Last week Arthur Fraser, the disgraced former spy boss, laid a criminal complaint against President Cyril Ramaphosa. It was not a surprise. In the week before Fraser’s announcement, several social media accounts notorious for carrying propaganda in support of former president Jacob Zuma and for defaming anticorruption commentators had been claiming that he was about to “drop files” on Ramaphosa.
So last week, when Fraser claimed there was theft of upwards of $4m from Ramaphosa’s farm and the president had covered up the theft, some of us were expecting the news. It is without doubt part of a dirty tricks campaign. That does not mean there is no truth to some of the claims, or that there will be no consequences to the allegations.
So what are FM readers to make of the Fraser allegations? Here is some context:
The war inside the ANC is intensifying: The party holds its elective conference in December. The radical economic transformation (RET) faction is consistently losing at regional and provincial conferences. The only way to weaken Ramaphosa and his faction is by taking him out and traumatising his supporters. These revelations are a salvo in that war. Fraser was head of the State Security Agency (SSA) until 2018. He will without doubt release more information about Ramaphosa and others he deems enemies to deter investigation into his actions at the SSA.
Fraser laid the complaint against Ramaphosa to trigger the president’s removal from office through Ramaphosa’s own rule that office bearers who are charged criminally must step down from party positions. The rule was strengthened to say that members charged with criminal offences must not stand for party or public office.
These are not nice people: Fraser is the man who overruled the parole board and freed Zuma from prison last year. He faces numerous allegations of wrongdoing at the SSA, where he was director-general during Zuma’s presidency. In 2009 Fraser allegedly leaked secret recordings of conversations between former Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy and others which the acting head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) at the time, Mokotedi Mpshe, used to (wrongly) justify his dropping of corruption charges against Zuma.
Ramaphosa being charged is the goal here — to trigger a ‘step aside’; Fraser is not interested in a conviction
Why we are here: Ramaphosa mollycoddled the corrupt in the ANC because he has put unity of the party ahead of the country. Instead of draining the swamp when he came to power in 2018, he drew in many of those responsible for the destruction of the previous 10 years.
“I said I would rather be seen as a weak president than split the ANC because that is not my mission,” he told News24 in 2018. The chickens have come home to roost.
What are the chances that Ramaphosa will be forced out? On Monday a key RET leader, Tony Yengeni, tabled a motion at the ANC national working committee meeting that Ramaphosa should step down from his positions until investigations are concluded. The motion was swatted aside by party chair Gwede Mantashe. But Ramaphosa remains in danger because this is what the RET faction wants: to hobble him for the period leading up to the conference, if not forever.
The key questions for him are: why did he keep huge amounts of undeclared foreign currency at his home (the SA Revenue Service and the Reserve Bank have been asked to investigate)? Did he deliberately and illegally cover up the presence of the cash? If the NPA proceeds with charges, rightly or wrongly, Ramaphosa may be forced to step aside until the process is concluded. The chances of him being found guilty look remote (because there are already too many holes emerging in Fraser’s case), but Ramaphosa being charged is the goal here — to trigger a “step aside”; Fraser is not interested in a conviction. Ramaphosa had better lawyer up.
Ramaphosa and thuma mina: This is very bad PR for Ramaphosa personally and for his renewal message. He looks like his enemies. He looks likely to survive, but he is bleeding.
The big picture: This latest incident in the battle inside the ANC illustrates once again just how important it is that SA becomes a truly multiparty democracy as quickly as possible. Ramaphosa’s possible removal would not be a major societal concern if the chances of the ANC being ousted by an opposition were a realistic consideration. We are here because we are too intimately intertwined with the ruling party and palace politics.
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