Deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa has now adopted a new strategy — to speak out against corruption.
POLITICS
Talk time is over. We want action and action man Jacob Zuma is going to make sure that this country moves forward right now … our Mr Action Zuma is very committed.
These were the words of deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa at an ANC forum in Pietermaritzburg early in 2013, a few months after he was elected ANC deputy president in December 2012. With that statement, he made it clear he was a Zuma man.
From that moment onwards — and until very recently — the former unionist-cum-businessman would go out of his way to defend the scandal-prone Zuma at every opportunity.
To the dismay of many who saw him as the architect of the Constitution, Ramaphosa defended Zuma even after the Constitutional Court found the president had violated the Constitution by failing to comply with the public protector’s recommended remedial action on the R246-million “upgrades” to his Nkandla homestead that were paid for by the state.
When some in the ANC, including secretary general Gwede Mantashe, lambasted Zuma for letting the Gupta family land a private jet at Waterkloof air force base, Ramaphosa’s failure to deplore the action publicly created the impression that he was turning a blind eye so that he could gain favour from Zuma and his supporters.
Clearly, Ramaphosa has now realised that this soft approach has not worked for him. No matter how hard he tries to suck up to Zuma, the president does not see him as the ideal successor. The Zuma faction just does not trust Ramaphosa to protect their man from prosecution relating to arms deal corruption once his term as South Africa’s Number One comes to an end in 2019.
In April last year, the Gauteng High Court ruled that the 783 fraud, racketeering and corruption charges against Zuma, dropped by the National Prosecuting Authority in 2009, should be reinstated. Zuma and the NPA are appealing the judgment, but he is obviously also taking pre-emptive action. His supporters believe that Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the outgoing African Union Commission chairperson, is the best candidate to succeed him. They seem to believe she would not allow the prosecution against Zuma to proceed, or that she would give him a presidential pardon if he is found guilty.
Ramaphosa has now adopted a new strategy — to speak out against corruption — in the hope that it will win him support in the campaign to be elected ANC president in December. This new strategy has clearly put Ramaphosa on a collision course with the Zuma clique.
Yet Ramaphosa is supported by the South African Communist Party (SACP), which in 2012 used its campaign to root tenderpreneurs out of the governing party as a strategy to help Zuma get re-elected ANC president. Once a staunch Zuma supporter, the SACP has now turned against the ANC president and has been in the forefront of the campaign against state capture.
The then public protector, Thuli Madonsela, released her State of Capture report late last year. It implicates Zuma, some Cabinet ministers and various parastatals in illegal activities related to the favourable treatment of the Gupta family. Although Zuma is challenging the report, Ramaphosa wants action to be taken against those implicated.
The deputy president’s new-found courage to take a hardline stance against Zuma and his supporters should be welcomed, it is hard to see him doing the same if Zuma had endorsed him as his preferred candidate for the presidential succession.
In what has been widely interpreted as a swipe against Zuma, Ramaphosa last week called for “lifestyle audits — right at the core at the top of the leadership”. Speaking at a rally to honour the late SACP leader Joe Slovo, Ramaphosa reportedly warned against leaders who were interested only in self-gain and in advancing the interests of their families and friends.
“Leaders must not serve their own interests. They must not advance their interests and the interests of their friends and their families,” Ramaphosa was quoted by the Sunday Times as having said. “We are going to make sure that these lifestyle audits do happen to general members. They must happen at leadership level — right at the core at the top of the leadership. That is where lifestyle audits should happen. That decision must be implemented. Because it is when we implement such a decision that we will be able to begin the process of dealing a devastating blow against corruption.”
Well said, and good. This is the kind of leadership South Africans expected Ramaphosa to have demonstrated immediately after he was elected ANC deputy president in 2012 and after he took the oath of office as South Africa’s deputy president in 2014.
Given his performance as the ANC’s chief negotiator during the country’s transition from apartheid to democracy, and his key role in drafting the Constitution, a lot was expected of the former ANC secretary general. And yet, for the better part of his term as deputy president, Ramaphosa has shied away from whipping ANC leaders, including Zuma, into line, or attempting to ensure they respect the Constitution and chapter nine institutions such as the public protector.
The only conclusion one can draw from Ramaphosa’s pivot is that he understands finally that Zuma will not endorse him as his successor. He was willing to protect Zuma if the president supported him for the top job, but with the Zuma faction’s clear preference for Dlamini-Zuma, he will no longer.
Still, as the saying goes, better late than never: Ramaphosa’s new-found courage to speak out against corruption should be applauded.
There’s no doubt that Ramaphosa’s experience in the trade union movement, the ANC and government put him in an excellent position to become party and the country’s president. But he owes it to all those who have lost trust in him to explain why he did not speak out against wrongdoing in the ANC and government much earlier than his statements of last week.
To his credit, Ramaphosa did put his foot down after Zuma decided suddenly to remove the then finance minister, Nhlanhla Nene, and replace him with an unknown backbencher, Des van Rooyen, in December 2015. Ramaphosa and other top ANC leaders forced Zuma to remove Van Rooyen, four days after he was appointed, and give the finance ministry to Pravin Gordhan to restore confidence in South Africa’s economy and the rand.
Ramaphosa also came out in support of Gordhan after the finance minister was charged with fraud by the NPA last year. The charges, dropped a few weeks later, were seen as an attempt by Zuma to capture the treasury: both Nene and Gordhan were seen as obstacles by those who wanted to loot state resources.
Credit has also been given to Ramaphosa for holding successful discussions with international ratings agencies, which are said to be among the reasons the agencies did not downgrade South Africa’s credit rating to junk status late last year. There is no doubt that the business community trusts Ramaphosa more than Zuma, and Ramaphosa’s behind-the-scenes work on parastatals such as Eskom helped South Africa to avoid load-shedding in recent months.
Compared to Zuma, Ramaphosa has been seen as lacking a strong constituency in the ANC, though he is expected to receive support from ANC members and leaders who are unhappy with the Zuma-aligned leadership. Already, a number of ANC national executive committee members have expressed frustration with Zuma; they tried to push a motion for him to step down in December. It was unsuccessful, but at least it showed some pushback against Zuma, and potential support for a Ramaphosa presidency.
Ramaphosa also enjoys the support of the ANC’s alliance partners, union federation Cosatu and the SACP. Although they are not allowed to participate in the process of electing the ANC leadership, the majority of their members are allowed to do so in their capacity as ANC members.
Ramaphosa is also said to have majority support in the provinces of Gauteng, Western Cape, Limpopo and the Northern Cape. As things stand, Dlamini-Zuma has the support of the “premier league” of the regional barons of Mpumalanga, Free State, North West and KwaZulu Natal, but it is still early to predict the outcome of the party’s election in December this year.
Last week, the national executive committee of the ANC Women’s League became the first ANC structure to endorse Dlamini-Zuma officially as its preferred candidate to succeed Zuma. Surprisingly, the ANC Youth League, which was widely expected to throw its weight behind Ramaphosa, this week suggested, through its president Collen Maine, it was unlikely to support either Ramaphosa or Dlamini-Zuma.
Whichever way it goes, if Ramaphosa seriously wants to contest for the presidential job, he will have to continue to stick his head above the parapet.