Everyone wants to know what South Africa’s new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, is all about. What does he stand for? What are his politics? How does he operate?
The first two questions are easily answered.
To understand what Ramaphosa stands for, look no further than the constitution, which bears his imprint. As the ANC’s chief negotiator, he played a larger role than anyone else in its formulation.
It is a document with a strong bill of rights protecting individual freedom. But it is also a social charter, setting all future governments on a course to address social injustice and to prevent the birth of new injustices.
It creates a modern democratic state with a high degree of accountability.
But it also directs the state to be compassionate and to place the marginalised, the poor and the discriminated against at the centre of its programmes.
These are Ramaphosa’s foundation values. Nelson Mandela is his lodestar. In his state of the nation address, Ramaphosa spoke of “a new dawn that is inspired by our collective memory of Nelson Mandela”.
Ramaphosa’s politics are also easy to discern. He is a pragmatic social democrat who enjoys the support of the ANC’s left and the respect of those parts of business which embrace democratic South Africa. The trade union federation, Cosatu, was the first institution to publicly back his campaign for the presidency.
He is not one to approach problems from an ideological perspective. He has spent time at the highest levels of both the trade union movement and business and is uniquely placed to view problems of growth and investment through both these prisms.
It is the third question – ‘How does he operate?’ – which is the most difficult and, therefore, the most intruiging.
There is an easy answer, which has been given many times – that Ramaphosa is a negotiator.
The state of the nation address was essentially a commitment to lead South Africa out of its mess by negotiation.
— There is no doubt that Ramaphosa is comfortable when he is sitting at a table to debate and discuss solutions. It is his terrain, one where he wins
A Jobs Summit “to align the efforts of every sector and every stakeholder behind the imperative of job creation”; An Investment Conference “to market the compelling investment opportunities to be found in our country.”; A promise to “engage stakeholders” over the mining charter; a Digital Industrial Revolution Commission “which will include the private sector and civil society”; A Presidential Economic Advisory Council which would draw “on the expertise and capabilities that reside in labour, business, civil society and academia”; and the implementation of a minimum wage which he negotiated at Nedlac while deputy president “made possible by the determination of all social partners”.
There is no doubt that Ramaphosa is comfortable when he is sitting at a table to debate and discuss solutions. It is his terrain, one where he wins. Negotiating the transition from apartheid to democracy was no walk in the park, whatever the twitterrati might say.
But this is not the whole answer.
Like magicians, politicians never give a full account of their tricks, but a lot can be told from observing at a distance.
Ramaphosa’s real talent lies in playing the long game.
When he left politics in 1996, his ambition to succeed Mandela thwarted by the ANC’s exile lobby, he became a businessman, but he always had a return to politics in mind. Patience is a key pillar of the long game.
Sixteen years later, in 2012, as Zuma foundered and the ANC began to lose its grip on public support, the opportunity opened up and he returned to take up the position of deputy president.
From then on, the long game had one simple objective: Amassing a majority of the votes of the 5 000-odd delegates at the ANC’s 2017 conference.
The rules of the long game dictate that the goal – however distant, however apparently unattainable, however wrapped in the mists of future politics – is the only thing that matters.
Actions fall into two categories: Those that help you attain your goal and those that hinder it.
The game is made more complicated by the ANC’s internal culture, which dictates that criticism should be kept behind closed doors and unity shown to the public.
And so the long game dictated that Ramaphosa had to grin and bear it at Zuma’s side as scandals erupted, sometimes appearing complicit and sometimes inexplicably silent.
The long game dictated that your opponent must be kept comfortably numb, oblivious to your encroachment until it is too late. When you strike, victory must be certain.
And so Ramaphosa stayed loyal to Zuma in public, all the while drawing into his camp the disaffected – premiers fired without good reason, provinces losing voter support because of corruption, veterans afraid their legacy was being destroyed, cabinet ministers relieved of their duties because they clashed over state capture.
When the moment was right – in mid-2017 - he had sufficient traction within the party and he struck, calling for those behind state capture to be tried and jailed and for the money they had taken to be paid back.
