In the dusty Northern Cape town of Colesberg in May 2017, Cyril Ramaphosa drew on the myth of an eagle perching high on the stony cliff face of the mountains, when it feels it has lost its strength and prowess.
The majestic bird, he told the gathering of ANC members at the province’s elective conference, rips off its beak and its talons and waits for regrowth.
“It goes through this bloody process, it stays for months reflecting ... and renewing itself,” he said. “Once it comes back, its claws grow out again and it comes back stronger.”
This, he said, is what the ANC must do. And it was upon that promise that he was elected to lead the party in December of that year.
Unfortunately for Ramaphosa, during the past five years, there has been much gnawing and clawing, but very little renewal.
True, the ANC did suspend its errant secretary-general Ace Magashule, implement its step-aside rule and brought in a cracker of an electoral commission (headed by former president Kgalema Motlanthe) to stem the onslaught on internal democracy in the party. But it was clear this wasn’t enough.
The most glaring signal of this has been the onslaught on Ramaphosa himself, which made 2022 his annus horribilis. This says much, given that 2020 saw him presiding over the country during a pandemic, and 2021 was headlined by bloody unrest.
Yet Ramaphosa has somehow managed to end the year back on top. This seemed exceptionally unlikely in June, when the Phala Phala saga began.
At the time, it emerged that former State Security Agency (SSA) boss Arthur Fraser had laid criminal charges against Ramaphosa over a robbery at Phala Phala, a Limpopo game farm owned by the president.
Fraser accused Ramaphosa of money laundering, kidnapping and corruption, alleging he had stuffed $4m into a couch at the farm, which was later stolen. He claimed the president tasked his head of security Wally Rhoode with tracking down the thieves who were then kidnapped, interrogated, and bribed not to talk about what had happened.
It was a tall tale — one which could have been cleared up easily if there was no wrongdoing by the president. But Ramaphosa chose to remain mum, arguing that it was under investigation.
Opposition parties and his enemies, inevitably, pounced. It all culminated in November with a report by an independent parliamentary panel headed by former chief justice Sandile Ngcobo, which found there was “prima facie” evidence of wrongdoing by Ramaphosa and that he should face an impeachment inquiry.
The damage to Brand Ramaphosa in those six months was immense. He knew it too, drafting a resignation speech he was hours away from giving.
To make matters worse, in the same month, the power crisis deepened, culminating in stage 6 load-shedding — and Ramaphosa angered business and ordinary South Africans by taking two weeks to respond. It remained the ever-present critique of his presidency: dawdling while the world burns.
Yet, Ramaphosa has prevailed. If Jacob Zuma was seen as the original Teflon president, Ramaphosa is making a strong claim to that title now.
His comeback began in earnest last Tuesday, when parliament — the ANC, in particular — voted against the Ngcobo report recommendations for an impeachment inquiry.
Then, after a tense two days of horse-trading, deals, and flat-out panic, Ramaphosa emerged victorious against his former health minister Zweli Mkhize for a second term as ANC president.
It is the definitive proof to the cliché that a week is truly a long time in politics.
Suspended animation
A more critical question is, will Ramaphosa finally display the sort of leadership everyone expected from him during the first term?
Sadly, the early indications are that his poor communication, or willingness to make himself accessible, aren’t going to change any time soon.
The FM requested an interview with him a month ago, and was denied. Questions were then sent to his spokesperson Vincent Magwenya, who said he was unable to respond as he was writing Ramaphosa’s closing address to the ANC conference.
Still, others believe his victory bodes well for the economy.
“What it does mean is you will have what we call continuity from a policy perspective and he can continue with the reforms he has been championing, with a stronger mandate,” finance minister Enoch Godongwana tells the FM.
Certainly, the markets responded well to his re-election: the rand surged, firming by 1.78% to R17.24 to the dollar.
This is more because of his reputation as a pro-business leader, since there was little feedback from the ANC on its economic policy discussions at the time of going to print.
