Don’t be fooled by Cyril telling media he is not scared to be recalled, he is frantically looking to avert the political crisis that threatens to offload him

By: Clyde Ramalaine

Why must Zuma today trust a guy who has sold him out at every turn?

This week ANC and SA President Cyril Ramaphosa was forced to again say he is not scared to be recalled, “NGCs are not about removing or installing anyone. The NGC is about renewing our policies, the implementation and where we are and thereafter we hold our policy conference, and thereafter we hold a leadership electing conference, which is in 2022.” This statement is not the first he has uttered along these lines. On January 9, he also said, “ Should members of the ANC say, no, you are not serving us well and you must move out, gladly so because I am a disciplined member of the African National Congress,” In my assessment, Ramaphosa is protesting too often his lack of fear and perhaps it’s time we engage this to see if it’s authentic or a ruse.

His words portend to be centred in selflessness pointing at a mature Cadre of the African National Congress yet they betray more a mind contorted in a subject he stands confronted with. It says more of a mind convulsed in an obsession with personal political survival.

Hearing him again in his recent public space statement on the subject I paused and thought was that not what Secretary-General Ace Magashule said? How different are these two statements from arguably the most important elected positions in ANC elective conference? What do these mean and communicate? In this instalment, I seek to engage the public statements of Ramaphosa about being recalled and argue while these show him bold he is a very concerned politician.

I am on record to have said Ramaphosa has been preoccupied for the last two months sending delegation after delegation to meet with Zuma. He sent Malema, and a slew of others the names known to some of us. He even reached out to Zuma’s family and children to persuade Zuma to meet with him. He is frantically reaching out sending his campaign manager Benjane Chauke to even talk to political foes seeking to use their influence and relations with Zuma to change the latter’s mind. Chauke is a busy man by all indications seeking to persuade enemies to help his boss.

In a normal world, I would want to give Ramaphosa the benefit as sincere in his attempts to do this for Zuma’s sake. The truth is Ramaphosa is not doing this for Zuma’s sake but Ramaphosa’s sake. Known from the earliest times of his advent in public life this politician plays for himself. He did so before he joined the ANC. He did so while he abruptly became SG, he did so in the business of the Malope family bakery business saga. He has always been playing for himself. I don’t have to remind you how he told Dolowitz “…one day when I am president…” So is the reach out to Zuma sincere, authentic and honest? No, it’s not I can state that categorically.

It’s perhaps worthwhile to here first deal with the over emerging psychology of personality Ramaphosa depicts. Personality pathologies define anti-social sociopath behaviour in personality forms as someone who in self-interest sees others as objects. It’s not far-fetched to conclude Ramaphosa depicts a certain mind that feels entitled to have people do things for his benefit while he at the same time feels entitled to put his proverbial dogs from his current State apparatus on the same ones he hopes to receive help from. It’s a mind that intrinsically believes he is entitled to get helped from people he publicly shows disdain for even target for demise. Whatever this condition it is rooted in the fact that Cyril always got things done for him. From his days at Urban Foundation, NUM, to how he became ANC SG, to becoming a billionaire. He did very little to achieve all the aforementioned so it’s entrenched in him to see others as ignorant and pliant to his political agenda.

Well, what sits behind these frantic and desperate attempts of Ramaphosa to have Zuma appear before the Zondo less the State of Capture Commission? Let us first jog each of our collective memory. In the aftermath of his December 2017 Nasrec bought victory, Cyril met on several occasions with his predecessor. In each of those meetings, Zuma informed him that Zuma has no intention of seeing out his second term as SA President. His request was to be allowed to introduce BRICS leadership to the new ANC and SA leadership which would have seen Zuma leave the SA presidency scene in May 2018. Zuma proposed to resign and had a meeting in Cape Town with Ramaphosa and Magashule to facilitate this process. He proposed that he be given the chance and time to introduce Ramaphosa to the Provinces, the SADC regional leaders and the BRICS leadership. There was a planned BRICS conference scheduled for around May -June 2018  that JZ wanted to formalise the handover. I know this because Zuma in two separate one-on-one meetings initiated by him with told me that he will not see his term out. May I add since he knew I was already approved for a DIRCO posting he asked me to stay until he leaves after which I would be posted? Ramaphosa committed to Zuma to have this anticipated smooth transition and went to his CR17 and handlers crowds who insisted he delivers the February 2018 Sona. The truth of a backboneless Ramaphosa a known fact for those who follow him was again underscored in this singular act of betrayal. Secondly, Ramaphosa who built his entire campaign around the notion of state capture in which he wanted to abdicate his conjoined role in this DA-led campaign of capture sought to blame Zuma for state capture. He would now go beyond that and began to prognosticate in theorising a nine-year wasted notion about his predecessor.

