With about half of SADC’s GDP, South Africa is the economic powerhouse of the region. She is a neighbour upon which we, as a country, overwhelmingly depend for consumer and investment goods. Whatever happens in that country is therefore of immense interest, and a commentary on its political developments is not amiss. President Cyril Ramaphosa won the governing ANC presidency at the party’s 2017 elective conference to become the president of South Africa in 2018.
This was after serving in Jacob Zuma’s cabinet as vice president. He promised a renewal of the ANC and to get rid of the rampant corruption bedevilling the government in order to revive the party’s popularity. He described Jacob Zuma’s two terms in office as “nine wasted years”. At the time, Zuma was desperately fighting off accusations of facilitating state capture. The media went nuts; it presented Ramaphosa as Mr Clean. It was therefore quite a shock when, in June last year, the former head of South Africa’s state security agency Arthur Fraser laid criminal charges against Ramaphosa over his role in a robbery that took place at his private Phala Phala Game Farm in 2020. He accused Ramaphosa of kidnapping, money laundering and concealing a crime. He alleged that the stolen money had been hidden in a sofa at the farm house and it amounted to millions of dollars.
The country and the world were agog; surely this cannot be true. However, shortly after the charges were laid, the presidency released a statement confirming the robbery but denied that the president had committed a crime. Everyone was taken aback. Stories about the robbery and its alleged perpetrators started to fly in the South African and global media. All the while he maintained that only $580,000 instead of millions of dollars was stolen. In reaction, the African Transformation Movement (ATM) party submitted a motion to South Africa’s parliament. “The Motion proposes an enquiry into the removal of the President of the Republic of South Africa, His Excellency, Mr. M C Ramaphosa, from office in terms of section 89(1) of the Constitution. It alleges that the President has committed a serious violation of the Constitution and the law, and serious misconduct.
These allegations arise out of the house breaking and theft that occurred at the Phala Phala Wildlife Game Farm.” – Report of the Section 89 Independent Panel. In impeaching a president in South Africa, there has to be a motion proposing the initiation of a section 89 enquiry; the establishment of the panel to conduct a preliminary enquiry on the motion; the establishment of the impeachment committee to consider the motion; the consideration of the reports of the panel and the impeachment committee by the National Assembly, and a vote by the National Assembly on the motion. As a result of ATM’s motion, parliament appointed a section 89 independent panel to probe Ramaphosa’s role in the robbery.
The three-man panel, led by a retired chief justice, and also consisting of a retired judge of the high court and a practicing advocate, in its preliminary enquiry found that “In light of all the information placed before the Panel, we conclude that this information discloses, prima facie, that the president may have committed serious violation” of certain sections of the Constitution, that the panel specified. In other words, the panel felt that there were sufficient grounds for parliament to establish an impeachment committee (which would, unlike the panel, have the power to subpoena witnesses and documents) to carry out further investigations, before deciding whether or not the president should be impeached. The panel’s findings were seismic.
As president, not only is Ramaphosa held to a higher standard than anyone else in South Africa; his integrity ought to be beyond reproach; and above all, he had sworn an oath to obey, observe, uphold and maintain the constitution and all other laws of the country. His image as Mr Clean took such a severe knock, that, following the release of the panel’s findings, Ramaphosa, a lawyer by profession, reportedly intended to resign from the presidency and a television broadcast to address the nation on the matter was planned. “Initially, Magwenya (Ramaphosa’s spokesman) told the media that Ramaphosa would address the country later that day. That he was prepared to resign was made clearest by this statement, which was made in front of other ANC leaders.
His supporters admitted as much on Wednesday night, with some actively looking for a replacement to serve as caretaker president. “Reports suggest that some Ramaphosa supporters were considering putting former president Kgalema Motlanthe in charge. Given that Motlanthe was adamant that he would not take on the responsibility, Ramaphosa’s supporters had to beg him to change his mind about stepping down. According to one Ramaphosa insider, Mantashe argued that the president couldn’t address the nation without consulting the ANC’s highest decision making body, the NEC, which meets between ANC conferences.” – Opera News. “President’s resignation speech was put on hold as Ramaphosa told to ‘fight, fight, fight’” – News24.