Rather than policy, the bulk of the five-day conference was spent on ironing out glitches in registration and trading for positions. By the final day, there was still no sign of what, if any, economic policy shifts would come out of the gathering.
Some expect Ramaphosa’s second term to be about securing his legacy.
“The past five years were quite difficult for him, if you remember the outcome of 2017,” says deputy minister in the presidency and NEC member Zizi Kodwa. “To an extent, it immobilised him from taking decisions. I think this overwhelming reaffirmation affirms his renewal agenda. The president will have no other reason now to doubt in terms of giving leadership on issues of renewal.”
Kodwa says Ramaphosa now has strong characters behind him, including Fikile Mbalula, who was elected secretary-general, so he “doesn’t have to look over his shoulder”.
The president’s confidant Frans Baleni tells the FM that ensuring his legacy has been fundamental to Ramaphosa, from his formative years in the 1980s in the National Union of Mineworkers to his role in drafting the constitution.
“He must leave a legacy wherever he goes. He told us two things when he formed the NUM: the first is that when he leaves, the NUM would be led by a mineworker and second, that workers would have a retirement fund they could count on,” Baleni tells the FM. “He delivered on both.”
Baleni, who followed Ramaphosa as a general secretary of the NUM, says that the retirement fund started by Ramaphosa all those years ago, before the end of apartheid, is now worth billions.
“Under Ramaphosa, the NUM was the first union to embrace the Freedom Charter — nonracialism in essence — and Ramaphosa was at the forefront.”
Axing the dead wood
Kodwa and Baleni agree that Ramaphosa was severely constrained during his first term. But now, unleashed from factional shackles, will he perform any better?
Baleni responds: “He ended up accommodating many of these characters for the sake of unity and renewal. In his first term, he has had to focus more internally in the ANC, than externally in the country, but he is no longer constrained by that.”
So what would that look like, in practice?
First, a cabinet reshuffle is on the cards. Insiders tell the FM it is likely to happen before the state of the nation address in February 2023. He ought to do it sooner: Mbalula, who is also transport minister, told the media after the ANC conference that if it were up to him, he would leave his government post immediately to take up his full-time ANC top job.
Mbalula’s exit, many critics would say, is no loss for government.
But Ramaphosa would also have to find a place for newly elected ANC deputy president, Paul Mashatile, who replaces David Mabuza. It is understood that Mashatile would take up the deputy president role in government soon.
Then there is the issue of those ministers who campaigned against Ramaphosa: tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu and co-operative governance minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma.
Insiders have told the FM, on condition of anonymity, that Dlamini Zuma is preparing to resign. She had openly voted in favour of an impeachment inquiry against Ramaphosa in parliament, in defiance of the party line.
“This time, it has to be a reshuffle that stamps his authority,” one ANC official tells the FM. “He does not have to be like Zuma, who reshuffled every six months, but he has to draw a line in the sand against those who don’t want his agenda.”
It’s easy to see which of Ramaphosa’s opponents would go, but what of his allies?
Gwede Mantashe is at the helm of the mining & energy department, but he has been an eyesore in his portfolio.
The FM has been told by sources close to his department that Mantashe has already warned his staff that he may be shifted. From Ramaphosa’s side, it is understood there is discomfort around allegations that Mantashe’s wife plays an inappropriate role in his department — a conflict flagged by those in the mining sector too.
Insiders say we’re also unlikely to see the exit of the woefully inept police minister Bheki Cele, who bafflingly still commands the confidence of the president.
When it comes to both Mantashe and Cele, a reshuffle will be seen as a litmus test of Ramaphosa’s resolve to continue his reform agenda, now unhindered by internal party dynamics.
Ethically barren
But reforming the state is one thing; fixing the ANC will be much harder.
Depressingly, 43% of ANC delegates felt confident enough to vote for Mkhize, despite his alleged complicity in looting the fiscus during the pandemic, in the Digital Vibes saga.
It illustrated that even Ramaphosa’s supporters were willing to embrace the compromised for the sake of political expediency. This was underscored by the nomination, from the conference floor, of former energy minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson.
