What initially seemed like a comfortable canter to a coronation for President Cyril Ramaphosa could yet turn out to be an ugly dogfight.
In the absence of a more credible candidate, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma is the best his opponents could have hoped for. She wants a second bite at the cherry.
After all, she, not Ramaphosa, could have been president had it not been for David Mabuza’s duplicitous betrayal. But maybe not. With her at the top, maybe the election would have delivered an outcome the country desperately needs, a future without the ANC.
“Events, my dear boy, events,” Harold Macmillan, the Tory grandee, supposedly said when asked what the biggest challenge of his job as prime minister was.
Events have contrived to further undermine Ramaphosa’s standing here and abroad, but especially within his own party. With the scandal at his Phala Phala farm, his opponents have finally found some dynamite that could eject him from his position.
And events far away from home have also shredded the veneer of respectability he seemed to command internationally.
He was in Washington this week vainly trying to convince the Americans why he was serenading the slaughter in Ukraine.
Foreign policy is not about appeasing the malcontents in your party; it’s building bridges with other countries and harnessing that goodwill for the benefit of your country.
SA often acts like a man who doesn’t know which side his bread is buttered. Ideology doesn’t create jobs or feed the multitudes. What is needed is common sense — and courage — which are in short supply.
But even better would be Dlamini Zuma at the top of the ticket. She’s an awful campaigner, and all the Gupta skeletons would come crawling out of the cupboard
At the core of Ramaphosa’s problems — whether his current little difficulties or his inability to stand up for SA’s interests abroad — is his woeful lack of a backbone.
For instance, the purported reason for appointing some of his foes to his cumbersome cabinet, including Dlamini Zuma, was to achieve some sort of unity.
Better to have them inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in, as Lyndon Johnson would have elegantly put it.
But one suspects that the reason they were kept in is because he didn’t have the guts to tell them they were not needed.
A so-called cabinet of rivals is a splendid idea if the leader has cojones. Dlamini Zuma has served in her rival’s cabinet with a grievance, a wound that won’t heal. But it has suited her just fine.
It has kept her in the loop and in the public eye; she could use state resources to plot her comeback; and she famously defied Ramaphosa during the lockdown — thus enhancing her reputation as a no-nonsense woman, even if it meant destroying the tobacco industry.
The first truism in politics is not to help your enemy when he’s down. Instead, you put your foot on his neck and never let go.
That sends a clear and unambiguous message to all your enemies that you’re not to be trifled with. If it has to be unity, it should be on your terms. You’re the leader. You have a mandate, they don’t.
Ramaphosa’s attempt at unity has, in fact, achieved its opposite. Emboldened by his weakness, his enemies must be hoping Phala Phala will ultimately deliver the coup de grace.
Dlamini Zuma’s decision to enter the contest must come as a bitter blow to other wannabes, especially Lindiwe Sisulu, who may feel hard done by. She seems to think she’s owed the presidency. Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki — scions of the other royal families — have had a turn at the presidency. She must figure that people must now make way for a Sisulu — which means her.
Beaten by Mabuza to be Ramaphosa’s No 2 at Nasrec in 2017, she’s been trying too hard for the top job — attacking the judiciary, wearing fake military uniforms and making sure she shows up at all the Jacob Zuma-friendly gatherings.
She’s also been waging a forlorn defiance campaign against her lifeless leader, even calling him a liar, in a vain attempt to ingratiate herself with the coalition of the aggrieved. After taking all that risk, even engaging in the sort of daring that could have sacrificed her career, Dlamini Zuma now comes along and steals her thunder.
But ANC members should ignore Zuma’s reported directive that they give way for Dlamini Zuma to take on Ramaphosa. They should pile in. The more the merrier. That can only magnify the divisions in the party — which should be good for the country. SA cannot survive another five years of ANC rule.
Those with the country’s interests at heart will be hoping not only that the party loses in two years, but that it does so decisively. There’s a better chance of that happening if it gets to the elections with members divided and fighting among themselves.
But even better would be Dlamini Zuma at the top of the ticket. She’s an awful campaigner, and all the Gupta skeletons would come crawling out of the cupboard. The Guptas once famously gave her a person of the year award in appreciation of some unknown service she’d rendered.
The tobacco smugglers, too, would be thrilled. Dlamini Zuma’s ascent, if it happens, should therefore not be feared. It should be welcomed. It will hasten her party’s demise.
Ramaphosa’s supporters will be hoping that the multiple investigations into the Phala Phala scandal will drag on until after the December conference where he gets re-elected.
If he’s turfed out thereafter, a minion of their liking could always take over and lead them to the elections, where they hopefully will get a drubbing. But even if Ramaphosa were to survive right up the elections, it’s unlikely people will be fooled again.
However things turn out, it will be fascinating watching the snake pit. As one famous man once said: never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.
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