudo revolution­ary wants to achieve two things: stay out of jail and eventually fold his party (EFF) and become the president of his former party (ANC). That’s why he involves himself in ANC matters.

The endgame of the mastermind is complex and nefarious. It includes staying out of jail plus converting the state into a permanent purse for his family. It is not an accident that one of the mastermind’s children is already telling the world that he is the future president.

Ramaphosa is therefore a disruption for their plans. According to the masterplan, power should have flowed from the mastermind to his ex-wife and later to the son. Indeed, things in Africa move within the family.

The problem is that Ramaphosa has now proven himself to be useless in the ANC and for the rest of SA. He has done nothing to transform the ANC from being a party of thieves into the old party of progressiv­e values and principles. Comrade thieves continue to steal money on his watch. In short, no one in the ANC fears Ramaphosa. Even his supporters now say he is useless.

In wider society, South Africans cannot believe the extent of Ramaphosa’s uselessnes­s. It is now three years since he became president, and the state remains as broken as it was before.

The economy is worse than it was. There are more unemployed people than before. Ramaphosa has repaired not a single ailing state-owned company. Not one of his comrade thieves is in jail for stealing PPE money. That is why South Africans have lost hope in Ramaphosa.

The biggest problem is that the political gamesmansh­ip of the mastermind and Ramaphosa’s uselessnes­s are pushing SA towards becoming a failed state.

There is a question for us ordinary South Africans: What do we do?

 ?? / THULI DLAMINI ?? Former president Jacob Zuma, seen here with President Cyril Ramaphosa, has since the ANC conference in 2017, worked tirelessly to unseat Ramaphosa while trying to stay out of jail.
/ THULI DLAMINI Former president Jacob Zuma, seen here with President Cyril Ramaphosa, has since the ANC conference in 2017, worked tirelessly to unseat Ramaphosa while trying to stay out of jail.
 ??  ?? Prince Mashele
Prince Mashele
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