President Cyril Ramaphosa. (Rajesh Jantilal/AFP)
Time magazine published its first editorial in 1973, 50 years after it was founded. With the Watergate impeachment trials set to begin and the United States in crisis, the editorial staff felt they would be remiss to remain neutral. President Richard Nixon, they wrote, must resign.
But as difficult as it was, the nation had “passed a tragic point of no return”. Eventually Nixon was forced to acquiesce. To this day he remains the only American president to leave office after an impeachment process (and, technically, his was a resignation, not a removal).
Few celebrated. For as much as Nixon was a crook, his removal was a nationwide indictment. The system had failed. The government had failed. Democracy had failed.
Fifty years later there was no trace of that reverence for the position of president during Donald Trump’s impeachment. You might argue it’s no less than he deserves — but it doesn’t change the gravity of what it means to reverse the ruling of the electorate.
South Africa has a parliamentary system; we elect a political party, not a leader. That should not inoculate us from any culpability. The prospect of a third consecutive permanent president stepping down from office should prompt severe introspection of where we are as a nation.
At the time of writing, President Cyril Ramaphosa has yet to respond to the damning Phala Phala findings released by the independent panel chaired by retired chief justice Sandile Ngcobo. His people have indicated that a briefing will be “imminent” — which, in South African parlance, is a synonym for now-now. In the meantime the media mill has continued to churn, producing proposed dates for his resignation that range from now until Christmas.
The opposition have predictably gone barking in all directions, as they are wont to do.
It is incumbent on all of us — citizens, the media, stakeholders of democracy — not to be drawn into the ensuing circus. As the tomatoes are hurled at Ramaphosa in the stocks, we must remember that each one is a blemish on our sheet. That his failure is our failure. If we do not learn from our mistakes then we are no better than the Americans that we vicariously watched attempt to impeach their presidents — each time with increasing disregard.
The Mail & Guardian’s vow to you is that if we unequivocally pass the tragic point of no return, we will demand the resignation of our president. But we will not do so lightly.