NDZ hasn’t gone away — she could even beat Ramaphosa

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s continued reluctance to tell the nation what he knows about the theft of foreign currency at his Phala Phala farm and the subsequent investigation into the matter is doing serious damage to his bid for reelection as ANC leader in  December.

The more he asks for extensions to the deadlines set by the likes of the South African Reserve Bank, or takes refuge in legal advice to largely keep mum — even when parliament, to which he is accountable under the constitution, seeks an explanation — the more doubt grows in the minds of South Africans, including his ardent supporters.

Sooner rather than later, his backers within the ANC will have to hold serious conversations about whether they can risk backing him when there is a real possibility of him being tripped up by the Bank probe, if not the public protector investigation, the Hawks or even his answers to parliament at the end of this month.

Bold pronouncements by the likes of the ANC provincial executive committee in Limpopo that it is firmly behind Ramaphosa’s reelection shouldn’t fool us into believing its members are unperturbed.  The longer he fails to provide convincing answers, the more likely that some of those who have backed him in ruling party structures will start looking for a new presidential candidate.

Ramaphosa’s greatest selling point going to the December conference seems to be that, according to pundits, he is the only ANC leader who can guarantee the troubled ruling party more than 40%  in 2024 — hence giving it a fighting chance to at least form a coalition government.

It is highly unlikely that Dlamini-Zuma’s team  would make the same mistakes they made in the run-up to the 2017 Nasrec conference

The uncertainty over Phala Phala seems to be changing that. Besides, some of his comrades may be asking themselves why they should stick with him as a potential 2024 saviour  when the Phala Phala saga might force him out long before the end of next year.  For them, the best scenario is for him to speak up now so they can assess the possible damage and decide whether to stick with him or start looking for a new candidate.

This is becoming even more urgent for the Ramaphosa camp because the other advantage they thought they had — that there’s no credible rival in the offing for December — has seemingly evaporated. By all accounts, the minister of co-operative governance and traditional affairs,  Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, has decided to run again despite having lost to Ramaphosa in the same race five years ago.

It is early days, but it is highly unlikely that Dlamini-Zuma’s team  would make the same mistakes they made in the run-up to the 2017 Nasrec conference. Back then they allowed her campaign to be too closely associated with the then president, who happened to be her former husband, Jacob Zuma. As a result, her message was often overshadowed by controversies surrounding Zuma, his Gupta friends and state capture.

Instead of making a choice between Ramaphosa and Dlamini-Zuma, many delegates at the 2017 conference saw their vote as a battle between the agents of state capture and those seeking to stop it.

This year’s conference takes place under different circumstances. Although Zuma is still very much a factor in KwaZulu-Natal, he has become irrelevant everywhere else.

Under scrutiny at this year’s conference will be Ramaphosa’s performance over the past five years as party leader and whether ANC members still have confidence in him leading them to victory in 2024. Besides Phala Phala, Ramaphosa’s soft underbelly is a perception that he is not eager to implement some of the “radical” economic and social policy resolutions adopted  at the last party conference. As a result, it is claimed, some of the gains in transforming the country since 1994 are being reversed.

This perception cuts across all important ANC constituencies — from black businesses that complain of being marginalised by the white private sector establishment and black professionals who claim affirmative action and other forms of redress are being reversed,   to trade unions and others on the left who accuse the Ramaphosa administration of being “neoliberal” and pro-big business.

This is the chink in Ramaphosa’s armour that the Dlamini-Zuma campaign may choose to exploit, and, given the fact that the president’s moderate approach on such issues has not yet delivered for key party constituencies, it may even work for Mama.

Her backers might also highlight the fact that although Dlamini-Zuma ran in 2017 on a ticket backed by Zuma, in 2007 she actually stood against his slate, throwing in  her lot with the then president Thabo Mbeki as his deputy president running mate. In so doing, they would be trying to demonstrate that she is her own person, not beholden to Msholozi and his troubles.

If all of this works, we might have a new South African president by the next state of the nation address.