Prof. Sipho Seepe

IN Economic Freedom Fighters and Others v Speaker of the National Assembly and Another [2017] ZACC 47 (29/12/2017), the Constitutional Court argued that the President, “as the first citizen of this country, occupies a position indispensable for the effective governance of our democratic country… Whoever and whatever poses a threat to our sovereignty, peace, and prosperity, he must fight.”

The oath of office demands as much. As President, Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to advance the interests of the Republic and oppose all that may harm it.

Ramaphosa’s second term presidency will be judged primarily by how effectively he navigates the geopolitical terrain being defined by the US administration under the incumbent, Donald Trump, on the one hand, and how he manages the evolving internal politics of both the ANC and the GNU, on the other.

Ramaphosa’s first brush with Trump was in 2018. Trump had raised concerns about South Africa’s handling of the land question.

Ramaphosa hit back. Addressing a cheering crowd in a village in Limpopo, an overconfident President Cyril Ramaphosa blurted.

“Donald Trump must leave us alone…. When we were facing apartheid, when we were facing oppression, he was not here. He did not fight side by side with us...… As far as I recall Donald Trump was not around the negotiating table where we negotiated the end of our apartheid. So, stick around there in the White House we will do our business here and find solutions [to] our problems. So, stay out of our issues, and we will not get involved in your issues in America.”

As fate would have it, the same issue replayed itself earlier this year when Trump reassumed the presidency of the US. As was the case before, Ramaphosa appeared to stand his ground.

Addressing the 7th parliament, he assured the country that South Africa would not be bullied. The sycophantic mainstream media went on an overdrive arguing that Ramaphosa had finally found his missing backbone.

Well, that was before Ebrahim Rasool, South Africa’s ambassador was booted out of the US for stating unpalatable truths about the Trump administration. This quickly put Ramaphosa in his place. Gone was the false bravado of 2018 and his recent utterance that “We will not be bullied”.

On hearing that there were groups that had intended to give Rasool a hero’s welcome, Ramaphosa cautioned against further upsetting the Trump administration. This form of embarrassing capitulation to Western leaders shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

This is vintage Ramaphosa.

Former President Nelson Mandela had harsh words for such conduct. "For anybody who changes his principles depending on whom he is dealing…that is not a man who can lead a nation.”

Aside from lacking a backbone, Ramaphosa is the kind of black man that Steve Biko described as having “lost his manhood. Reduced to an obliging shell, he looks with awe at the white power structure and accepts what he regards as the "inevitable position".

Forever eager not to offend the Trump administration, Ramaphosa also stepped in to stop the renaming of 1 Sandton Drive to Leila Khaled.

On the other hand, supporters of the name change argue that Leila Khaled is no more a terrorist than South Africa’s founding President Nelson Mandela.

Indeed, Mandela faced a similar situation when Bill Clinton, the former US president, asked South Africa not to have any dealings with Colonel Muammar Qaddafi of Libya.

Mandela’s response was to tell Clinton to take a hike. “We will not abandon our friends in need. Those that don’t like it can go jump in the lake.”

If the South African government can be intimidated from effecting symbolic gestures like changing street names, there is little chance that substantive socio-economic changes will be undertaken under the Ramaphosa administration. If truth be told, Ramaphosa has always been about smoke and mirrors and no substance.

Ramaphosa’s tendency to prostrate himself to whiteness and white supremacy has earned him praise from even the most recalcitrant of white racists. Assuring whites, the former and last apartheid president FW De Klerk prophesied. “Everything is not dark in South Africa, there is light at the end of the tunnel. If the ANC wins and President Ramaphosa keeps his promises, things will get better.”

De Klerk’s gripe was that “the factions that have led the ANC since 2007 have no intention of honouring the agreements that were included in the 1993 and 1996 constitutions.

Instead, they believe that they are still involved in a continuing revolutionary struggle to achieve a fundamental change in the structures, systems institutions, and patterns of ownership, management, and control of the economy.

In July 2018, Ace Magashule emphatically rejected ‘the false view that our democratic breakthrough was in itself the end of the struggle for the liberation of our country’”.

Like De Klerk, the white capital, in the main, invested heavily in Ramaphosa’s presidency to disrupt all efforts aimed at transforming the patterns of ownership and control of the economy. With Africans having to bear the burden of increasing unemployment, landlessness, and hopelessness under the Ramaphosa, De Klerk can rest peacefully knowing that Ramaphosa has delivered.

On the home front, Ramaphosa is politically compromised.

Since taking office, the ANC’s vote has declined by a staggering twenty-two per cent. Ramaphosa is at the mercy of people such as the ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe who doubles as Minister of Minerals and Petroleum Resources. Mantashe reportedly shielded Ramaphosa from accounting for the Phala Phala scandal.

Ramaphosa’s last gasp of power is the GNU.

The GNU is not about advancing South Africa but protecting the President and keeping the ANC afloat. The GNU is a vessel that offers Ramaphosa protection but can also sink him quite easily, should GNU partners choose to throw him overboard.

Assessing Ramaphosa’s presidency, political and economic analyst Moeletsi Mbeki observed. “President Ramaphosa has been a very weak president for the ANC. He’s not been able, first to control his party, he’s not controlling the ANC. He’s not controlling his Cabinet, which is why, you know, ministers say all sorts of things.”

Unless there is a major leadership shake-up, the ANC is likely to sink even further. What is crystal clear is that by the time Ramaphosa steps down, there will be nothing left of the ANC. Ramaphosa, the master of deception, would have fulfilled his assignment.

* Professor Sipho P. Seepe is a Higher Education & Strategy Consultant

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.