According to the media outlet, Ramaphosa was apparently firmly convinced that a clean break with politics was the only way out. Ramaphosa’s intention to resign caused great alarm on the part of those dependent on his largesse as state president. So dismayed by the move to resign that Gwede Mantashe, a cabinet minister and ANC chairman – now re-elected – is reported to have said that the resignation would plunge the ANC and the country into chaos. At the time, the ANC elective conference was scheduled in two weeks’ time. Of course, it could have been rescheduled if necessary. The beneficiaries of Ramaphosa’s patronage network immediately circled the wagons and rallied around him.
He was promised protection from the parliamentary impeachment as well as attacks from the media and within the ANC. He was convinced not to resign; take the panel’s report on judicial review; and stand for re-election as ANC president. On the eve of the parliamentary vote to accept or reject the report, he filed an application with the constitutional court to have the report declared invalid and set aside. And riding on incumbency, he convincingly won the re-election to lead the ANC once more. When Ramaphosa was re-elected, his political allies rode on his coattails and got elected into the upper echelons of the ANC. With a different presidential candidate, some would have found it difficult to make it into the Top Seven. Their mission was done and dusted; it had been a close call.
However, President Ramaphosa is not out of the woods. His aborted resignation from the presidency was a tacit acknowledgement of his tenuous position subsequent to the findings of the parliamentary panel. Ramaphosa was aware that the probity bar for a state president is the highest in the land. Before his allies convinced him otherwise, he believed his position was untenable. The resignation would have allowed him to fight charges relating to the robbery without the distraction of the presidency, although it has so far shielded him from any meaningful investigations by state agencies, save perhaps for the public protector. Since the parliamentary panel did not make a specific finding of guilt, but only indicated that based on the information available to it, Ramaphosa may have violated the constitution, the panel’s report may not be set aside after all.
Then all hell would break lose. However, even if the judiciary review turns out to be favourable, it would not necessarily exonerate his possible culpability in the robbery. His presidency is going to be dogged by the scandal. He will know no peace. Opposition parties and his opponents in the party have smelled blood, and they will not let go. They will institute endlessly legal cases against him over the robbery; constantly remind the electorate that he is a constitutional delinquent (as the EFF put it); cast doubt on his integrity as the country’s leader, regardless of the outcome of the judicial review. By association, the ANC would be dragged into the mess. Already, former president Zuma has initiated a private prosecution against Ramaphosa on an unrelated matter. On the day before the elective conference last December, Zuma issued Ramaphosa with summons to appear in court to defend the matter.
However, Ramaphosa recently got a court interdict against the private prosecution until his application to set aside the private prosecution is heard. Whether the private prosecution stands or not, this is an omen of things to come. It will not be nice. At the last general election in 2019, with Ramaphosa at the helm, the ANC posted its worst performance since coming to power – garnering 57.50% of the popular vote, down from 62.15% at the previous election. Municipal elections in 2021 were a disaster; the ANC won only 45.59% of the popular vote, compared to 53.91% the previous elections. Some attribute the poor showing to state capture that took place mostly under Zuma’s watch. On the back of rising unemployment and poor service delivery, some political analysts envisage the governing party losing the next general election or forced into a coalition government.
The party is on shaky ground. Given its precarious position in the South Africa’s political landscape, and that its popularity is unlikely to improve any time soon, it will not be long before the ANC is ultra-sensitive to anything that affects it negatively. With the Phala Phala scandal and its attendant political toxicity refusing to go away, Ramaphosa’s political allies in the ANC leadership will eventually consider him a burden and make him the fall guy for the ANC’s woes that predates his tenure. For survival, they will force him out of the presidency prematurely, just like former presidents Thabo Mbeki and Zuma before him. However, since the ANC will possibly be ejected from power at the next general election, and given the ruthlessness of politics, the ANC leadership may not be keen on a scandal-tainted Ramaphosa as the face of the party at the elections. So he may be forced out of the presidency way before the elections in 2024.
This would be partly on account of a need for his replacement to have an opportunity to try and revive the party’s political fortunes before the elections, and also for the electorate to acclimatise to the future ANC presidential candidate. However, it is not too late. To avoid a bumpy presidency and the ignominy of being shoved aside prematurely from the presidency, he can still resign. The difference will be that this time around he would not be under the same tremendous pressure he had to endure when he wanted to resign. His powerful allies in the party have got what they wanted. His usefulness is now over; he can be put out to pasture when the time is right.
