Cyril to blame for ANC 'crisis'

‘CYRIL Ramaphosa's 'plot' to kill the ANC’ was the headline that the ANC president’s backers dismissed as fake news five years ago. 

In that story published by our sister newspaper, the Sunday Independent, a number of ANC senior members expressed deep concern with Ramaphosa’s alleged proximity to external parties in efforts to apparently collapse the then governing party and replace it with a centre-right coalition led by him after the 2024 general elections.

Indeed their fears became reality last year when, for the first time, the ANC could only manage to secure just over 40% of the votes.  

Ordinarily, the head of the organisation, in this case, Ramaphosa, should have been the first to explain why the ANC performed so poorly in its stronghold areas such as KwaZulu-Natal where it only managed to secure 17%. 

However, the opposite has happened. Ramaphosa effectively proved his critics right when he recently campaigned against the ANC with his remarks that his organisation could learn a lot from how the DA governs in municipalities. 

His remarks were, however, a continuation of a pattern of throwing his party under the bus. Soon after taking over, Ramaphosa declared his party corruption accused number 1.

Nothing has changed since he took over. In fact he himself has been ducking and diving questions about the Phala Phala farm saga, where undeclared foreign currency worth millions of rands was concealed in couches. 

The above context becomes relevant ahead of next year’s local government election, where the ANC’s support is expected to take another hammering, especially with its alliance partner the SACP making it known that it will go at it alone. 

Those accusing Ramaphosa of plotting to collapse the ANC were not far off the mark after all.  

Ramaphosa is the first president that has presided over the decline of the former liberation movement. The crisis that former Thabo Mbeki recently declared in the ANC confirms that the current leadership has used the so-called renewal process to mask its failures.  

That is the legacy that will follow Ramaphosa well beyond his disastrous presidency.

Cape Times