Perhaps President Cyril Ramaphosa has deserved being labelled a wuss, given the number of times he has hesitated to take decisive action even in instances where he was clearly being undermined by his own subordinates.
But one cannot think of any other president — among the ones we have had so far as a democracy — who would have been so bold as to use the state of the nation address (Sona) to make statements that are not popular with his party’s main constituencies in a year when he is up for re-election.
We had come to expect that in an ANC election year, especially when the incumbent will be seeking another term as party leader, Sona is as much about winning over party branches as it is about accounting to the rest of the nation about the work done.
Promises about new jobs are made. The speeding up of the racial transformation project is pledged and a huge chunk of the speech is devoted on how it all fits in with the Freedom Charter as well as other documents fundamental to the National Democratic Revolution.
But that is not the script Ramaphosa chose to follow this year. Instead he delivered the kind of speech that, just a few years ago, would have had his SA Communist Party and Cosatu allies in Braamfontein taking to the streets to decry the return of the “'96 class project” with its “neoliberal” and “anti-poor” policies.
They did complain, of course, issuing polite statements pointing to the folly of the president’s confidence that the private sector — left to its own devices — would single-handedly deliver SA from unsustainably high levels of unemployment.
So did too many other people within ANC ranks. At a dinner function I attended soon after the president delivered his speech, I was amazed at the high number of guests — many of them long-serving ANC members and senior government officials — who used words like “neoliberal” and statements like “it’s taken straight from the DA manifesto” when criticising Ramaphosa’s address.
Yet, like their SACP and Cosatu comrades, most of those I chatted to are convinced that the ANC has little option but to return Ramaphosa to party office this December if it is to stand a chance of leading a new government after the 2024 elections.
Ramaphosa must have calculated that he is now in a much stronger position than he was in December 2017
Perhaps it is this knowledge that has given Ramaphosa the chutzpah to openly propagate what is seen as a “pro-business agenda” with about 10 months to go before the ANC — a party whose constituencies are deeply suspicious of monopoly capital and the private sector in general — holds its next conference.
He must have calculated that he is now in a much stronger position than he was in December 2017.
But does that mean that we are about to see “the real Ramaphosa”, unencumbered by all the considerations he had to make about keeping various factions happy and the ANC united during much of his first term?
Much rests on how he gets to be re-elected in December as well as the calibre of the other five officials who would make up his new Top 6.
There is now a lot of behind-the-scenes horse trading between party structures in a number of provinces which, ANC dealmakers say, is aimed at avoiding a contest over the position of president.
If they pull it off, Ramaphosa will emerge from the conference with his hand strengthened, owing his victory to no specific faction and not needing to go out of his way to accommodate those who may have opposed him.
This would mean that his future cabinet would be made up largely of people he believes can do the job, and not necessarily those he has to accommodate to keep peace at Luthuli House.
But equally important from his perspective would be who else makes it to the new Top 6. Although the ANC national executive committee is the most powerful party structure in between conferences, the Top 6 is crucial in the day-today running of the organisation as well as the monitoring of the party’s performance in government.
A dysfunctional and divided Top 6, as we have seen during Ramaphosa’s first ANC term, can lead to paralysis in both party and state.
Among those who back Ramaphosa’s re-election, there is a strong push for the new Top 6 to be dominated by much younger leaders who are trained officials and have a better grasp of the problems confronting the country than the current crop.
Only Ramaphosa and either Gwede Mantashe or Paul Mashatile, this grouping argues, should be retained from the current crop. The other four posts would have to go to younger people — three of whom would have to be women.
Would such a younger team be the tonic Ramaphosa needs to carry out his reforms both in the party and government?
More crucially, would the old guard agree to let go without a fight?
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