The president may not have the support of the entire ANC caucus should a vote of no confidence in him take place. Photographer: Dwayne Senior/Bloomberg via Getty Images
President Cyril Ramaphosa has survived the first round with his enemies in the governing party, with the ANC national working committee (NWC) referring the case of money laundering and kidnapping opened against him to its integrity commission.
The head of state’s fight to stay in office now moves to parliament, where Ramaphosa will face both an inquiry initiated by United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa and attempts by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) to force him to stand down pending the outcome of an investigation.
Opposition parties are also likely to bring a vote of no confidence in the president over the charges and, although this is set to be a lengthy process, Ramaphosa has no guarantee that the ANC caucus — which contains a number of his political enemies — will back him in staving off a parliamentary challenge.
On Monday, national executive committee (NEC) member Tony Yengeni led the attempt to force Ramaphosa — charged by former spy boss Arthur Fraser over the theft of an alleged $4-million from his Phala Phala farm — to stand down as president at a meeting of the party’s NWC.
ANC sources said Yengeni, a supporter of former president Jacob Zuma, placed the charges on the NWC’s agenda by requesting that the body take a decision to refer the president to the party’s integrity commission to “explain himself”.
Yengeni also pushed the NWC to instruct Ramaposa to voluntarily submit himself to parliament’s ethics committee to prevent authority on the matter being “claimed” by the opposition and “for them to run with it.”
He did not stop there.
Yengeni said that when “serious allegations” arose in the media about disgraced former health minister Zweli Mkhize over the Digital Vibes scandal, he had “stepped aside” to allow the investigation by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to go ahead. Mkhize had not been charged, but had “found it necessary that in order to clear his name he must stand away”, Yengeni said.
He told the meeting he wanted Ramaphosa to “emulate that example” and “step aside until the investigation and processes take place”, pointing out that the South African Revenue Service (Sars), the South African Reserve Bank and the police had been asked to investigate the theft.
He also called for a snap debate on Ramaposa’s report on the charges but this was shot down, with Ramaphosa’s ally, Mathole Motshekga, saying it was “rushed and predictable” and arguing instead that the ANC “allow the process” and accept the president’s briefing.
ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe, another Ramaphosa ally, argued that it would be “premature” to allow a debate to take place before a formal report on the matter had been brought before the NWC by the party’s national officials.
In his presentation to the NWC, Ramaphosa said he had decided to go before the integrity commission and had already made contact with it to start the process.
Mantashe then intervened, saying the NWC could not be reduced to debating media reports and that the national officials had a “duty” to bring a report to the NWC. Thus the internal bid to unseat Ramaphosa pending the outcome of the police investigation into the February 2020 burglary and have deputy president David Mabuza act in his absence failed.
On Tuesday, Holomisa wrote to the speaker of the national assembly, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, asking that parliament institute an investigation into the allegations.
Holomisa said a panel of retired judges could run the inquiry, and that while it sat, Ramaphosa should take sabbatical leave and allow Mabuza to run the country.
Holomisa said Fraser’s allegations — and Ramaphosa’s answers — needed to be tested by an independent body, in addition to the proposed investigations by the police, Sars and the Reserve Bank.
The EFF on Tuesday demanded that Ramaphosa step down immediately while the allegations are investigated and said that it would stop him from addressing parliament until he did so — starting with his budget debate speech on Thursday.
The party led the Pay Back the Money campaign in parliament against Zuma over the illegal state spending on upgrading his Nkandla home, and said this week it would give Ramaphosa the same treatment.
EFF leader Julius Malema said Ramaphosa should “step aside with immediate effect” because “no policeman will investigate a sitting president who has violated laws in order to avoid justice”.
He said Ramaphosa was “an individual who will go to great lengths to avoid accountability and his continued stay as president while the matter is investigated will jeopardise this case”, adding that he had assembled a legal team led by Thembeka Ngcukaitobi “to look into a constitutional provision to have Ramaphosa step aside”.
Malema also threatened to take the matter to the streets. “We have the capacity to do so and we will do it in defence of the rule of law. We are not factionalists of any political organisation who can be bought with illegal money into silence”.
Using the parliamentary process to tilt at Ramaphosa will prove slow work.
Parliament spokesperson Moloto Mothapo said of Holomisa’s complaint: “The speaker has received the letter and she will respond in due course.”
A vote of no confidence in Ramaphosa has been looming since February 2020 but has repeatedly been delayed by litigation. The African Transformation Movement (ATM), which tabled the motion of no confidence and has common cause with the radical economic transformation faction of the ANC, demanded that the vote take place by secret ballot to allow ruling party MPs to vote in line with their conscience.
They eventually won the case on appeal in December last year, with the supreme court of appeal ruling faulting former speaker Thandi Modise for failing to understand her discretion to decide whether a secret ballot would allow MPs to better exercise their oversight duties.
Her successor, Mapisa-Nqakula, then had to reconsider the request. She rejected it in February. The ATM returned to court to challenge the decision, and the vote is to be rescheduled.
A new motion of no confidence in the president tabled by any of the opposition parties will have to be scheduled for debate by the speaker within a reasonable time but is likely to see the same wrangle on allowing ANC members, whose numbers would prove decisive, to vote by secret ballot.
Ramaphosa will be concerned about his ability to keep the entire ANC caucus in parliament on-side ahead of any no-confidence vote — and whether he can trust party MPs who are loyal to Zuma to toe the party line and back him.
Suspended ANC MP Mervyn Dirks broke ranks with the party and forced parliament’s standing committee on public accounts to investigate claims that Ramaphosa knew about state resources being used by the party for factional activities earlier this year, an indication that the president may face threats from his own caucus should his future be put to the vote.
On Tuesday, Ramaphosa called off a meeting he had convened in Cape Town with ANC parliamentary committee chairpersons on the ground that he had been “unavoidably detained” in Gauteng.
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