Time for Ramaphosa to discard Ace Magashule from his pack
IN a moment of his usual infectious optimism a week ago, my colleague, Justice Malala, in a tweet, remarked on Cyril Ramaphosa’s swift and decisive victory over the long nightmare that has been the dominance of Jacob Zuma.
Malala pointed out that it had taken Zuma a good nine months to eject Thabo Mbeki from the Union Buildings in 2008, even though he had an unassailable 60% majority in the ANC national executive committee (NEC).
“With just 53% support in #ANCNEC, Ramaphosa is turfing #Zuma out in less than six weeks in office as ANC president,” Malala said – quite accurately, if prematurely.
“Within that context, Ramaphosa is a super achiever.”
Yours truly, less optimistic and more impatient, perhaps unwisely fired back: “Are we clutching at straws for something positive?” This Malala wisely ignored. My point was that, at that point, all we had to go on was that Ramaphosa had simply succeeded in preventing Zuma from opening parliament and delivering his last state of the nation address.
Of course, events quickly proved Malala’s optimism to be correct . . . almost.
We are now at a point where the political force of Zuma is all but spent.
Which brings us to the next level in Ramaphosa’s cleanup.
Free State premier and ANC secretarygeneral Ace Magashule should be next out the door if the spring cleaning is to achieve its desired objective: renewing and reviving the fortunes of the party of Oliver Tambo and Albert Luthuli.
Magashule is a carbon copy of Zuma, representing everything that is wrong with the ANC: naked greed and unmitigated arrogance.
The many accusations of corruption and nepotism levelled against him, and his apparent dictatorship in the Free State, are exactly the characteristics Ramaphosa is desperate to shake off.
Magashule’s Gupta connections do not help matters, either.
That he holds such a strategic position in the party makes him even more dangerous to Ramaphosa’s renewal operation.
It is, in fact, a miracle that the ANC was at a point where it could formally pass a resolution to recall the state president, what with the pro-Zuma Magashule manning the engine room (he is clearly ensuring his own political survival).
For Ramaphosa to get rid of Magashule as soon as possible – and to do so without jeopardising his thin hold on the party – he needs to appoint a truly independent and professional director of public prosecutions.
That super-prosecutor only needs to take the next logical step in the Vrede dairy matter, where a recent day-long raid on Magashule’s Free State offices may well have yielded the valuable prima facie evidence to make an arrest or two.
This may include arriving at the party’s Luthuli House headquarters early one morning to nab the secretary-general.
Should this come to pass, the ANC’s integrity committee will suspend Magashule, pending a corruption trial.
That would save Ramaphosa and his NEC colleagues from more marathon meetings, such as the 13-hour one that culminated in the “recall” of Zuma.
Not that Ramaphosa is averse to extraordinarily long meetings.
In fact, he must be in his element.
After all, he was the ANC’s point man at the Codesa talks all those years ago, when delegates had to be administered vitamins during a particularly long meeting in 1992 that stretched over 20 hours.
Magashule is the weakest link in the ANC at present.
To complete the cleanup at its uppermost levels, the party will have to deal with deputy president David Mabuza too.
But right now it’s the Ace that needs to go – and soon.
That Magashule holds such a strategic position makes him dangerous to Ramaphosa’s renewal operation. – Financial Mail