As you can see this is another betrayal by the man who is looking for a meeting. Ramaphosa went further to alter the terms of the State of Capture Commission’s terms to afford prosecutorial agencies unfettered rights to arrest anyone predicated on testimonies led or heard in the Commission. This act strangely no investigative journalist or apparent constitutional defender found a problem with. It remains my submission that we still going one day to realise the precarious impact of this unilateral, political self-preservation inspired decision on the part of Ramaphosa. Ramaphosa went further when he defended a case that saw Zuma becoming personally responsible for his legal expenses. Anyone that knows anything about legal fees will tell you how crippling this becomes. Meaning Ramaphosa knows that he was hurting Zuma where it matters most meaning in his pocket. He kept on singing and dancing to the tune of his sainthood and the demonic nature of his predecessor.

Zuma’s appeal to the courts as it relates to the decision of the Public Protector Thuli Madonsela which was supposed to deal with valid constitutional issues he raised was withdrawn by Ramaphosa. Ramaphosa, therefore, denied the Constitutional Court the right to test the constitutionality of the Public Protector’s recommendations. In this instance, Ramaphosa decided to let Zuma deal with a personal cost order.

Also, the man who frantically seeks to meet with Zuma to persuade him to attend the commission unfairly and unjustifiably determined to stop funding Zuma’s criminal trial. While there was an agreement between Zuma the State and State Attorney. Ramaphosa did this knowing Zuma would be rendered incapable to stand against the State with its infinite resources.

Ramaphosa the image politician upon hearing the WHO Secretary-General Tedros Ghebreyesus accusing SA of being involved in murder for the PPE corruption that weekend resorted to writing a letter to the ANC meaning all members in which he callously sought to deflect owning up to his putrid leadership on the subject of corruption wholly under his watch. In any true democracy, Ramaphosa would have done the honourable thing to resign at this instance instead he sought to blame the ANC. His predecessor decided to write him a letter which Ramaphosa’s proverbial NUM bulldog Gwede Mantashe in a cheap sense wanted to reduce to counter-revolutionary without even engaging the content neither to critique Ramaphosa for his silly letter. Mantashe’s only interest in this season is to use the chairperson’s role to bully ANC members into Ramaphosa submission. That’s a topic for another day. In Zuma‘s letter which was his right to respond, he made it clear to Ramaphosa that ANC members are not corrupt but its leaders must answer questions. He told Ramaphosa you must own up since this took place under his watch and he can’t deflect this ordinary member. He challenged Ramaphosa as one who benefited from business deals while he was in office as deputy president of both ANC and SA.

So, when Ramaphosa is today frantically seeking interactions and meetings with Zuma it’s because he knows he had spent every last coin of any comrade-credit he may have had in a relationship with Zuma. Zuma will never trust him. Those who know will tell Zuma does not want to see the man who betrayed him not once but more than twice.

What then is the reason behind these frantic and desperate attempts on the part of Ramaphosa? He is a very worried man by all standards. He knows that he overplayed his hand more than once and now he is seeking to be helped by people that he daily seeks to destroy. Ramaphosa plays for himself. The entire sophism of a constitutional crisis if Zuma doesn’t appear is exactly that,
it seeks to hide the political crisis Ramaphosa stands confronted with. Whatever the outcome of the CC for a response to the Commissions insistence of a two-year punishment, the dice was cast long ago when Zuma in chess played style told all he was willing to accept any sanction that the CC even in myopic and politically driven agenda as abused by its DCJ seek. Now we all know there can only be a crisis if Zuma had said he will not subject himself to any sanction of the apex court. Contrary to that he had expressed on more than one occasion a willingness to be sanctioned. So what constitutional crisis I ask again?

Ramaphosa is facing a crisis of legitimacy not from today. He is as I say in my soon to be published book, ‘suspended in a crisis of legitimacy, distrust an enemy of the masses and their economic revolution.’ He knows that Zuma will not budge and is willing to go all the way. One would have thought it is simple, let Zondo step aside from hearing Zuma as Zuma’s legal counsel had proposed long ago. It is dishonest to say Zuma didn’t want to come he pointed out and opened a legal case to ventilate his mistrust of the chairperson as one wholly compromised and now a witness in this case. To tell people Zuma appointed Zondo when he was president is another deliberate attempt at being deceptive. The two issues have nothing to do with each and only the disingenuous will get stuck in this foolish argument.

