One has to hand it to Ace Magashule, the corrupt and roguish secretary-general of the ANC: he doesn’t beat about the bush. Unlike our president, his arch nemesis, he’s neither timid nor apologetic. He speaks his mind. A lot of what he says is a load of old codswallop but he never leaves you in any doubt of what he means.
Last week, addressing exuberant young comrades in Pretoria, he didn’t mince his words either. His preference, he said, would have been to serve an ANC led by Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. That defeat still rankles, it seems.
“I’ve served under former president Mandela’s administration, former president Thabo Mbeki’s administration, former president Jacob Zuma’s administration, and now under Ramaphosa,” he said.
The thing that immediately jumped at me was the fact that he assigned proper honorifics to all the leaders except Ramaphosa. He was just Ramaphosa, not president. It’s a little detail but it’s not the first time he’s done it.
He hasn’t come to terms with the fact that Ramaphosa is the president and he doesn’t make any bones about it, nor does he seem to care. Some seem to interpret his comments to mean the penny has finally dropped. He now has to toe the line.
Ramaphosa, if he is to survive the coup that’s marinating, has to go back and check how Zuma, Magashule’s hero, blindsided Mbeki, ultimately triumphing in Polokwane.
After he was fired from government, Zuma had all the time in the world to scour the hills and vales up and down the country for support while Mbeki was occupied with the business of running the government.
And by the time Polokwane arrived, Zuma had tidily sewn up all the votes and victory was a foregone conclusion.
Magashule and Ramaphosa are now locked in a similar combat. Ramaphosa has his hands full running a shambolic government.
He has a mammoth task of not only holding the country together — a crumbling economy and a populace almost in a state of rebellion— but also of cleaning up the utter mess left behind by his predecessor.
While he’s otherwise engaged in serious matters of state, the coast is clear for his foe to make all the mischief. The party machinery and the branches that we’re told are ultimately responsible for choosing the leadership, including the president, all report to Magashule.
He’s king of all he surveys. He’s moulding the party — which policies and cadences to emphasise — in his own image. It is putty in his hands.
Zuma may have handed the baton reluctantly to Ramaphosa, but the party of Zuma is not likely to be the party of Ramaphosa.
Some of us agree with Magashule that a Dlamini-Zuma victory at Nasrec would have been good, not for him or his party, but for the country.
— Barney Mthombothi
It seems destined to be the party of Magashule. He has all the time in the world to achieve that.
Some of us agree with Magashule that a Dlamini-Zuma victory at Nasrec would have been good, not for him or his party, but for the country.
Admittedly that outcome would have come as an almighty shock at first.
Dlamini-Zuma, for instance, would have allowed Zuma to finish his term. That would have extended the Zuma nightmare by a year at least, but in the end it would have had the effect of ridding the country of the ANC and its corrupt cadres.
The real prospect of Dlamini-Zuma as president with David Mabuza as her deputy, the continuation of Zuma’s destructive and corrupt policies, with Zuma himself as the backseat driver, would have been enough to convince people to vote the party out of power.
A Dlamini-Zuma presidency would have meant a third term for Zuma, the rapacious Guptas would remain in charge and cleaning up the awful mess would be unthinkable. That would have been enough incentive for people to turn their backs on the party at the ballot box.
Instead, Ramaphosa barely squeaked through — and we all heaved a sigh of relief. The fact that he was complicit in the hideous damage done to our country and the beautiful future that beckoned; that he sat next to Zuma at the apex of power as ill-gotten spoils were divvied up among comrades and their cronies didn’t seem to bother us. He wasn’t Zuma — that’s all that mattered.
We must have assumed he has a magic wand. And so the ANC’s bacon was saved. Fikile Mbalula, who headed its election team, admitted as much.
The party’s goose would have been cooked had it not been for the Cyril effect. He’s even destabilised the opposition. The DA has also become a snake pit.
It’s not only a false dawn (pun intended) but alas, our man, our messiah, has turned out to be a well-meaning weakling who’s happy to muddle along convinced that problems will miraculously solve themselves. Decisive leadership is a foreign concept. His admirers generously call it a long game. Hope to live long enough to see the day.
We complain bitterly that the police are hopelessly failing in their duty to curb rampant crime, with people committing offences, burning and looting, in plain sight. The Hawks too seem to be sleeping at the switch, with high-profile corruption cases staring at them — VBS, Estina, PIC, malfeasances too many to mention.
Shamila Batohi, appointed amid much fanfare, is soon becoming miss-do-nothing. One would think she checked into her new office and promptly decided to go on holiday.
Failure to sort out Eskom, which we were told was a priority more than a year ago, is slowly and inexorably dragging the country into a ravine.We complain about things going wrong and people failing to do their jobs, and we should. That’s our right. But the tone is set at the top.
If there’s fear and uncertainty at the summit it percolates and cascades right across the valley.
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