The short answer is: "Everything and nothing."
How else do you explain the fact that he enjoys the support of the trade unions - Cosatu has officially endorsed him to take over from President Jacob Zuma - and business.
It goes without saying that the gulf between the unions and business in South Africa is wide. Ramaphosa comes from the trade union movement and has worked in big business, so he knows this better than most.
The reason that Ramaphosa appeals to both sides is that he offers the possibility of a new social compact, which will shift business and labour from the perpetual conflict of the present to a future of consensus.
Ramaphosa frequently mentions this need for a "new social compact" and he has already begun to shape its outlines. Late last year he forged and then announced 'consensus' between business and labour on a new minimum wage of R3500 a month (with exceptions). It was a sign of the fraught times that this announcement was immediately widely contested, but it was nonetheless notable that it had been made at all.
So we know that Ramaphosa backs the minimum wage, but only if it is the product of a consensual negotiation process.
Ramaphosa's announcement of the minimum wage was prefaced by a lengthy explanation, the essence of which was that the decision had been made through a long and tortuous committee process and was subject to review. It's worth quoting what he said at some length:
The other matter with which we had to deal is the matter of the National Minimum Wage. The National Minimum Wage is a matter that has occupied the Committee of Principals through its Technical Committee for the entire time that we have been busy. We have had to have a number of research documents which would assist us to get to the magical figure of what the National Minimum Wage would be.
In helping to get us to this point, the Committee of Principals decided that we should appoint an advisory panel that consists of people with a measure of expertise in these matters. We appointed Professor Valodia, Iabongwe Twaya, Mamokete Jane, Dr Devi Kallia, Dr …, Dr Marie Leybrandt. We were also fortunate to have Dr Patrick … from the International Labour Organisation. Now this panel of advisors has been at work and they have now produced a report. They have today handed over a report to the Committee of Principals.
We have received their report.
In their report they make a number of recommendations to which they are going to speak. Now this is a report from this panel of advisors. We as the Committee of Principals have agreed that we need to give an opportunity to all social partners in NEDLAC to go and engage with the report, discuss with their constituent members and having discussed it, the constituent members will then take a decision on whether the recommendations are accepted, rejected or whether a portion of these are accepted and a portion rejected. This is still an open process but the good thing is that recommendations have been put on the table by a panel of advisors which we have appointed.
Soul-crushing bureaucracy is the Ramaphosa way.
He is outspoken on issues on which there already exists broad social consensus - corruption is bad, human rights are good, the constitution is great - but is silent when it comes to the specifics. When politics is on the table, he defers to processes, committees and researchers.
So he won't speak out except in the most general - and subsequently deniable - terms on President Jacob Zuma's many assaults on the constitution or on the controversy over Omar Al-Bashir’s escape from prosecution.
Asked about Al-Bashir in parliament, Ramaphosa said he could not speak on the matter as it was before the courts. Was he dodging the question? Not according to his spokesman, Ronnie Mamoepa, who said: "Suggestions in some media that the Deputy President had ‘evaded’ or ‘dodged’ answering questions on President Al Bashir are baseless, malicious, misleading.”
Ramposa does not lead from the front. He is in the background, operating a mill of bureaucratic processes that tenderise the political process until it is sufficiently soft to produce a consensual if somewhat unremarkable result.
It is hard to know whether or not this leadership style would be good or bad for the country were Ramaphosa to ascend to the presidency.
On the one hand, the nation is sorely in need of healing and a “new social compact”, should it emerge from the tenderizer, that could go some way towards reducing social conflict and rebuilding a South African identity.
On the other, the country is sorely in need of strong, direct leadership that is unafraid to make difficult choices if it is to shed the indecisive malaise which has held sway during the Zuma years.
Ramaphosa would be a vast improvement over Zuma if he built a new consensus. But he will only achieve greatness if he moves the country forward by charting a clear and direct course. It would be nice if he let us know what he is really thinking.
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