President Cyril Ramaphosa was just hours away from an ignominious end to his long political career. He was “tired and hurt” — tired by the Sisyphean effort of pushing the heavy stone of government up a steep hill, and hurt by the “findings” of the independent panel investigating the Phala Phala theft that were, at first sight, absolutely devastating for him.
He was ready to throw in the towel, concluding that this would be the most dignified exit strategy. A Mandelian resignation speech was being prepared for Ramaphosa to deliver in one final “family meeting”. He would pay homage to the principle of constitutional accountability and then, in an act of noble sacrifice, fall on his sword.
As ever, Ramaphosa wanted to take the most comfortable option.
But then something happened that changed the course of South Africa’s political history: the president’s vertebrae were located.
As the hours and minutes of Thursday December 1 ticked away, so did Ramaphosa’s supporters chip away — those both inside and outside the ANC — urging him to reconsider.
Their argument was based on two main points. First, your country needs you; don’t go. Second, don’t resign on the basis of this report; it is legally deeply flawed and ripe for judicial review.
The family meeting was cancelled, and Ramaphosa agreed to sleep on it. By morning, the argument about the defects in the panel’s approach had been solidified. Memos and op-eds were making a convincing case for why, in fact, it would undermine rather than serve the principle of constitutional accountability for a democratically elected president to leave office on the basis of such a shoddy piece of work.
Besides, the president was reminded, the panel’s conclusions were at best advisory. The meat of the impeachment process (the full parliamentary investigation in which the evidence would be properly tested and witnesses cross-examined) — a process Ramaphosa was and is, understandably, eager to avoid — was still to come.
If he were to resign now, it would amount to a concession that the independent panel was right; it would seal his political legacy, but in an unjust fashion.
This turned Ramaphosa’s head. If one wanted to be harsh, one might say the man who in high office has proved to be indecisive and ponderous in the face of tough decisions, dithered over whether to stay or go.
The more generous view is that Ramaphosa recognised what a real leader would do in these circumstances: fight on, and fight on to win.
A new political and legal strategy emerged.
The making of a president
What would have happened if Ramaphosa had gone? Or, indeed, what might still happen should he have third thoughts or lose at the ANC national elective conference that is just a few days away?
A feeding frenzy, is the answer, and a very real chance that many of the institutional reforms his administration has put in place — however slowly at times — would be reversed. That would open the door to the return to power of the ANC’s most criminal faction.
Having found his backbone, the president can justifiably move against his opponents and crush them, clearing the way for more decisive and urgent reforms to revitalise the economy
It has been suggested to me that perhaps, in a perverse way, this would have been the better course: that it would have hastened the demise of the ANC and sped up the “second transition” away from three decades of ANC electoral dominance.
And, indeed, it would. But the choice was between two years of great political uncertainty and increased risk as a new leadership unravelled the processes of reform, and a middle-road scenario in which Ramaphosa hangs onto power and the steady if unspectacular progress of the past four years is sustained for at least another two.
In the former, the Just Energy Transition Partnership, the Investigating Directorate tackling state capture and the National Prosecuting Authority itself would all be imperilled — a very low-road scenario.
Now there is an extraordinary opportunity to craft a high-road scenario. Having found his backbone, the president can move against his opponents and crush them, clearing the way for more decisive and urgent reforms to revitalise the economy.
If Ramaphosa cares to read Gramsci, and to maintain the momentum that his decision to fight on has created, he can move from the “war of position” to a “war of manoeuvre”, in which his political enemies are confronted head-on and vanquished.
In other words, he can be the leader South Africa needs and yearns for. Ironically, the peculiar Phala Phala scandal might yet be the making of Ramaphosa.
* Calland is an associate professor in public law at the University of Cape Town, a founding partner of political risk advisory The Paternoster Group, and the co-author of The Presidents: From Mandela to Ramaphosa, Leadership in The Age of Crisis. He was appointed to sit on the Phala Phala panel, but withdrew
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