An SA president has to be both a president and a prime minister, because the country’s modified parliamentary system merges the roles of head of government and head of state into a single office.
As prime minister Cyril Ramaphosa is the head of the executive branch of government, chosen by and accountable to parliament and required to maintain the “confidence” of the legislature to remain in office. He sits at the apex of a centralised administrative system, controlling cabinet appointments, influencing budget allocations and wielding authority within the governing coalition. He also has to win elections on his party’s ticket.
Simultaneously he is the head of state, a role that in most parliamentary systems is held by a separate, often ceremonial, figure such as a monarch or a figurehead president. As head of state he has to rise above daily partisan politics to represent and speak for the entire nation.
These two roles sit uneasily together. The partisan and inherently divisive nature of a prime minister’s job repeatedly conflicts with the inclusive, unifying responsibilities of a president. A successful leader must navigate these tensions, but no postapartheid president has fully succeeded in this task.
Nelson Mandela was a president but not a prime minister, excelling at the symbolic, unifying presidential role but showing little interest in the administrative machinery of state, delegating those prime ministerial duties to his deputy, Thabo Mbeki.
Mbeki was the opposite: a prime minister but not a president. He expertly managed the state apparatus and policy process, but his political style was divisive and factional, and he failed to provide the unifying presidential leadership the country needed.
Jacob Zuma used his prime ministerial power to appoint cabinet members as a tool for patronage, disrupting the state for personal and factional goals. His presidential leadership was limited, appealing mainly to his provincial base and traditional leaders rather than the whole nation.
Ramaphosa has done his best to combine these roles with some dignity, rebuilding state institutions undermined by his predecessors and keeping his party together while also looking to provide unifying and symbolic leadership during crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, the tensions in SA’s political system become extreme when overlaid by a second challenge: a president has to lead overseas but also address crises at home. As Ramaphosa addressed the 80th UN General Assembly this week he cut a strikingly presidential figure, laying out his priorities for SA’s foreign policy: global justice, peace, trade, and UN reform.
He strongly condemned what he described as violations of international law in Gaza, Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan, voiced concern over genocide findings, called for an end to a vindictive embargo on Cuba, and reiterated support for rights to self-determination.
He reminded listeners that climate change is an existential threat, highlighting how Africa, despite contributing little to the causes of climate change, suffers disproportionately from its effects. He sounded the alarm over cutbacks in international development assistance; collapsing health programmes; and weakened maternal, child and adolescent health indicators; and proclaimed that the world must “fight poverty, not wars”.
The strain between foreign commitments and domestic politics troubles leaders in almost all countries. Look at UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who can claim some remarkable achievements abroad — re-establishing relations with European partners and keeping the Trump administration onside — while confidence in his leadership has collapsed at home and his party is already scrabbling round to identify a new leader.
As president Ramaphosa was eloquent in New York. Back at home though, there was no prime minister to talk to the nation about a stagnant economy, municipalities that can no longer provide water and a police service leadership in whom the public has lost almost all residual trust.
• Butler teaches public policy at the University of Cape Town.
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