President Cyril Ramaphosa should not just lead, which is what he says he is doing. He also needs to be seen to be leading. South Africans don’t think he is leading at all, and they are losing faith in him.
He has been in power for three years. Before that he was deputy president to the court-shy and scandal-ridden Jacob Zuma for four years. What exactly has changed in people’s lives in the three years that Ramaphosa has been in charge?
Joblessness is at such unprecedented levels that the only question is why SA is not in total revolt when 44% of its citizens sit at home. Corruption is not just rampant, it is the permanent grease of the society we live in. Ramaphosa’s three years in office seem to be an endless negotiation with Zuma’s idiotic acolytes instead of the great leap forward of the "new dawn".
Survey results released by Afrobarometer last week showed that fewer than two in five South Africans trust the president "somewhat" or "a lot". More than two-thirds have "just a little" or "no trust at all" in parliament, the police, and their local council, Afrobarometer said.
Why is this, you may ask. People see no difference between Ramaphosa’s ambitious "new dawn" and Zuma’s kleptocratic, selfish presidency from 2009 to 2018. In fact, at least in the Zuma era the country could still lick the floor and taste the economic successes of the Thabo Mbeki era.
Unlike his predecessor, Zuma left nothing in the pantry. The Zuma administration stole left, right and centre. It broke nearly every state-owned enterprise it inherited from the Mbeki years. Those that were in trouble, like Eskom, were hollowed out and brought to their knees.
Ramaphosa’s team seems to want to negotiate every nook and cranny with people who are corrupt and should be in court
Three years down the line, change is glacial. This is not to say it is not happening, but Ramaphosa’s team seems to want to negotiate every little nook and cranny with people who are corrupt and should be in court. The cabinet is so full of Zuma’s corrupt set, it is incredible to behold. These people don’t work. They machinate and use state resources to undermine the very man at whose pleasure they serve.
It is time for Ramaphosa to stop his tactics of the past three years. You cannot negotiate with people who have done what the radical economic transformation crowd did to the country in July. Isn’t he incensed that 342 people were killed, that billions of rands of damage was done to infrastructure, that 50,000 small enterprises were looted or negatively affected? How long will Ramaphosa negotiate, beg and ingratiate himself with these looters?
Don’t get me wrong. Unlike many others, I think Ramaphosa and Zuma are chalk and cheese. Ramaphosa embodies the values and ethics we need for a reversal of the nine lost years of the Zuma kleptocracy.
These attributes don’t change the reality of suffering among poor people. Ramaphosa needs to act, to implement, and to break some glasses if he is to achieve anything at all. He is not doing that. Policy change, which he can achieve easily enough given the support he now has in the ANC national executive committee, remains a matter of negotiation. What exactly is there to negotiate on policy with the Zuma crowd? There is nothing except for them to parcel out government contracts to their masters (the Guptas) and their minions.
SA is in crisis. Whistle-blowers such as Babita Deokaran are being murdered in broad daylight. Unemployment is horrific. Crime is endemic. What exactly is the upside of continuing to negotiate with those who still flaunt their criminality?
Ramaphosa cannot continue with the footsie-footsie any longer. He is the democratically elected president of the republic. His devotion to the ANC cannot continue to come before the country. He needs to act now to stanch the bleeding. He needs to lead.
If the stasis of the country continues there is no doubt in my mind that we will have an uprising of the unemployed and the poor against the ANC and Ramaphosa — and against "them", meaning the rich.
It is time to stop pussyfooting. Zuma and his ilk don’t care. Ramaphosa must stop consulting and start governing. That’s his job.
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