Will Ramaphosa take the helm or plumb new depths?
Cyril Ramaphosa has one last chance to show whether he has an agenda to improve South Africa or if he is merely being blown off course by political winds. He must choose between leadership and realpolitik. Leadership must deal with ideals about what the nation can be while realpolitik is about playing the game of expediency.
Farmers often use a human-like figure a stick draped in cloth to scare off birds that feed on their crops. The idea of this scarecrow structure is limited only by imagination, but the principle and futility of the hoax are often the same. When there’s wind, the figure looks wiggly and active, until, on a windless day, the birds realise what has been terrifying them is a mannequin. Little games will quickly alert the birds to their suspicion that the mannequin has no moves of his own.
There are two sides to the Ramaphosa coin. Heads: he is a patient process man who buys consensus. Tails: he is a weakling who is crippled by indecision.
Since succeeding Zuma in 2018, Ramaphosa has been like a deer in the headlights, mesmerised by the task at hand and the poor state of both the ANC and the bureaucracy. Where there has been progress, it has been exceedingly slow an example is the pace of energy reforms.
His ANC dropped 17 percentage points this year thanks to Jacob Zuma, whom the ANC government released after serving only months of his jail term.
A proponent of realpolitik would argue that Ramaphosa had no choice after the economic destruction and more than 300 deaths resulting from protests triggered by Zuma’s arrest.
I don’t know what would’ve happened had Ramaphosa done his job correctly instead of pandering to political pressures. That job would have included supervising colleagues in the state security apparatus to prevent the destruction of lives and property. Alas, he and his government released Zuma on a questionable medical parole. Ramaphosa then pardoned him.
Zuma returned the favour in the way only he could single-handedly reducing the ANC to 40%.
Ramaphosa is a student of Asia’s economic miracles, but I often wonder why none of that is demonstrated in his speeches or actions. One of his idols is China’s Deng Xiaoping. Singapore and Malaysia have come up as exciting case studies of economic development.
Deng was a communist who manoeuvred through personal humiliation and the perilous politics of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution to create what is now the world’s secondlargest economy.
Deng had a dual approach to power
subtle or brutal. Ramaphosa appears to opt only for the subtle approach. Deng never possessed state power but is regarded as the ruler who midwifed a system that would lift millions of people out of poverty.
The arrests this year of two former ministers Zizi Kodwa and Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula on corruption-related allegations will fuel the narrative that the president is a process man. Proponents will praise him for creating the environment in which the prosecuting authorities can go after high-ranking politicians.
It will also make games of realpolitik within the ANC very difficult. His colleagues will wonder how vulnerable they are to arrest. Not that there is something in law Ramaphosa can do, but realpolitik makes it hard for politically influential people to be arrested when a president wants otherwise.
Many of Ramaphosa’s colleagues will then wish to see the back of him so as to secure their freedom. A sense of anxiety about another term seems to pervade some arguments within the
ANC regarding why the DA isn’t a suitable coalition partner. Nobody will say it out loud, but a coalition that empowers Ramaphosa is not a good one for those named in the Zondo Commission report.
Allowing the ANC to dictate terms would see Ramaphosa soon lose his influence in the ANC. It would be pointless playing the same game he did with Zuma when he pardoned him. The ANC could play the same game and double-cross Ramaphosa.
He has a week to decide how to steer the ship. Little games of realpolitik won’t make him a historic figure. He needs to think about the South Africa he wishes to see in 30 years. He has already led the ANC to 40%, fast setting off a rush to the bottom. Yet he still has a chance to contribute to realigning South African politics in a way that places human advancement and economic development first. What will he choose?