(John McCann/M&G)
Cyril Ramaphosa won the ANC presidency in 2017 on a reform, rebuild and reunite ticket. In government, he has reformed and rebuilt — not fast enough, not nearly decisively enough, but steadily.
There has been some solid progress, especially in terms of restoring the institutional independence of key agencies of the state, such as the National Prosecuting Authority and the South African Revenue Service.
Progress on economic recovery has been weak, partly as a result of externalities such as the Covid-19 pandemic and geopolitical insecurity, but partly because of Ramaphosa’s lack of strategic wit and vision, and partly because of a weak cabinet.
At the ANC’s 55th national conference in Nasrec over the past five days, talk of policy and ideology was conspicuously absent.
The ANC is consumed by power and patronage, and the contest between those who are corrupt and those who want to do something about corruption. There is little space for anything else.
Now, not only has Ramaphosa been re-elected, but he will leave Nasrec with a far more supportive national collective leadership than five years ago. If he is willing to seize the moment, and sustain the momentum of the past three weeks in which he has bounced back from the brink of political disaster, then he could now escape the drag factor of his own party.
He needs to make a strategic choice between leading the government in the best interests of the country and leading it in a way that tries to manage and mitigate the divisions and complexities of his own party.
Ramaphosa needs to accept that the ANC is not what it once was and that it is deeply divided in a way that is almost certainly beyond repair. He needs to acknowledge that the idea of “unity” is illusory, and to stop investing his finite political capital on a political project with minimal, if any, return.
This is the context for what comes next for the party, which must now prepare for a national election in 2024 in which it is likely to lose its majority after three decades as the electorally dominant party.
High road (20% chance)
Energised by recent events and his re-election, and knowing that having secured a second term he does not have to worry about winning power inside the ANC ever again, Ramaphosa makes the strategic choice and delegates “party management” to the new secretary general, Fikile Mbalula, while using his newfound majority in the top seven to press home his political advantage and vanquish his opponents.
Having released the handbrake on his presidential leadership, and cleansed his cabinet of the corrupt or incapable, his government takes far more decisive action on a range of key issues. These include energy security and the just energy transition; giving effect to the recommendations of the Zondo state capture commission to restore integrity to public life; re-allocating fiscal space to establish a basic income grant in the February 2023 budget; putting new leaders in place to drive a much more skilled police response to law and order.
Jacob Zuma is disciplined and thrown out of the ANC.
Recognising the generational problem, the new leadership of the ANC launches a marketing drive to bring in new, young members and voters.
There is a huge investment in the ANC’s political education school and a new generation of activists and policy thinkers is born.
The ANC holds on to a (narrow) majority in the national election.
Low road (30%)
Ramaphosa misses the moment. The days drift by, and the ANC is unable to lift itself up from the rut it is in.
The new leadership gets bogged down by old disputes about the “step-aside” rule. The KwaZulu-Natal faction are sore losers, and continue to cause trouble, destabilising the ANC at every turn.
Still desperate for revenge, Zuma and his acolytes remain a thorn in the side of the renewables faction, and social unrest brews and explodes, causing further harm to the economy.
Before you blink, it’s 2024, and the ANC has no new value proposition to offer the electorate, and still less the six million young eligible voters who declined to register to vote at the 2021 local government election.
Those new(er) generational leaders — such as David Masondo, Ronald Lamola and Fasiha Hassan — drift away, disillusioned.
The ANC looks even more tired and out of touch, and loses its majority at the 2024 election, with a 15% drop from 57% in 2019 to 42%.
Hurt and tired himself, Ramaphosa happily falls on his sword and Paul Mashatile takes over as president and makes a deal with his old chum, Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema.
The renewables inside the party join Lamola and his ilk, taking key union and South African Communist Party comrades with them, and split from the ANC, further hastening its decline as a political force.
Investors run for the hill. Despite Mashatile’s political realism, and Deputy President Malema’s love of the good life, the economy goes into a nosedive, and the fight against corruption is rapidly stalled.
The world gains a new member of the nationalist populist club of demagogic leaders. The ANC has signed its own political suicide note.
In 2029, the electorate ousts it from power altogether, consigning it to the dustbin of history, as a new, progressive political movement with extra-parliamentary partners and roots emerges to take power.
Middle road (50%)
The ANC, like South Africa, bumbles along, largely stuck in the past. Neither the worst nor the best happens. ‘Twas ever thus. And citizens come to realise that they must thrive despite, rather than because of, their political leaders.
Slowly but steadily, the ANC runs out of runway and then gas. It gently expires, having dropped to 47% at the 2024 election. An “easy coalition” with the Inkatha Freedom Party is formed, which in turn deepens the ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal problem”, but enables the ANC to remain in government for a further five years.
Ramaphosa has made his own easy way out, retiring to his farm at Phala Phala to count his Ankole.
Richard Calland is a Mail & Guardian political columnist and co-author of The Presidents: From Mandela to Ramaphosa, Leadership in The Age of Crisis.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.
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