In the later years of Angela Merkel’s long run as chancellor, the novel verb “merkeln” cemented itself in the German vocabulary. It was a commentary on her propensity to first assimilate the facts and feel which way the wind was blowing before making a pronouncement or decision. The Langenscheidt dictionary definition is harsher: to do nothing, make no decisions.
She had to hold together unwieldy coalitions and sometimes Europe itself. Cyril Ramaphosa needs to hold together the ANC while knives aim at his back and we need a polite word for his darker, inalienable version of the same propensity.
This week, the president was asked at a rare media session why he tolerated ministers who failed to perform or openly defied him.
He replied that his was not a dictatorial approach and that he was waiting for the full report of the Zondo commission to see whether any of his colleagues had done anything for which they need to answer.
Similarly, he responded to questions about political and electoral reform by saying he was awaiting the third and final instalment of Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo’s report on state capture, to see what changes “if any” were indicated.
The same applied, so conveniently, to parliamentary paralysis on state capture and the bother he finds himself in over the leaked recording where he refers, broadly, to state funds being diverted to fund internal ANC leadership campaigns.
“We need to wait for that moment and we don’t have to wait long, it is going to happen soon, and then we will have a full report and as I have said we will then live up to our commitment that we will examine the full report and thereafter come up with our response, which will deal with how we respond to the recommendations.”
But the constitutional court spoke, with binding force, in 2020 on the subject of electoral reform.
In New Nation Movement NPC and Others v President of the Republic and Others, it found that the Electoral Act was unconstitutional in as far as it barred independent candidates from standing for the national and provincial legislatures and gave parliament 24 months to amend it.
This week the legislature said it would ask the court to extend the looming deadline to allow it to embark on an extensive public consultation process. The judgment contained a memorable passage where it brushed off the speaker’s submission that electoral reform was the subject of an ongoing parliamentary process.
“We all know what that means,” the court concluded. There is no process “and we do not know if there will be one.”
We all know what it means when the president asks that we wait a few weeks more for him to receive the non-binding recommendations of the Zondo commission and allow him time to consider how to act on these. We know we are, really, waiting for Godot.
Where we can believe the veracity of what he told the Zondo commission was his admission that the ANC, or his side of the party, bet the future on renewal because corruption was costing it at the polls — just as giving voters the alternative of independent candidates surely will.
Nothing will be done unless it is good for the ANC and any evasion will be justified if it keeps him at the helm of the ship sinking beneath us.