Has the time come for Ramaphosa to step down?
Phala Phala scandal has weakened his anti-corruption ticket
President Cyril Ramaphosa came to the helm of South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC) in 2017 on an anti-corruption, or anti-state capture platform. The ANC’S 54th elective conference gave him the mandate of renewing the party, and simultaneously reversing the state capture phenomenon that had characterised much of the country 10 years under his predecessor Jacob Zuma.
But, now, he himself has been caught up in controversy over the theft of thousands of US dollars allegedly kept in contravention of foreign exchange rules at his Phala Phala farm in Limpopo in 2020. He also allegedly failed to properly report the theft to the police.
This sparked an attempt to have him impeached for allegedly violating the country’s constitution. But the ANC’S overwhelming majority in parliament defeated the impeachment motion. This has led to many asking whether the country would be better off with or without Ramaphosa. This is not an easy question. But it is one that has been on the minds of many.
Given that South Africa runs a party-political system at a national level, Ramaphosa emerged through the organisational culture of the ANC. The party, specifically its successive leadership after the 2007 Polokwane conference, has presided over the weakening of state institutions and a general collapse of state capacity.
These have eroded social cohesion in South African society as seen by accelerated levels of inequality, xenophobia and ethnic chauvinism. To ask, therefore, whether South Africa would be better off with or without Ramaphosa is to also ask whether the country would be better off without the ANC. For a period, the ANC represented the aspirations of many black people in reversing the political and economic design of colonialism and apartheid. But it has become too inward-looking, at the expense of the development aspirations of the nation it claims to lead.
Interestingly, Ramaphosa straddles these transitions of the ANC. At the beginning of the democratic dispensation in 1994, as a trade unionist, he was an important architect of the country’s constitutional framework.
But, now as president of both the party and the republic, he’s embroiled in a scandal over his private business interests.
It’s an untenable position to be in given the anti-corruption ticket that catapulted him to the helm of the party. Given the organisational culture that comes with the ANC, and its impact on both government and on South African society, the country would indeed be better off without Ramaphosa.
Given the Phala Phala matter weakens his anti-corruption campaign, the party can either save the president, as it did, or hang him out to dry, thus beginning a series of events that weakens the electoral fortunes of the party altogether.
The decision to save him is, of course, premised on the idea that the South African “nation” is inseparable from the ANC. And that, equally, the ANC is inseparable from the state. These assumptions increasingly don’t hold true in the country. Voters, especially in urban South Africa, are diversifying their votes.
It has become increasingly clear that the country needs to start thinking of life without the ANC in charge. And that coalitions, albeit unstable in the immediate run, might be desirable to avoid the cliff edge that South Africa stands on.
The ANC will continue to be a strong political force in the foreseeable future, even though it has weakened in successive elections at local, provincial and national level. There are now real prospects that the party will poll just above 50% needed to form a national government in 2024. This puts the prospect of a national coalition government within view.
The ANC should now show leadership by providing the necessary architecture – including new laws and regulations – to manage coalitions so that they can serve the country well.
This possibility is not without its weakness: legislative access or easier entry for independent candidates to contest elections is a zero-sum game for the ANC. But the development of South Africa requires, not the renewal of the ANC, but the enablement of coalitions. This is not about bringing contestation for its own sake, but to find a party-political culture that aligns with the country’s constitutional framework.
It is clear the country needs to start thinking of life without the ANC