Put the economy first or face the consequences

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s critics would have been disappointed with his public appearance and brief TV interview at the Gallagher Estate Covid-19 vaccination site in Midrand on Thursday. He was calm, jovial and relaxed and took an extremely long question about everything from intelligence failures to his cabinet reshuffle with the broad smile of a guy who knows he knows more than the questioner does. Needless to say, he didn’t give a straight answer to anything. Why should he? The vaccine rollout behind him was finally on fire.

Saying nothing is also his right. Information is power and all politicians at least need to seem to know what’s going on, even if they don’t. Ramaphosa often does not know what’s happening but seldom gets found out. He was though, last Tuesday when he tweeted that “We have returned our ports, freight rail network and road transport system to full operational capacity. Our security forces are still out in full force.”

That wasn’t true. The nation’s port computer systems had fallen over by then and Transnet had declared force majeure for the second time in a month, backdated to June 22, leaving importers and exporters stranded and desperate. It was a cyber attack, Transnet claimed, but could still not describe it in any detail three days later.

For Ramaphosa though, it’s not about being right. It’s about not being seen to fail. Insults make no impression. Spineless, clueless, squirrel, frog boiler or whatever don’t move the needle.

What would move it is real pressure. Here he is vulnerable on two fronts. The first is financial. A further slide in investment would hurt him and with the rioting and looting still playing on screens around the world and the army still on the streets, we are clearly not the safest of bets.

The second is obviously political. He desperately needs your vote. But the DA, which normally produces accurate polling, has the ANC below 50% now at most levels of government.

If now is not the time for the economy to take centre stage in our politics, it’s hard to imagine when it ever will

The ANC’s need to delay the October 27 local government elections is palpable and with the ruling party split so evident now in the violent and destructive past few weeks, there’s no way Ramaphosa would win a clear national mandate were an election held tomorrow.

But the pandemic and the violence also do Ramaphosa some favours. Both smudge the flaws in many of the pipedream economic policies he thought he could use the pandemic to catapult into place. The ports were a disaster long before the cyber attack and they will not come right while they’re run by the state and the unions.

Shipping is a low-margin business and inefficient ports live on borrowed time. Many of the world’s biggest are now privately operated. Dubai Ports World owns the Rotterdam port in Holland, among many others. Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison owns Felixstowe, the biggest port in Britain.

Still, Ramaphosa will be able to use the pandemic and the violence as an excuse for poor economic policy not creating jobs, and that’s a problem opposition parties are going to have to solve. Rising unemployment and misery tell us the president’s economic revival strategy is already failing. If now is not the time for the economy to take centre stage in our politics, it’s hard to imagine when it ever will.

Ahead of any election, parties are also going to need to reassure a jumpy electorate about the coalition politics that now surely lie ahead of us. Does the DA break with tradition and agree that coalitions with the ANC are possible? Or that arrangements with the EFF are not? Do we assume the ANC would automatically lean towards the EFF wherever it finds itself the biggest party but below 50%?

It’s one thing, though, to identify Ramaphosa’s pressure points and another to get to them. Anglo American chief executive Mark Cutifani this week gave him a ringing endorsement as the group, like most resource companies with operations in SA, reported huge half-year profits.

When the traditional masters of our traditional export earners are still patting Ramaphosa on the back, what with our unemployment well over 30%, the opposition has a problem. They can’t depend on Ramaphosa being as electorally vulnerable come election time in 2024 as he is now. They need to design new policies and strategies to bring an economic debate to centre stage. Without it they’re just calling our Cyril names again and he couldn’t care less.

The key to moving the ANC or Ramaphosa anywhere is unrelenting pressure. Where it matters. And pressure is better ideas.