Joemat-Pettersson, who was implicated in the selling of SA’s strategic fuel reserves, was also Zuma’s point woman in signing the suspect nuclear deal in 2015. Yet she obtained overwhelming support from Ramaphosa’s faction — just shy of winning the post of deputy secretary-general from Nomvula Mokonyane.
Mokonyane herself is notorious for receiving braai packs, expensive whisky and a Louis Vitton handbag stuffed with R300,000 in cash from prisons company Bosasa, according to testimony given to the Zondo commission.
And yet Northern Cape premier Zamani Saul tells the FM that Ramaphosa’s renewed mandate is a “devastating blow for the anti-renewal forces”.
“It is a watershed outcome, a major devastating blow for pushback against renewal. They won’t recover from this,” he says. “From January I believe we will start to see major changes.”
Saul says the outcome of this conference is “in sync with the national mood” against corruption. And Ramaphosa has “nothing to lose” by implementing these changes, he says.
“These next five years are a legacy-creating moment,” he says. “What he should be doing is to be decisive. Because with the state of the organisation and the country, we don’t want leadership that prevaricates around challenges.”
The single biggest challenge lies with Eskom, and the power crisis.
Curiously, during the conference, Ramaphosa deployed the army to protect Eskom infrastructure from acts of sabotage — a long-standing request from Eskom’s management.
Kodwa tells the FM that the move was long in coming.
“No doubt there are elements of sabotage at Eskom. You don’t need intelligence to tell you that. There are elements who are driven by ulterior motives, to undermine the leadership of the country, to undermine the whole management,” he says.
He says that when five power stations trip simultaneously, the evidence seems pretty clear that there is co-ordination among saboteurs.
“We are going to Christmas next week, and South Africans have load-shedding. It’s not just killing households, small businesses, it’s also killing investors and I think the decision the president has taken to deploy the army, it will normalise the situation in the short term,” he says.
But, Kodwa says, there must be a concerted effort to “deal with” those elements trying to destabilise the utility further.
Will Gordhan stay?
So what will become of public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan, the politician responsible for Eskom and other state-owned entities, in this new dispensation?
Gordhan kept a low profile at the conference — but after a request from the FM for an interview, security officials ushered the FM into the area closed off to journalists for a sit-down with the minister.
He declined to stand as a member of the ANC’s top leadership structure, the NEC. He says he will always serve the movement, but his time on the structure is up.
Asked if he will retire from the cabinet too, Gordhan is coy in his response.
“We shall see,” he says, adding that ministerial posts are the prerogative of the president.
Gordhan no doubt has sleepless nights over Eskom — there have been moves for months already to move the utility’s oversight into the energy ministry.
But he argues that Ramaphosa’s administration has been on the receiving end of a series of political, policy, administrative and corrupt missteps by various ANC-led administrations.
André de Ruyter’s resignation last week was, in part, due to a lack of political support, but Gordhan tells the FM that he had always backed the CEO, who will now leave in March.
“I backed him, the president backed him ... what is important now is the new CEO will have the full backing of the government,” he says.
He says Eskom’s board has already begun the search for a new leader for the utility, preferably an engineer.
Gordhan tells the FM the search will be both local and international, adding that there are dozens of talented SA engineers all over the world working in power utilities from the Philippines to the United Arab Emirates. The government is hoping a suitable, patriotic South African with the necessary qualifications and skills will be up to the almost impossible task of turning Eskom around.
It is a tall task, but an urgent one. Ending load-shedding is key to turning the ANC’s electoral fortunes around.
Godongwana, however, tells the FM that “Brand Ramaphosa” is still the best option for the ANC in the lead-up to the 2024 election.
Ramaphosa himself will surely never have imagined this trajectory when he first contested that ANC election in 2017.
Perhaps his eagle metaphor from five years ago is still apt: now that the ripping and bleeding has ceased, can he emerge stronger, more powerful, and more decisive?
Or will the party’s slow bleed just continue, ensuring that renewal and reform remain as mythical as his eagle’s rebirth?
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