Ramaphosa is simply not doing enough to win us over
He makes empty promises and fails to deliver on the real issues, writes Mvusiwekhaya Sicwetsha
Those who now have negative feelings about the country trusted Ramaphosa to be a steady hand at the wheel
President Cyril Ramaphosa has an image problem. This is a huge descent from the high public approval ratings he had before ascending to the presidency of both the ANC and the country.
Many of us had confidence that he would turn things around, as he committed himself to do in his maiden state of the nation address in 2018.
Ramaphosa used a speech reportedly prepared for president Jacob Zuma to tell us how he planned to take the country forward, far away from state capture, ineptitude, malfeasance, crime, violence, poverty, unemployment and Eskom’s failure to provide sustainable electricity.
While his government has made negligible progress in arresting individuals implicated in state capture and attracting investments into the economy, increasing challenges drown that progress.
Over the years his actions disappointed many who hoped for a better president than his predecessor. I am one of those disappointed by his handling of key issues such as crime, societal violence and the stagnant economy. Add to that the increasing cost of living, inflation, rising fuel prices, load-shedding and the July unrest.
Based on Ipsos opinion surveys, Ramaphosa’s approval ratings started with 35% of participants in 2017 feeling he was doing his job fairly well, with 79% approving his handling of the economy. In 2018, 76% approved of his performance.
Another Ipsos poll put his highest approval rating at 63% among participants who believed that “the country was going in the right direction since Cyril Ramaphosa became president”.
While he started with impressive approval ratings, he did not win more of SA’s votes beyond the margins of his predecessor. In the 2014 elections the ANC scored 62.15%, declining to 57.50% in the 2019 elections.
With all the challenges the country faces, very few South Africans would give Ramaphosa the high approval ratings he got from 2017 to 2020. This because of the manner his administration is failing to handle major issues such as crime, the economy, gender-based violence, joblessness and the poor performance of some government institutions.
The results of an opinion survey about the direction the country is taking — which revealed that 71% of participants between the ages of 25 and 29, 85% of those aged 30-39, 60% of 40-49 years olds and 65% of participants in both the 5059 and 60+ age groups strongly believe the country is going in the wrong direction — attest to this.
Those who now have negative feelings about the country trusted Ramaphosa to be a steady hand at the wheel and had confidence that he would lead us to greener pastures.
One of the contributing factors is the poor handling of the July 2021 unrest that went on without efforts by law enforcement agencies to stop the looting — including sending the army very late as shopping malls were burning and shops and warehouses were looted. While government leaders were nowhere to be found, individuals such as Nhlanhla Lux, community members and taxi associations protected shopping malls and their communities from looters.
While Ramaphosa said there was little he could do to help slow the increasing cost of living, his US counterpart Joe Biden used his constitutional and legislative powers to fight inflation through the Inflation Reduction Act.
The statement Ramaphosa made at an ANC rally in Limpopo that women are tired of being raped was inappropriate for a president. It suggested that only women are tired of criminality.
His testimony at the state capture commission portrayed him as a deputy who looked on while looters were capturing the state. How he handled the alleged robbery at his Phala Phala farm added to his image problems because he has not given South Africans a full account of what happened. The robbery should have been reported to the police when it occurred.
There was public rejection of his commitment to the community of Jagersfontein when he announced that the government would build houses for those affected — this because of delays in providing help for the victims of the April floods in KwaZulu-Natal.
Worryingly, ANC MPs jumped to defend Ramaphosa’s failure to answer questions about the Phala Phala robbery the same way they defended Zuma for the upgrade of his Nkandla home. This projects Ramaphosa negatively, as it did Zuma at the time.
When he cut short his trip to the UN, saying he wanted to address load-shedding, very few people had confidence he would stop the blackouts. Since coming back, he has not told South Africans how he is addressing this problem. We remain in the dark.
Our country is experiencing levels of violence never seen before, and also the return of taxi violence, gang violence, drug wars, kidnapping, extortion by gangs that demand money from contractors, and yet our government does not move with speed to put an end to these problems. Between July 2021 and July 2022 our national security council met less than five times — this tells you that matters of national security are not given the priority they deserve.
Ramaphosa’s response to these problems has been poor compared to the well co-ordinated response to the Covid-19 pandemic. For him to turn this tide, he must improve co-ordination of government interventions, resolve challenges facing South Africans, meet his commitments, stop violence and crime, end load-shedding and ensure that government delivers on its commitments faster and more efficiently.