As predicted, Cyril Ramaphosa won re-election to lead his party for another five years. Good luck to him as he jumps back into the crocodile-infested river that is the ANC.
Before we put the leadership contest to bed, though, there are two aspects from it that I still find disconcerting. It is what Ramaphosa knows about his new deputy, Paul Mashatile, and what made him so unattractive as a running mate.
This matters. Ramaphosa is still not out of the woods on the Phala Phala matter. Several state agencies are looking into the matter. His enemies will use any little loophole to try to oust him or, at the very least, bench him. That would mean that Mashatile is next in line.
What we know is this: Ramaphosa did not want Mashatile. Even as, over the past six months, Mashatile had amassed power and influence within the party, even as he collected support from branches across the country, in urban and rural centres, Ramaphosa still did not want him.
Mashatile held out the hand of friendship, saying he did not see any reason that Ramaphosa should not get a second term. Even when the KwaZulu-Natal ANC named Mashatile as its preferred candidate for the deputy presidency of the party, and asked him to reciprocate by endorsing its man, Zweli Mkhize, Mashatile still did not come out for the former health minister. In fact, five weeks ago the KZN ANC dumped Mashatile because he would not give Mkhize his endorsement. He desperately wanted Ramaphosa to give him the nod.
That gesture would have brought Mashatile’s support in Gauteng, North West, the Western Cape and even Limpopo to Ramaphosa. It would have ensured that Ramaphosa’s election was a foregone conclusion by October, stopping the Mkhize noise and uncertainty early on. Ramaphosa did nothing.
Instead of courting Mashatile or explicitly saying why he was not good enough for his campaign, Ramaphosa’s allies within the ANC national executive committee (NEC) were openly hostile to the man from Alexandra township. Twice they put forward motions to remove him from acting as the party secretary-general, a position he occupied after Ramaphosa shafted Ace Magashule, and Jessie Duarte died.
During one such attempt to kick Mashatile out of the acting secretary-general position (which, as I have written here before, is extra-powerful because it has oversight over branch membership — and manipulation) it was Ramaphosa who called his hounds, reportedly Mondli Gungubele and Derek Hanekom, to order and paved the way for Mashatile to continue. Yet, even after that, Ramaphosa did not invite Mashatile into his tent. He cut him loose, smoothing the path for Mkhize to lure him in and assure him that he had the support of the KZN ANC.
It is not that it does not make sense, it is also just extremely poor strategy and tactics. Mashatile and his supporters will not forget that they are not seen as part of Ramaphosa’s team
There was a second man, a seemingly untainted contender, that Ramaphosa snubbed even though he would have been a boon to the president’s campaign. That is Mdumiseni Ntuli, the former Luthuli House staffer who consistently aligned himself with Ramaphosa while running for the position of secretary-general. Ntuli had wide support in KZN, the Eastern Cape and other parts of the country. He had no clear conflicts of policy with Ramaphosa. He has no criminal issues, past or pending. He is, for an ANC NEC candidate, clean as a whistle. He is respected across factions. His supporters would have brought further heft to the Ramaphosa train — and ensured that Ramaphosa is seen as being a serious player in KZN, where former president Jacob Zuma and his faction have played tribal politics.
The ANC in KZN is problematic. It is being groomed by the radical economic transformation faction to continue to play tribal politics and to fuel a backward-looking Zulu nationalist sentiment. Ntuli’s inclusion in a Ramaphosa ticket would have been a powerful antidote to this.
Ntuli was ignored by the Ramaphosa campaign hotshots over the past few months. Why? Neither Ramaphosa nor his campaigners have explained why such a strategically useful candidate was iced out. Ramaphosa and his team opted for weaklings such as the Eastern Cape’s Oscar Mabuyane, someone who should not be entrusted with running a bath, let alone a province.
Ramaphosa is a man who explains little. At the height of his popularity at the beginning of the pandemic he would address the nation but never take questions. At the lowest point of his popularity, with the Phala Phala scandal, he has not addressed the nation or faced a strong interviewer. He has hidden behind the lousy excuse of “the law enforcement agencies are on it”. Look, it was his money and not public money that was stolen, but even his most fervent fans must agree that someone who hides $580,000 in his sofa cushions, particularly the president of a country, needs to explain one or two things. Ramaphosa has clammed up.
So, I don’t expect him to explain his behaviour towards Mashatile and Ntuli, who would have guaranteed him a more united and inclusive NEC, which is ethically aligned to him. It is not that it does not make sense, it is also just extremely poor strategy and tactics. Mashatile and his supporters will not forget that they are not seen as part of Ramaphosa’s team. He now has a potential enemy right by his side while a potential supporter has been left out in the cold.
It is typical of Ramaphosa, though. He loves to make things difficult for himself. He rose to power with the backing of civil society groupings ranging from NGOs to trade unions, faith-based organisations, professional associations and business organisations. Today many are asking where his promised consultations with them are, and where the open society he promised is hidden.
This unfinished and unexplained business will be interesting to watch over the next five years. Mashatile isn’t finished yet, which means the ANC’s factional politics are not finished yet.
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