Time to make up with the ANC, Julius?

Ihad the uncomfortable distinction of being picked on a number of times by EFF leader Julius Malema at the party’s inaugural 2018 media conference the other day. Apparently I have written off the EFF as irrelevant and I’m also incoming president Cyril Ramaphosa’s imbongi — what Jimmy Manyi is to the Gupta family or outgoing President Jacob Zuma.

Very funny. But sticks and stones, as they say… And just to set the record straight, I can’t remember writing recently that the EFF is irrelevant. It isn’t something I believe. Julius must have me confused with someone else.

But, yes, I ardently supported Ramaphosa in the race for the ANC leadership with Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, which I’m pretty certain puts me with the vast majority of my fellow citizens.

However, I have not spoken to Ramaphosa for many years. Our last conversation of any consequence was around 2006. As the ANC conference at Mangaung approached I was still editor of this newspaper and tried hard to organise an interview with him but he was already well out of reach.

He is out of reach again, now, as he tries to lever Jacob Zuma out of the Union Buildings and out of power. It is necessarily a delicate process, demanding the utmost discretion and delicacy. Under our Constitution, Zuma is not obliged to leave and he doesn't want to.

And he knows that once he no longer has any power it is 100% certain he will spend the rest of his 70s and possibly much of his 80s in court or in prison. Under those circumstances, of course he is resisting entreaties to resign.

But it was Ramaphosa’s decision to convene a special meeting of the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) on Wednesday that broke Zuma’s resolve. That meeting would have recalled Zuma. It would have also hurt Ramaphosa himself, because it would have meant exposing the rifts in the party. But he did it nonetheless and, in doing so, called Zuma’s bluff. A majority on the NEC would have sided with Ramaphosa and voted for Zuma’s immediate recall.

Zuma immediately caved and asked for time. Suddenly he saw his future clearly. A decision was made to postpone the NEC meeting scheduled for Wednesday and the opening of Parliament on Thursday. Zuma has a week to leave Pretoria.

Ramaphosa’s statement on Wednesday calling on the country to be patient as he and Zuma “conclude our discussions” will stay anxieties for a while. Meanwhile, amuse yourself by imagining what a poor substitute Nkandla, built by the Department of Public Works, is going to be for the life Zuma has enjoyed over this past decade.

It was Michelle Obama whom I first heard say that “the Presidency doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are” — and, boy, is that right. Foisting the Presidency onto Zuma revealed him spectacularly. It will do the same to Ramaphosa, and I think that below that cautious exterior there has grown a very determined man. Think of the lessons he’s learned since we last really heard from him.

He lost the Mandela deputy job to Thabo Mbeki. He was pilloried for bidding on (not buying) a bull for R18m, he was blamed utterly unfairly for the Marikana massacre, he has had his opponents run a sex smear over him and, worst of all, he has had to suffer the thousand cuts that being deputy to Zuma must have invited.

So if we citizens are becoming impatient with the interminable “transition” of state power, or bored by the whole thing, you have to remember it is Ramaphosa’s show and that being the perfectionist he is, he is going to get it as right as possible. The markets seem happy to wait. And there’s not a squeak from the old army of loudmouth Zuma bleaters.

They know their guy is done. And, generally, the party appears to be calm.

When he does take the Union Buildings, Ramaphosa will work quickly to fix the worst of the wounds Zuma leaves behind. Eskom is the big one but there are holes all over the state’s finances. We are in real trouble. He’ll pick a hopefully tighter and more technically experienced Cabinet, even though what we are watching is, in the end, a political event and politics will dictate some uncomfortable Cabinet choices.

But aside from fixing what is obviously wrong with the economy I suspect Ramaphosa has a bigger political project in mind and that, for all of Malema’s tough talk on TV on Monday, will be to try and bring the EFF in from the “cold” and merge it with the ANC again.

Malema and the EFF leadership have repeatedly said they will have nothing to do with the ANC while Zuma leads it. Well, he doesn’t any more and he soon won’t lead the country either, so almost by definition the relationship between the EFF and the ANC will change. I suspect there’ll be a warming, and Ramaphosa has a lot to offer on land, education and public health. It may not all be to the liking of a more strident EFF, but progress can be made. Until you’re in government, you can’t change anything.

WHEN HE DOES TAKE THE UNION BUILDINGS, RAMAPHOSA WILL WORK QUICKLY TO FIX THE WORST OF THE WOUNDS ZUMA LEAVES BEHIND