Zuma and Ramaphosa: A tale of two presidents

NEWS ANALYSIS

When the clock hits midnight next Thursday, President Cyril Ramaphosa could go down as the last ANC president to govern the country. 

In many ways, this would be a sad outcome for the party that ushered in democracy under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, whom many consider to have been Ramaphosa’s mentor.

There is also the bitter irony that the ANC could lose its majority courtesy of Jacob Zuma, a man the party once vehemently defended — almost at the expense of the country’s sovereignty. 

Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party is likely to eat away at the ruling party’s support base in KwaZulu-Natal — and at that of the Inkatha Freedom Party — with the former ANC and South African president a pulling factor to the constituents of both organisations.

In 2016, the ANC was rocked when then-public protector Thuli Madonsela found that the infamous Gupta family — whose tentacles ran deep within the ANC and Zuma’s family — had captured the state with the assistance of the governing party. 

In an attempt to defend its name, the ANC, with Ramaphosa as its deputy president, moved quickly to attack Madonsela and the State of Capture report on Eskom. 

Ramaphosa had been called back to active politics by Zuma’s regime in the build-up to the ANC’s Mangaung elective conference. The plan was for him to counter the more reputable Kgalema Motlanthe, who had formed a faction in a bid to win the conference against Zuma. 

Ramaphosa — much like Motlanthe — was seen as more palatable and appealing to both the white and black middle class. He was also able to appeal to South Africa’s business tycoons who were growing weary of Zuma’s presidency. 

With Ramaphosa as his deputy, the Zuma administration gained more legitimacy locally and internationally. 

But shortly before the ANC’s watershed conference in 2017, Zuma turned his back on what was seen as a tradition — the ANC deputy president ascending to take up the reins — instead pushing his former wife and party veteran Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma as his preferred candidate. 

With the backing of KwaZulu-Natal and the “Premier League” — a faction of Zuma’s close lieutenants in North West, Free State and Mpumalanga — a potential Ramaphosa presidency was threatened. 

Zuma’s inevitable dance with the judiciary was said to have been one of his reasons for reneging on his promise to back Ramaphosa as his successor. 

Ramaphosa had run his campaign on an anti-corruption and transparency ticket. He had promised to unite and renew the ANC, threatening Zuma, who was viewed to have been central to the disunity within the party and to state capture. 

Under Zuma, the party was split, with two splinter parties emerging — the Congress of the People and Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters — which took away a significant chunk of the ANC’s voter support.

With Ramaphosa at the helm, Zuma was chucked out, recalled by the ANC’s executive. 

The ANC, though limping towards the 2019 polls, finally had a better story to tell. It was committed to cleaning house, fixing the economy and rooting out corruption. 

Ramaphosa’s first step was to rid the party of Zuma’s allies in the national executive committee. Those who had not defected to his side, such as Fikile Mbalula, who is now secretary general, were summarily dealt with. 

Zuma continued to suffer losses under the Ramaphosa presidency, both in the courts and within the party. His most powerful ally, then ANC secretary general Ace Magashule, was suspended and later expelled from the party. 

The rift between Zuma and Ramaphosa played out publicly when the latter wrote to ANC branches, saying that, in the 2019 general elections, the party had admitted the mistakes it had made and acknowledged how corruption and state capture had damaged the country. 

“We made a solemn pledge to our people to correct our ways. Despite the clear progress we have made since the election, we still have to give full effect to the promise we made. 

“Today, the ANC and its leaders stand accused of corruption. The ANC may not stand alone in the dock, but it does stand as Accused Number One. This is the stark reality that we must now confront,” Ramaphosa said.

This was a seminal moment in the two leaders’ already strained relationship as Zuma’s faction saw this as an attempt by Ramaphosa to turn ANC branches against him. 

Zuma’s most powerful weapon in the ANC had been his ability to mobilise the branches to his side. With the help of the tripartite alliance and the leagues, Zuma was able to overthrow the Thabo Mbeki regime. 

In a fashion uncharacteristic of the ANC, Zuma penned a response to Ramaphosa’s letter criticising him to party branches. 

“Mr President, your letter is fundamentally flawed in several respects and plays right into the hands of those who seek to destroy the ANC and build from its ashes a counter-revolutionary party under the guise of fighting corruption,” Zuma said, adding that Ramaphosa’s letter betrayed a lack of understanding of how the leadership of the ANC should communicate with its structures. 

The letter, he said, could only serve to destroy the ANC, particularly if the head of the party pleaded guilty on its behalf and referred to the organisation as “Accused Number One”.

With the lines drawn, Ramaphosa was fated to be blamed for Zuma’s incarceration by the constitutional court in 2021, which ultimately led to the former president forming the MK party, which threatens the ANC nationally, but more significantly in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal. 

Zuma’s address to an MK party rally in Soweto at the weekend suggested that, beyond KwaZulu-Natal, he is targeting rural South Africa more broadly.

With the ANC on the brink of losing its more metropolitan provinces, it has also been looking to the rural areas to pick up numbers that will feed into the national result.

Ramaphosa has already suggested to his executive that he needs Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and Limpopo to significantly increase their voter share to around 80% for the party to get the numbers it needs to retain its majority.

But Zuma believes he has managed to capture Mpumalanga and Gauteng, which he hopes can dramatically affect the ANC chances on 29 May.

As previously reported by the Mail & Guardian, an insider linked to Zuma has accused Ramaphosa of trying to destroy him, citing the halting of funding for his various court cases. They said Zuma was running out of money and had tried to raise funds elsewhere in Africa but this had allegedly been blocked by Ramaphosa.

“He has allegations that, at some point when he went out of the country to fundraise, those whom he was lobbying were saying to him Ramaphosa had blocked him from fundraising. 

“Those were some of his frustrations — that CR wants to destroy him. He [Ramaphosa] doesn’t want him to be supported by the state and he blocks him from fundraising. 

“That accumulated to huge anger against Ramaphosa,” the insider said.

Zuma’s eagerness to topple Ramaphosa’s presidency even led him to consider joining Malema’s EFF.

Despite all of this, Ramaphosa will take the blame should the ANC’s support dip below 50%. While the party’s constitution does not have a clear directive as to what can be done when a sea change of such a magnitude occurs, Ramaphosa has a propensity to throw in the towel. 

This was demonstrated in December 2022 when he had to be talked out of resigning as president, after the report about his conduct relating to the theft of foreign currency from his Phala Phala game farm in 2020 came out.

With the ANC facing its toughest election yet, its belief has always been centred around a collective responsibility, but it has not shied away from recalling a sitting president in the past.