President Cyril Ramaphosa is hard at work in the background, closing a meticulously canvassed rescue plan for Eskom and simultaneously devising cunning strategies to defeat the army of enemies he faces inside his own party.
Either that, or he is sleepwalking into a political tragedy, a disastrous one-term presidency that will be remembered, if at all, for flaky leadership, broken dreams, rising unemployment, further de-industrialisation and social decay.
I’ve been away. Inside just 10 days I return to find Ferial Haffajee, a senior and well-disposed commentator, has written off Ramaphosa as a failure already. The fight-back by what is still referred to as the “Zuma faction” inside the ANC has reached fever pitch as the public protector showers Pravin Gordhan with accusations that put both him and Ramaphosa under enormous pressure, even if they can eventually be beaten off in a court of law.
On the flats outside Cape Town, gang wars have seen more than 60 people murdered in a week. Mothers, fathers and children are terrified. If this were happening in any civilised country there would be dramatic political consequences.
Arcelor Mittal (Iscor) has announced that 2,000 jobs could be cut because there’s no demand for steel. Construction companies are going to the wall because there’s nothing being built. But even if Ramaphosa can’t conjure a new city, he inherited a long list of infrastructure projects from Jacob Zuma. All the planning’s been done.
Something is terribly wrong. Obviously the onslaught against Ramaphosa is immense but he has to start making hard choices. Yes, the inquiries that got rid of Tom Moyane and Nomgcobo Jiba at the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) were signs of a quiet political determination. So is the Zondo commission, but it’s easy to forget it was Zuma who established it.
Ramaphosa’s problem is that while he may well be doing what I described at the start of this column, no-one knows about it. I’ve just read Bloomberg reporting that senior business figures are beginning to lose faith in him. One of them is Martin Kingston, who runs the local office of Rothschilds, the investment bank. If you’re Cyril Ramaphosa and someone as normally reliable as Kingston is expressing frustration about your progress you need to wake up.
At the other end of the scale, Ramaphosa’s union allies are also stirring. They want ... I can’t remember, but National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union boss Zola Saphetha said in June that “we have given him the presidency he has been dreaming about, but he must also make our dreams a reality”. A promise and a threat.
The pressure must seem overwhelming. And with it all he’s one of about 20 people who actually know how close we are to fiscal collapse. Here’s the thing. Ramaphosa reasonably thought he could, through institutional reform, make right what Zuma had ruined and, with that success behind him, be able to finesse difficult ANC mandates to nationalise the Reserve Bank and change the constitution to allow for land expropriation without compensation.
But he had underestimated the Zuma damage. Institutional reform is way too slow. The SA Revenue Service is lively, but the record at the NPA has been stuck on the same worrying theme now for months — things are worse that we thought and there’s not enough money. People around Ramaphosa also complain about him. He doesn’t take advice. He leaves meetings early (echoes of boards he was once on too). There’s no co-ordination — à la Zuma, ministers do what they want.
This is where being a rich businessman stops helping; where politics becomes the weapon of choice. There are no signs of an imminent coup against him, but nonetheless Ramaphosa has to start to fight dirty like he could when he was secretary-general of the ANC. Cast caution to the wind.
And to opponents trying to derail him or allies threatening to abandon him, be careful what you wish for. This guy, for now, whatever you think of him, is the Last Chance Saloon. There’s no-one in our politics to replace him. If he goes, SA falls off the cliff. Simple as that.
But that’s not forever. Plausible leaders will emerge. He must move with vigour to restore confidence. One speech. And get tough. If the NPA and legal system are too slow and too weak to make a single arrest after a decade of looting then create a corruption tribunal and whip all the you-know-whos through it in six months. They go to jail while they appeal.
And later today, Mr President, announce that you have recalled Bruce Koloane, your ambassador to The Hague, after his shameful testimony to the Zondo commission earlier this week. How can he remain for one more second in the public employ under a government you run?
Things are not right, obviously, but I think my friend Ferial is premature in writing him off. I’m not even disappointed in Ramaphosa yet, but I am frightened for my country now in a way I wasn’t even when Zuma was at the height of his powers. That’s because the end was always in sight.
We don’t need a hero, but in Ramaphosa I imagined we would have a solid leader. I haven’t seen the man in 10 years, but the Cyril I last saw was a solid leader. It’s still all we need.
• Bruce is a former editor of Business Day and the Financial Mail
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