But even then, although the inference was clear, he did not directly attack Zuma. Ramaphosa was fighting a master of the political arts, a man who had outwitted Thabo Mbeki and mounted the greatest comeback in modern politics.
The best way to understand how Ramaphosa outplayed Zuma is by analogy and so, a brief digression.
The World War 2 film Thunderbolt is a rousing work of propaganda which generously credits the American P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bomber for the allied victory over northern Italy.
Like all war 'documentaries', this one has to be taken with a pinch of salt. The reality was no doubt not nearly as simple. But the story nonetheless contains a metaphor for the politics of the long game.
— When the time was right, the allies advanced through the mountains, crushing a much reduced enemy warn out, hungry and without fuel
The film recounts how allied forces occupied Sicily and then stormed up the peninsula before being stopped in their tracks by stubborn resistance in the mountains across central Italy. It was a deadly stalemate with a high body count.
A new strategy was developed.
The Thunderbolts were launched from Corsica with the purpose of systematically destroying the German lines of supply across northern Italy. They bombed and strafed road and rail infrastructure, erasing bridges and destroying trains on the tracks. All of this, quite remarkably for the time, was captured on film by mounted cameras.
The result was a dramatic reduction in fuel, food and ammunition supplies to the Germans entrenched in the mountains.
When the time was right, the allies advanced through the mountains, crushing a much reduced enemy worn out, hungry and without fuel.
The role of the Thunderbolt in the defeat of Italy is probably exaggerated, but here's the important point it makes:
There is little to be gained but attrition when you directly confront a powerful enemy in terrain which favours them. The right approach is to isolate them, strangle them, take away their resources and then, when the playing field is tilted decisively in your favour, turn up the pressure until they capitulate.
This digression into the Italian campaign is the best way I can think of describing how Ramaphosa unseated Zuma once he had defeated his candidate of choice, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, at the ANC’s December 2017 conference.
Ramaphosa had won, but by a narrow majority. The long game now had a new objective: the removal of Zuma and the grand prize of the presidency of the country.
Instead of a direct war of attrition with a high body count, Ramaphosa mobilised his Thunderbolts to cut off Zuma’s lines of supply.
The most dramatic gesture was the replacement of the Eskom board with credible, competent and respected leaders with Jabu Mabuza as chairman. Sitting at the centre of Zuma’s spider’s web of state capture was the giant state-owned enterprise. It had been converted into a funnel through which state bail-out money flowed to the Guptas and captured board members through multibillion-rand coal contracts, inflated salaries and golden handshakes.
By snatching Eskom rudely out of Zuma’s hands, Ramaphosa sent a clear message that the old order was dying, its lines of supply cut off. Zuma no longer had patronage to dispense. To the middle ground in the ANC leadership, the message was clear: It was time to shuffle sheepishly in the direction of the Ramaphosa camp.
There were more Thunderbolts. Ramaphosa made it plain that he expected the prosecution service and the Hawks to act decisively against corruption.
— By not confronting Zuma, Ramaphosa removed his final weapon: his ability to play victim, to call on his supporters to fight for his dignity
Shaun ‘The Sheep’ Abrahams, who had protected Zuma’s empire by omitting to act, now zipped on wolf’s clothing. Case files were dusted off. Dairy farms, Eskom HQ and – 10 years too late – the Gupta compound was raided by policemen in bullet-proof vests.
The momentum having shifted decisively, it was finally time to act.
Even then, Ramaphosa declined to confront. His impatient supporters were surprised when he unilaterally postponed a national executive committee meeting to oust Zuma in favour of one more round of talks.
By not confronting Zuma, Ramaphosa removed his final weapon: his ability to play victim, to call on his supporters to fight for his dignity.
When the NEC eventually met, not one member spoke up for Zuma staying in office. In the ultimate symbol of capitulation, one of his loyal supporters, the water and sanitation minister, Nomvula Mokonyana, is said to have declined to speak at all, claiming to have the flu.
Zuma was out and, within days, Ramaphosa was delivering the state of the nation address to a standing ovation from the house. After that, there was one final move in the long game: A farewell dinner for a defeated and bewildered enemy filled with the laughter of the victor.
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