Ramaphosa has appeased Zuma for years, allowing the former leader to remain relevant

Bizarrely, the ANC now apparently wants to subject Jacob Zuma to a disciplinary hearing. One has to marvel at this utterly gobsmacking stupidity. The horse has bolted. It’s almost as if the comrades have arrived from Mars to discover one of their most-prized assets has inexplicably gone awol.

Having recovered from the initial shock, they now seem to have belatedly mustered up the courage to act. But Zuma has been playing truant under their snotty noses for some time. Any attempt to apply a firm hand now may, in fact, result in them having even more egg on their faces.

Zuma has survived so many setbacks and won (and is still winning) so many political skirmishes that he’s been dubbed the cat with more than nine lives. But that portrayal has been somewhat overstated.

Zuma is an old croc who has simply played the situation to his advantage. Luck has played its part, but he’s also profited from the weaknesses, misjudgements and stupid actions of his foes. And he has enjoyed extraordinary political cover. The ANC has obviously stood by him over the years, even in the face of his blatant criminality.

They’re therefore complicit. But Zuma’s chief enabler has been hiding in plain sight. It’s Cyril Ramaphosa — the man who’s been masquerading as the nation’s saviour after the devastation wrought by his predecessor.

Ramaphosa has been a constant presence throughout Zuma’s ruinous escapades, and has continued to play appeaser, if not protector, even after he became president. He’s even bent the law to help him out of a sticky situation. In fact, state capture reached its glorious apogee in Zuma’s second term, when Ramaphosa was his deputy. But Ramaphosa often claims, like the three wise monkeys, to have seen nothing, heard nothing, and therefore said nothing.

He ignored evil wisely, so to speak. But that, of course, is a load of utter nonsense. As we know now, he’s a man devoid of a backbone. Zuma figured that out — and capitalised on it. Imagine if then deputy president Ramaphosa had come out and alerted the country to half of what he was either hearing or witnessing. It would have been such a bombshell — a tsunami that would have swept Zuma out of power and laid waste to his political career. And the country would have been the better for it. But, no, Ramaphosa thought of himself and his career, not of the country and its future.

He sat there smiling sheepishly as his boss wreaked havoc. Which is why it is nauseating to hear him now sounding off about “nine wasted years”, as if he wasn’t part of that catastrophic period and complicit in the destruction, if not exactly a co-conspirator in it.

His fervent admirers want us to believe that keeping mum and pretending not to see the devastation was part of a strategy, his now-discredited long game, to bide his time and wait for the right moment to strike. Had he spoken out, they suggest, Zuma would have summarily bundled him out of office, which would have put paid to his chances of becoming president. In retrospect, though, this outcome would not have been such a bad one.

As president, he’s turned out to be something of a dud, neither fish nor fowl, and, to quote Cromwell, has grown intolerably odious to the whole nation with each passing day.

As president, he’s turned out to be something of a dud, neither fish nor fowl, and, to quote Cromwell, has grown intolerably odious to the whole nation with each passing day. Even after he prevailed over Zuma and his gang of thieves at the Nasrec conference in 2017, Ramaphosa was loath to deliver the coup de grâce. He had to be convinced by close associates that Zuma should prematurely be thrown out of the Union Buildings.

He seemed more concerned about Zuma’s feelings, pleading that he should be spared the humiliation of being ejected from office. Which is another thing with Ramaphosa: he lacks a killer instinct. When his foe is down and out, he hesitates to put the boot in. Instead, he agonises about the man’s feelings. As a result, he seems to have somewhat shrunk in stature the longer he’s stayed in office.

His political foes, including those in his own party, don’t fear or respect him. But it is his abuse of the law to keep Zuma out of prison that’s been more egregious, and has now come back to haunt him and his party. We’ve become too accustomed or desensitised to this government doing pretty bad things and getting away with them, but a president literally bouncing a convict out of jail should appal us all. There should be a national outcry when a leader, let alone the president, plays fast and loose with our legal code — that which binds us together as a country.

That we merely shook our heads and went on with our lives is in itself shocking. Ramaphosa and his party were never happy when Zuma was sent to jail by the Constitutional Court for defying the Zondo commission. The violent eruption immediately after his imprisonment seemed to confirm their worst fears.

But they simply sat back and watched the country burn. And when then correctional services commissioner Arthur Fraser, a Zuma acolyte, released him under false pretences, Ramaphosa must have quietly cheered or simply looked the other way. The courts reversed that decision, which meant Zuma had to go back to jail, but Ramaphosa promptly released him as part of a general amnesty for non-violent offenders.

It is that remission which the knuckleheads on the Electoral Court used to justify overturning a decision by the IEC not to allow Zuma to run for office. Ramaphosa’s timidity, his attempt to appease or pacify his arch-enemy, has kept Zuma relevant. And now he’s turned the guns on them, so to speak, delivering some of the most telling blows of any ANC critic.

Without him, his MK Party would have been just another insignificant splinter group. Charging him won’t change that fact. But, I guess, not many would complain if MKP were to help usher the ANC out of power.