Exchanging views: Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa and Joe Biden discuss investment in South Africa, job creation, climate change, a just transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy and Russia’s war on Ukraine during a meeting at the White House. Photo: Yandisa Monakali
One of the country’s top political journalists, Qaanitah Hunter, recently gave South Africans food for thought. She suggested that President Cyril Ramaphosa was quietly quitting.
Like most of us in the field, she has been perplexed by the president’s demeanour of late.
Ramaphosa skirted around the question of running for a second term. He said he would wait for the nomination processes to unfold.
On a trip to the United States, he reminded us that, in 2012, he had waited until the very last moment to accept the nomination for deputy president.
Apart from the ANC’s Letsema campaign to strengthen the party’s connection with the people — which has worked, somewhat, as a campaign trick — Ramaphosa has been far removed from this campaign season ahead of the party’s December conference.
As his peers wrestle for prime time spots on television and radio, Ramaphosa has kept the media at bay.
Given the view that Ramaphosa has shown little interest in the ANC presidential race, I found myself reliving his five years as the party’s president.
Ramaphosa’s modus operandi has been mystifying, from removing some of his most effective generals from Luthuli House — leaving himself vulnerable to the likes of Ace Magashule — to his choice of key cabinet appointments. One is left with the question: what is he doing?
When one asked some of his comrades, men and women who fought in the trenches for his election in 2017 at Nasrec, they all made a similar observation: Ramaphosa was playing the long game.
Others resorted to classifying the man as “cunning”.
In the first months of his ANC presidency, many of us put him in a box; we labelled him a lame-duck president, an infant in strategy and tactics of the governing party — albeit he had been part of the leadership structures throughout its formative years in the new democratic dispensation.
He was straddling the fence, dancing to the tune of unity to the detriment of his reputation.
His powers seemingly dormant, Magashule (whose scandalous Free State leadership would catch up with him just as he was getting comfortable with his newly found powers) was brazen enough to suggest that Ramaphosa would be a one-term president.
It was a statement that opened the floodgates to an all-out war between those allied to Ramaphosa and those who still felt the sting of his election at the Nasrec conference.
But slowly and surely, the man revealed himself. The step-aside resolution gave his renewal agenda credence and, sure enough, his grand master plan to rid the ANC of its wayward members came together.
Magashule was gone, the ANC Women’s League and the Umkhonto weSizwe Veterans’ Association, led by the likes of Carl Niehaus and Bathabile Dlamini, were disbanded. The full effect of Ramaphosa’s plan was coming to fruition.
He then consolidated support in the national executive committee (NEC). Those among the NEC who had displayed levels of insolence were silent either because of sheer fear that disobedience would result in the same fate as that of Magashule, or because the numbers game was against them. Had this not been the case, one doubts that the step-aside resolution would have been implemented.
His dominance shone in the national working committee. Tony Yengeni seemed a lone wolf in an attempt to hold Ramaphosa to account for the Phala Phala scandal. It appears that, apart from Yengeni, only the party elders are brave enough to question the ANC and Ramaphosa’s handling or mishandling of the scandal.
The elders, unlike those hoping to catch the gravy train to parliament or the Union Buildings, have nothing to lose.
One could also see this as another demonstration of a man firmly in charge of the troops.
It baffles me, then, as to why Ramaphosa has relinquished his authority to Mondli Gungubele and Derek Hanekom.
Until 2017, Gungubele had been a part of the Gauteng provincial executive committee. Although he carried some weight in regions of Gauteng, his influence did not extend beyond that. Many attribute Gungebele’s rise to the national ANC theatre to one Gwede Mantashe.
Hanekom, the other guy steering the Ramaphosa machine, might be respected among his ministerial peers, but this does not extend to the provinces and regions across the country.
Both Hanekom and Gungubele share a similar trait. Their claim to fame is their defiance and outspokenness during the later years of the Zuma presidency.
It’s no wonder then that the two men are facing a rebellion after coming out with a Renew22 slate that has left even the most loyal of Ramaphosa’s provincial allies stunned.
It’s a strange strategy, especially in the short term, unless, of course, this is Ramaphosa’s long game at play again.
What are you playing at, Mr President?
The other question is: who are the president’s men and, more importantly, who are not?
Lizeka Tandwa is the Mail & Guardian’s senior political reporter.
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