Cyril plays nice while Julius seizes moment to change game

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s claim that he has appointed a “transitional cabinet” is a rather strange explanation for his inclusion of questionable people in the executive.

Is this a trial run or a holding pattern? Perhaps it is a social experiment to see if some of the degenerates in the executive will miraculously reinvent themselves and make their not-so-smallanyana skeletons disappear in the glow of the “new dawn”.

Maybe the president thinks that because he has pacified the main ANC factions, he will be allowed to appoint the people he really wants after next year’s elections.

But because Ramaphosa allowed David Mabuza and Gwede Mantashe et al to dictate and veto his choices, he has opened the door to a communal presidency.

This might be difficult to undo. If Mantashe and Jessie Duarte resent Mcebisi Jonas for standing up on his own to expose state capture, thus becoming the darling of civil society, that will not change in a year’s time.

Ramaphosa might find himself in the position Jacob Zuma was in last March: in a showdown with ANC officials about who to fire and who to appoint to the cabinet.

In any event, who is to say that the post-election cabinet will be the ANC’s decision alone?

Even with a beefed-up election team at Luthuli House and the purging of some state capture enablers and beneficiaries from the government, there is no guarantee that the ANC will keep its majority next year.

The ANC suffered extensive reputational damage during the Zuma years and there might not be enough time for a demonstrable turnaround in the way the government operates — particularly with so many of the former president’s lieutenants embedded in the system.

So while Ramaphosa has to contend with competing ANC factions and interests now, the playing field might be completely different next year in the event of coalition governments at national and provincial level.

At the moment, the ANC is not even able to determine the new political game, let alone the rules by which it is being played.

As usual, that role has been usurped by EFF leader Julius Malema.

While the ANC has been steadying itself after Zuma’s ejection, the EFF has adroitly shifted the national conversation to the land question.

It exploited the ANC’s national conference resolution on land to push the governing party to commit in parliament to amending the constitution to allow for expropriation without compensation.

It was not only the ANC that was illprepared to deal with the issue now.

The DA’s resistance to an amendment to the property clause in the constitution created a new arena of political conflict.

Malema says that, because of the DA’s opposition to land expropriation without compensation, the EFF will stop co-operating with it and will table a motion of no confidence in Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Athol Trollip next month.

The DA did not foresee that the parliamentary debate on land would have consequences for its municipal governments.

Its response was to report Malema to the Equality Court for hate speech and incitement to violence.

The DA’s Refiloe Nt’sekhe says Malema’s statement “We are going to remove a mayor of PE . . . we are going for your white man in PE. We are going to cut the throat” is vile and bigoted.

“The DA will not be held ransom by the EFF’s attempts to get back into bed with the ANC,” said Nt’sekhe.

The EFF’s Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said Malema had used

“a figure of speech” to communicate its intention to “punish the DA for their attitude on the land question. We use that metaphor [cut the throat] to indicate that we are ending support for the DA due to its own racism. Because we have chosen to do this with Athol Trollip, the DA is escalating the fight so that all other mayors in Johannesburg and Tshwane can be removed. The point is, if they lose Trollip, they should also lose others, because other mayors are not white.”

In one fell swoop, the EFF created a new bogeyman on land, made the ANC run ahead of itself and placed the DA on the defensive.

It is also deliberately exploiting the DA’s internal racial dynamics.

By going to the Equality Court, the DA has provided Malema with another campaign platform, which he will probably use to fire up the land issue and racial undercurrents in the country.

Where are Ramaphosa and the ANC in all this?

They are being told to put up a

“credible” mayoral candidate in Nelson Mandela Bay who would have to be approved by Malema. Their choice is to do what Malema says or remain in the opposition in the metro.

They do not know if Malema intends to return to the ANC fold or whether they will need him as a coalition partner next year.

Ramaphosa’s “new dawn” will have long faded when the 2019 campaign begins.

Unable to determine how the campaign unfolds or the election results, Ramaphosa might rue the day he surrendered full control when it was his for the taking.