With all illusions about St Cyril Ramaphosa now shattered, the future of the country looks bleak. The silver lining is that his fall could precipitate the new dawn that South Africa needs.
Cyril Ramaphosa, at the time of writing, was Schrödinger’s president. He was going to resign. Then he wasn’t. Now it appears he will still be president by the time you read this.
Either way, he has just joined the group of ANC leaders who have been caught red-handed in corrupt dealings. The second group – those who have yet to be caught – continues to dwindle.
A notice of motion to remove the president from office had been filed in June 2022, and accepted by the speaker of Parliament in August.
It was submitted by Vuyolwethu Zungula, president of the African Transformation Movement, who is little more than a sock-puppet for the Radical Economic Transformation (RET) faction of the ANC.
RET, of course, is code for the very substantial forces of corruption. Despite Ramaphosa’s promises to clean up government, these forces continue to infest state-owned enterprises, the civil service and government, up to and including cabinet.
The rogue’s gallery that the ANC unashamedly announced on Thursday morning as the top 10 candidates for its National Executive Committee (NEC) merely illustrates how pervasive the rot is.
Curious
Parliament appointed an independent panel to conduct a preliminary investigation to determine whether full impeachment proceedings against Ramaphosa are warranted, being that it, too, was quite curious why the president had kept an undeclared treasure in foreign currency hidden in a couch on his game breeding farm, and why its theft in 2020 was never brought to the attention of the police, as required by anti-corruption legislation.
It delivered its report on Wednesday, finding evidence that on the face of it shows the goodly St Cyril committed serious violations both of the Constitution and of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act (PRECCA).
To be clear, prima facie evidence is not proof. If Parliament votes to adopt the independent panel’s report (and it would be scandalous if it didn’t), a full-blown impeachment inquiry, analogous to a criminal trial, would have to be held to determine the extent of Ramaphosa’s guilt and culpability.
The president cannot, legally, ‘step aside’. He may resign, but he is certainly not required to do so. The ANC could even use its majority in Parliament to quash the whole matter, like it did with Jacob Zuma and Nkandla.
Having said that, the panel’s report was far more blunt and damaging than it might have been. Ramaphosa has been wounded, perhaps mortally. He may be forced to resign. The ANC’s NEC may vote to recall him. He may withdraw from, or otherwise lose, the election for the ANC’s presidency to be held at Nasrec later this month.
Irreparably tainted
Even in the unlikely event that Ramaphosa does not resign, is not impeached, is re-elected by the ANC, and clings on to power a la his corrupt predecessor, Jacob Zuma, he will be irreparably tainted.
It will certainly burst the balloons of the few die-hard supporters who still believe, against all the evidence of his nearly five years in power, that Ramaphosa is a man of reform, and only needs to be re-elected to a second term to empower him to implement his New Dawn against graft, incompetence and wasteful spending.
That Cyril Ramaphosa was not going to be South Africa’s saviour is a drum I’ve been banging since his very first address to the nation in February of 2018. Admittedly, my opposition to Ramaphosa was based not on the view that he was also corrupt – although it didn’t surprise me to learn he likely is – but on his steadfast commitment to the ANC’s dogmatic socialism.
Early election
As I write this, just about all his opponents – inside the ANC, in Parliament, in the unions, and in civil society – are opportunistically calling for him to go.
The official opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has announced that it will move to call an early election. That motion will no doubt be defeated.
On the radio and in the media, there are commentators who still think that these events are terrible because ‘he’s the good guy’. Others fret about what might happen now.
If Ramaphosa goes, he will likely in the short term be replaced by deputy president David Mabuza, and by early next year by either Paul Mashatile, Zweli Mkhize, or some other corrupt member of the ANC.
All of the options, bar perhaps Kgalema Motlanthe, are demonstrably worse than the hapless, rudderless, toothless Ramaphosa. The national motto will once again be Aloota continua!
This will have painful consequences for South Africa. State-owned enterprises will accelerate their rapid unplanned disassembly. Confiscation of privately owned land and other property will gather steam. More wealthy and middle-class taxpayers will flee the country. Public debt will rapidly become unmanageable. Unemployment will continue to rise. Poverty will continue to get worse. Business conditions will continue to become more hostile.
The RET populists will promise cake for everyone, of course, but that tactic must be wearing thin.
Figurehead
The ANC might choose to keep the tainted Ramaphosa as figurehead, reckoning (correctly, in my view) that ‘St Cyril’ remains the most reassuring figurehead going into the 2024 election. If so, he will be beholden to the RET forces for his own position and will become a mere puppet.
But there is no ‘good ANC’. Whether Ramaphosa stays or goes, South Africa will be much worse off economically, by the time we get to the next national elections in 2024. But the ANC will also be much weaker.
This is a good thing. The only hope for the country is the rapid demise of the ANC and the election into government of a coalition led by the Democratic Alliance.
South Africa doesn’t really have until 2029 to make this change. By then, Zimbabwe- or Venezuela-style collapse will likely have overtaken the country.
To achieve this, the ANC’s electoral support must decline from 57.5% in 2019, not only below 50%, but some way below 40% to account for a potential alliance with the EFF which is worth roughly 10%, and for small parties whose allegiance is a fickle matter of money.
Although the ANC managed only 47.5% in the 2021 local and provincial elections, that number is not indicative of performance in the national elections. It is encouraging, but should not lull anyone into a false sense of security.
Shock treatment
That means the electorate needs a shock. More than 50% of the electorate stayed away from the polls at the last local and provincial elections. Almost 20% of those who were eligible to vote stayed away because they were disillusioned with the ANC and hadn’t found an alternative with which they’re comfortable.
That 10% of the electorate, plus additional disillusioned ANC voters, must be convinced not only to deny the ANC their vote, but to give it to an opposition party, whether that is the DA or an alternative.
The opposition needs time to campaign. Not only do they need to convince voters that they’ll be tough on corruption and misgovernance. They also must communicate credible and politically palatable economic policy alternatives to the hidebound socialism of the ‘developmental state’ that has so clearly failed South Africa.
The more obvious it is that the ANC is not the future, the more likely it is that a dramatic political realignment will materialise in 2024.
Battle of ideas
The ‘battle of ideas’ strategy of the Institute of Race Relations was designed with exactly this goal in mind: to provide, in classical liberalism, a well-developed ideological alternative that falls readily to the hand of opposition parties once the collapse of the ANC’s socialism becomes inevitable.
The fall of St Cyril – or his reduction to a mere figurehead – will in the short term bring the RET faction to power, and the unashamedly kleptocratic ANC we all know will re-emerge. This will hurt.
But that dark cloud has the silver lining that it will accelerate the implosion of the ANC and precipitate the economic crisis that is needed to give the electorate the necessary shock to bring about a dramatic change of government in 2024.
That is, ultimately, the fastest way out of the rolling catastrophe that South Africa has become.
[Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/governmentza/32950016828]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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