When those in high positions lack leadership skills

LOUIS XVI, the last king of France, seems to have been a nice guy.

From the time he was little, he had a passion for locks and how they worked. He would spend hours, hidden away from everyone, tinkering away.

One day, his skill for picking locks made him something of a hero when a fire broke out in a locked room at his home, the Versailles Palace.

The young prince was able to pick the lock and put the fire out before it spread to the rest of the palace.

Had the boy been able to continue with his passion, history would probably have remembered him as the child who had saved an iconic piece of French art.

But fate had other plans.

Louis-Auguste, as his parents named him, was third in line to the throne. But, by the age of 10, he had lost his father and elder brother and was next in line to be king.

Before he turned 20, his grandfather died and he was crowned king. He inherited a country deeply divided and in debt.

Despite his best efforts, he lacked the skills of a leader. First, he lost the trust and confidence of the nobility. Then, when a particularly poor harvest led to ordinary folk starving, they too turned on him.

The French revolted, abolished the monarchy and established a republic. One of the first things they voted on was the execution of Louis XVI. And so ended the life of the last king of France.

Fast forward to modern-day South Africa where a tragedy in the mould of King Louis XVI is playing itself out.

Like the French leader, President Cyril Ramaphosa also seems like a nice guy. His great passion is Ankole cattle.

It started almost 20 years ago, when he saw the cattle in Uganda and fell in love with them.

Back then, Thabo Mbeki was the president and firmly in control. His deputy was Jacob Zuma, a man who had his eye on the Union Buildings.

Ramaphosa was not even in the running. And so, he started breeding Ankole cattle. He was pretty good at it and subsequently became one of the biggest Ankole farmers in the country.

Had he been able to continue with his passion, history would probably have remembered him as the man who negotiated South Africa’s peaceful transition to democracy. But fate had other plans.

Zuma created a mess and the ANC plucked Ramaphosa from relative political obscurity to clean it up. But by then, the ANC and the country were deeply divided and the government was borrowing more and more money to pay the bills.

Initially, Ramaphosa was popular. But it soon became apparent that, like Louis XVI, he lacked the skills of a good leader.

Ramaphosa limped from one blunder to another. This week was his latest when he failed to seize the initiative and appoint a Cabinet that could get South Africa working again.

Instead, he opted for “stability and continuity”. In other words, nothing is going to get any better.

Sadly, Ramaphosa’s dithering has created the conditions that resulted in the French Revolution.

Thankfully, for him, South Africa abolished the death penalty some years ago.

But the party he leads is in deep trouble. Come the national elections in 2024, Ramaphosa may well be remembered as the last ANC president to rule the Republic.