Ramaphosa’s undoing is likely to be our Pyrrhic defeat as well

The knives are out for President Cyril Ramaphosa. While the vultures are circling, it is good news indeed that he has decided not to heed the flawed report on the Phala Phala incident and to have the matter reviewed by a higher authority. 

In his notice of motion addressed to the constitutional court, Ramaphosa moves to have the Section 89 report reviewed and set aside. For context, Thuli Madonsela, our former public protector, has also seen it fit to criticise the panel’s report since it is based on an erroneous interpretation of the law. According to her feasible interpretation of Section 34 (1), the duty to report corrupt practices does not include theft of your own money on your own property. The panel, for its part, found that Ramaphosa has a case to answer for. 

A year ago, Zuma’s legal team certainly lost no time in filing an application for leave to appeal against Justice Elias Matojane’s judgment in the Pretoria high court to rescind Arthur Fraser’s decision in granting him medical parole. 

Msholozi’s friend approved his reprieve against and despite the Medical Advisory Parole Board’s recommendation not to do so. For an 80-year-old man (sick or not), playing for time by filing more paperwork is certainly worth it. 

Such a review process is of course Ramaphosa’s right too, but, for the reasons enumerated below, it is also the most sensible thing to do from a criminological perspective. 

It might be a useful exercise for the reading public’s pleasure and elucidation to attempt to provide such a perspective. Indeed, as the late Stanley Cohen (1942-2013) pointed out, the harmful behaviours of the wealthy and powerful are not even recognised as crimes.  Cohen was a graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand who went on to become a professor of sociology at the London School of Economics and a world-renowned expert on the crimes of the state.

Conflict criminologists, notably Jeffrey Reiman and Richard Quinney, have always argued that the criminal justice system in capitalist, consumer societies (such as South Africa), presents as a “Pyrrhic defeat”. 

Whereas a Pyrrhic victory is achieved at such costs that the victory hardly matters, a Pyrrhic defeat is a defeat obtained surreptitiously, since the victory is of no significance. 

According to Reiman’s Pyrrhic defeat theory, the “defeat” in the fight against crime is designed to fail, since the abandonment of the ideal of victory serves two important objectives. 

Firstly, it serves the purpose of focusing on the so-called street or conventional crimes of the poor and middle class to the exclusion of the more monstrous crimes of the wealthy and powerful in our society (notably ANC party elite and politically-connected tenderpreneurs), while secondly, it legitimises the unjustified and vastly unequal economic arrangements which underpin that society.

Consider, for example, the wise and fecund words of Elliott Currie, delivered at a year-end function of the American Association of Criminologists in 1999 at a time when he was the president of that organisation, that the criminologist’s job in the 21st century will include: “shift[ing] some emphasis away from the accumulation of research findings to better dissemination of what we already know, and to more skilful promotion of sensible policies based on that knowledge — policies both in and out of the criminal justice system, including policies to directly attack social exclusion and inequality. 

“That doesn’t mean, by the way, just increasing our ‘access’ to elected officials; first and foremost, it means raising public awareness — enhancing the public’s criminological IQ. We need to think through more intensive and creative ways of doing that, because the only way that we will get our political systems to move is if they are facing an already informed and mobilised public.” 

Currie’s words resonate powerfully with that of Moisés Naím, the well-known Venezuelan investigative journalist, who has convinced me that the main threat to society in the 21st century is “[the] more ominous consequences that result from the widespread capture of governments by criminal organisations”. 

We were painfully made aware of this phenomenon in South Africa during Zuma’s so-called nine wasted years when funds to the tune of at least R1.8-trillion (conservatively estimated), which were meant for the public purse, went missing. This estimate excludes other parameters such as the many thousands of talented people (professional and otherwise) who left the country, having lost faith in its future.

And we must pray that Ramaphosa survives the ANC December national elective conference, as all his rivals for the position of president of the ANC (Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Lindiwe Sisulu and Zweli Mkhize) are all advocates of the pro-Zuma faction (state capture operatives) within the ruling party. 

Ralph Mathekga, a South African political analyst, argues perceptively in his very readable book The ANC’s Last Decade (2021) that: “This picture [the prospects of Ramaphosa’s presidency] becomes complex in the sense that the more Ramaphosa achieves what he promised in government ― for example, fighting against corruption ― the more tensions emerge within the ANC, making it difficult for him to win a second term in the party. That Ramaphosa’s anti-corruption drive in the government is creating enemies for him in the party is an open secret.” 

On top of this, RW Johnson goes as far as suggesting in his well-known book How Long Will South Africa Survive? The Looming Crisis (2015), that there was a wholesale “criminalisation of the state” during Zuma’s years in office. In my view, realistically speaking, it is not inconceivable that we can see a return to that state of affairs.

Opposition parties gunning for Ramaphosa are, in this view, shortsighted with the prospect of an opportunistic impeachment inquiry. Similarly, with an opportunistic Msholozi seemingly on the ropes after the supreme court of appeal revoked his Fraser-induced medical parole, this is still a man that should not be underestimated.

uBaBa’s calling for Ramaphosa’s resignation over the Phala Phala matter (as he stuffs his mattress with cash while ordinary Africans go hungry), is rich in irony but also loaded with danger.

Clearly, parliament cannot proceed with the debate on his possible impeachment while the matter is being considered on higher appeal. This is so despite Julius Malema’s confident opinion that parliament’s section 89 Phala Phala report will be adopted by the majority, come voting day. 

Whatever the merits of the case against Ramaphosa, we must not be hoodwinked by the claims of criminals and looters who are desperate to have him out of the way for their own nefarious reasons. 

Reiman’s Pyrrhic defeat theory shows us how a powerful faction in society (in this case, the RET faction within the governing ANC) can deflect attention away from their own far more harmful crimes to focus on, comparatively speaking, the almost petty crimes of the poor. 

Although Ramaphosa can by no means be regarded as poor and powerless, the point is the same. His undoing is almost certainly likely to be our Pyrrhic defeat as well. 

Dr Casper Lӧtter is a conflict criminologist affiliated with North-West University’s school of philosophy (Potchefstroom) as a research fellow.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.