President Cyril Ramaphosa
Photo: Sharon Seretlo/Getty Images
Thursday.
One wonders whether President Cyril Ramaphosa was shocked and surprised to hear that his former United Democratic Front and Mandela-era comrade Roger Jardine is the latest in the long line of people queuing up to take his job next year.
Word has it that Jardine is about to enter the game — at the behest of big business and the Democratic Alliance (DA) — to act as a presidential candidate for the Multi-Party Charter for South Africa: the moonshot coalition.
My money is on a resounding yes — on the shocked and surprised bit, at least — given El Jefe’s previous form when it comes to what’s going on around him in this fair Republic of ours.
Think about it.
Ramaphosa didn’t know that there were millions hidden in his sofa at Phala Phala — or that they had been stolen — until after it was gone, so the chances of him being blindsided by Jardine entering the political fray are pretty decent.
The president was also shocked and surprised by the extent of our electricity crisis — where he got the current for the first part from one does not know — so he must have been sleeping in the Eskom war room while he was deputy.
Ramaphosa was also shocked and surprised that his police, intelligence and defence ministers were shocked and surprised that their comrades in KwaZulu-Natal looted the province when Jacob Zuma was jailed for contempt in 2021.
That was after the president failed to notice that the railway system had disappeared — or that his comrades were looting the Covid-19 billions while the rest of us waited for family meetings on reduced salaries.
It may therefore be safe to assume that Roger slipped under the presidential radar like a thief in the Phala Phala night — but with his own money.
Word has it that the financial powers-that-be have given up on Ramaphosa — there’s a surprise — and are now lining up a presidential run for Roger, using the Multi-Party Charter as a vehicle for it.
Talk is that they’ve also seen the limitations of DA leader John Steenhuisen — and his moonshot coalition party counterparts — as a potential head of state and now they want to parachute in their own president.
A coalition government led by their president is now said to be the preferred option — or a coalition involving the DA and the ANC — for those who have been backing Ramaphosa since 2017.
Campaign funding with lots of zeros is apparently on offer to sweeten the deal — and salve the party leaders’ egos — the perfect intervention at a time when the ANC is broke.
Fikile Mbalula and the rest of the Luthuli House still haven’t paid the bills from the 2019 election and are likely to be working from home during the coming elections as a result, so Stellenbosch believes this is the time to parachute in a president.
How this will happen — and how it will be received by the DA’s own members and the leaders of the Inkatha Freedom Party, ActionSA and the rest of the moonshot coalition parties — remains to be seen.
Jardine, like Mogoeng Mogoeng and every other wannabe president, will have to be a member of parliament — and of one of its parties — to become president, no matter what God, or Stellenbosch, have to say.
This means either getting Jardine on to somebody’s party list ahead of the elections, or taking one of the elected MPs off the list, after the polls, so that he can be a sitting MP when the seventh parliament convenes next year.
The chosen option — starting a brand-new movement — is a risky move, so close to elections, and an expensive way to get one man into the National Assembly and ready to accept nomination to stand as president with the backing of the charter parties after the elections.
Parachute politics has never worked well in South Africa.
It’s a bit like slapping a Ferrari badge on a Polo — or in this case on a fleet of Fiats. Optically amusing, but that’s about it.
Ask Mvume Dandala, who dropped from the sky, back in the day when Mosiuoa Lekota and Mbhazima Shilowa first failed to Cope.
Or Mamphela Ramphele, who free-falled into the DA leadership in 2014, with pretty disastrous results — and Mmusi Maimane, something of a political skydiver himself.
Will there be another shock and surprise on Ramaphosa’s part if Jardine, the DA and Stellenbosch actually manage to convince the moonshot coalition, and the voters, that Roger’s their guy — and send the incumbent to join the Unemployment Insurance Fund queue come June 2024?
My money, once again, is a yes.