President’s opponents have used the crisis to undermine him
CIRCUMSTANCES suggests that the POST editorial of May 27 – 31 asserting that President Cyril Ramaphosa is “on his way to securing re-election” may find itself upended by the veracity of the expression that presumption is the mother of all unintended consequences.
As the editorial noted, the margin of Ramaphosa’s victory vote within the ANC to achieve the presidency was a mere 179 out of 5 059 votes cast.
As a result, he has had to accommodate his opponents within the Cabinet and elsewhere.
However, the Covid-19 crisis should have given him the opportunity to strengthen his tenuous position. Instead, the opposite has happened.
His opponents are being allowed to exploit the notion that a crisis should never be left to go to waste.
Ramaphosa appears presidential in addressing the nation on television but he does not hold press conferences where, like Donald Trump, he could put his stamp of authority on questions and concerns
Instead, he has abdicated that role to his chief opponent, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma.
Worse still, he appears to take instructions from the secretive group called the National Coronavirus Command Council, which have devised a plethora of absurd regulations governing the lockdown.
Within the Cabinet, he allowed Tito Mboweni, his Finance Minister, to be browbeaten by his opponents who insist on banning the sale of cigarettes.
As a businessman appreciative of the tax revenue cigarette sales generate, Ramaphosa should have stood firm and supported Mboweni.
Although she qualified in medicine and holds the portfolio of local government, Dlamini Zuma holds forth on economics, unemployment and tourism with total disregard for what the official spokespeople on those subjects may want to say (Business Report, May 27).
The fact that she does this indicates the loose control Ramaphosa has over his Cabinet.
As a result, there is confusion in communication and a dearth of solid presidential leadership. Moreover, these circumstances are being ideologically exploited by the likes of Dlamini Zuma and Ebrahim Patel, Minister of Trade and Industry, to micromanage our lives with ludicrous terms and conditions regarding the conduct of commerce.
Having allowed things to drift in favour of his opponents, Ramaphosa has further weakened his position and played into the hands of the hardcore communist cabal within the ANC who aspire to accelerate the realisation of their totalitarian national democratic revolution.
Thus considered, Ramaphosa’s tenure as the president looks most uncertain.
DR DUNCAN DU BOIS Freedom Front Plus
Central KZN