The ANC’s national general council (NGC), which is to be held in June, lurched abruptly closer last Thursday when Deputy President David Mabuza quietly lit the fire that is now engulfing public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan.
It will soon also engulf President Cyril Ramaphosa, and looks like it will mark the beginning of the end of his presidency of the ANC after only one unimpressive term.
Mabuza’s comments that Eskom and Gordhan had misled Ramaphosa about Eskom’s capacity to avoid load-shedding over the holiday period were not a mistake or a misunderstanding. Mabuza was at Megawatt Park, sitting alongside Gordhan and Ramaphosa, the day the Eskom board and management outlined the plan they believed would avert the need for more load-shedding.
In sharing the plan, then Eskom chair Jabu Mabuza has said he also highlighted the risks. Eskom’s plant is old and has been neglected. Breakdowns are unpredictable and can happen at any time. In his resignation letter, Mabuza put it on record that this proviso had been added.
Unfortunately for Ramaphosa, he has little to show for his two years in government. Eskom’s capacity has continued to deteriorate, attempts to turn SAA around have failed and it is now in business rescue, the economy has weakened further and unemployment has risen
What the deputy president intended with his remarks on Thursday was not to make Ramaphosa look less bad for his foolish undertaking but to drop in Gordhan’s name, thereby declaring open season on him in the ANC. In doing so, he kicked off the process of mobilisation against Gordhan ahead of the NGC; a process that also carries a much bigger aim, which is to start the end of the Ramaphosa presidency.
Competing factions
The NGC is a meeting held midway between ANC national conferences to evaluate the party’s progress in implementing its policy resolutions, particularly in government, and is not an elective meeting. Like the national conference, it is made up of branch delegates on a proportional basis. It is therefore also used as a show of strength of competing factions and a mobilising opportunity to strike alliances across provinces.
In 2005 the NGC was the set-piece that kicked off the process to remove former president Thabo Mbeki, first as president of the ANC in 2007 and then as president of the country less than a year later. The same dynamic is in play now. ANC leaders, notably ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile (Mabuza’s closest ally), are already talking about how the ANC will need to put state-owned enterprises under the spotlight and evaluate the success in turning these around. Mashatile has also said Eskom should be moved to the department of energy.
Unfortunately for Ramaphosa, he has little to show for his two years in government. Eskom’s capacity has continued to deteriorate, attempts to turn SAA around have failed and it is now in business rescue, the economy has weakened further and unemployment has risen. For all his talk about social compacting and taking everyone along together, Ramaphosa has succeeded in further fracturing the support he had to begin with.
Frustration with Ramaphosa from the business sector has been palpable for some time. Having campaigned for him to become president and donated generously, business has been deeply disappointed by his lack of decisiveness and leadership. His reluctance to take hard decisions — rebalancing state expenditure, appointing competent people to his cabinet and administration, restructuring Eskom and the electricity market — has meant the wave of “Ramaphoria” that accompanied his election has all but disappeared.
While not as visible, a similar dynamic is taking shape in the ANC. Frustration with Ramaphosa has been building as the country’s fortunes continue to decline. As the NGC comes into focus, ANC power brokers are mobilising, with the Gordhan issue a key one in the discussion.
In this context, where Ramaphosa has nothing to show for his presidency, the attractiveness of populist ideas will grow. The ANC rank and file have always regarded him with some suspicion; it is relatively easy in such a low trust environment to swing sentiment away from him. In senior ranks of the ANC, leaders have a keen eye on their careers. There are few right now who will publicly rally to his defence.
In the bid to weaken Ramaphosa, Gordhan is the weakest link. He was already under relentless attack from an alliance that included the EFF, the state capture cronies, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA and black professionals in the energy sector, many with links to the nuclear lobby, which opposes independent power producers. Now the same ideas and arguments are beginning to gain traction in other trade unions and in the ANC.
Through their carefully chosen words, Mabuza and Mashatile have implicitly joined hands with them, bringing to bear the full brutality of ANC palace politics. It is shaping up to be a mob lynching.
• Paton is writer at large.
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