The truth is Ramaphosa does not sleep well, not for concern of SA, definitely not for Zuma but for concern that he shortly is about to make history and never see a second term. He tosses and turns at night because he realises if the Constitutional Courts find in favour of the request of the Commission in jail sentence SA will be pushed to a precipice akin to the time of Hani’s assassination. Ramaphosa and his cronies in the NOB have been using if not abusing COVID-19 to render the ANC dysfunctional to influence the apparent balance of forces, he realises the NGC cannot be postponed longer. The NGC will engage among others less him but what he failed to do in policy implementation. It will engage the indifference of his deployment to the undeniable Radical Socio-Economic Transformation policy when infantile noise is made about Step-aside policy as this is the end-and-be-all of ANC policies. Ramaphosa can’t dance around or sweet-talk his known gross failure to give effect to the policies that made him president. He knows his constituency is outside the ANC and that even his deputy is on record to have already raised the issue of failure to implement policy. Ramaphosa is a worried man that recently had to resort to threats and blackmail of cabinet reshuffle and disciplinary hearings. Anytime any leader goes to this level let no one fool you he is a scared and very troubled leader. If you hear him calling on friend and for it’s because he may sound bold publicly but he is privately as scared as the rabbit who dashed into the hole.

His contest with Ace Magashule whom he wholly underestimated is another dimension that gives him sleepless nights. If Napoleon taught us anything. No leader can fight too many wars at the same time and win.  He fell for the lie that if Magashule can be removed as his true advisors Peter Bruce and Max Du Preez long directed him, he would be in control. Well, he didn’t realise it will be much more complicated, and it will become more complex as the 30-day deadline begin to draw close.

Ramaphosa has been fighting his predecessor who no one can deny has a true and authentic constituency. He decided to make Ace his target using state apparatus to charge him, in fact, we already know the Hawks will charge Magashule on Estina in the next 10 days because the asbestos case against Ace is weak.

Ramaphosa is fighting Lindiwe Sisulu who in all is perhaps the best candidate to stand against him. I think NDZ’s time is over she had her run and must rally around the candidacy of Sisulu if she is serious about letting the women vote to count. Ramaphosa has been coming at Sisulu with an interesting arsenal of accusations. His seeming smiles is deceptive because of the visible list of attempts to unsettle her. He knows she is arguably one of his finest ministers but his CR-Faction group has made her their target. His Jewish brothers also detest her for her decision on the SA embassy when she was minister of DIRCO.

He recently scoffed at Duduzane Zuma making known his intentions to run in 2022 yet he at the same time pesters from Duduzane Zuma to Dudu Myeni to aid in changing Zuma’s mind. These are the things that happen at night when the cameras are off and he reaches for his favourite libation to quell what he knows is a tsunami that is about to sweep him into history. This is the Nicodemus approaches that happen far away from the glare of his hired journalists.

Many in the ANC complain that while Ramaphosa is known to consult in the ANC, his consultation is hard to arrive at the best decision since it usually leaves his best supporters befuddled because his final decisions usually evidence traces of a kitchen cabinet outside the ANC. If they accused Zuma of Guptas leading SA Ramaphosa is directed by a cohort of Stellenbosch and Brenthurst empires. Until now he has said no word of the statement made by the official opposition DA leader John Steenhuizen in which the latter is unequivocally clear he will form a coalition with Cyril just not with his deputy.

At the organisational level, he has failed to produce renewal and unity he so glibly runs his mouth on. I ask you again what would make a non-fearing president call for meetings of people whom he hates to assist him to convince Zuma to go to the Commission? What would make an apparent guy in charge as his lusty media operatives in journalist kaftans seeks to sell, to tell us all he is not scared.

Cyril must explain himself in the implicated State before the charade of a Zondo commission where undeniable accusations were levelled against him.

In conclusion, Ramaphosa is trying to talk to anyone to convince Zuma because he needs Zuma much more than what Zuma ever will need him. He sounds bold in facing media when he says he is not scared but he and his faction knows this guy doesn’t sleep at night. Let him deceive those who don’t know him for us who have studied and know too much about him he is a deeply troubled man because he can’t stomach the idea that he may only complete one term recalled as a failure.

I ask you again why would Zuma trust Ramaphosa when Ramaphosa has consistently shown his true colours time after time.

Perhaps a more disturbing question is why Ramaphosa believes everyone would be willing to do his dirty work.  That he in Nicodemus fashion can consult people to help him while he targets them.  It’s that same mind that can advocate for Ace Magashule to step aside while his slew of cronies is let off the hook. We all know step – aside policy as is currently hoped to be implemented at the end of April has very little to do with any true accountability on the part of the ANC to its members and the broader SA. It has everything to do with political gerrymandering and factional interest in which the removal of Magashule has at aim a recalibrated organisation that favours the agenda of Ramaphosa to survive to stand another term.

ANC members and South Africans must not be fooled by the product of the Urban Foundation benevolence and generosity when he publicly protests he is not scared because we know privately he is desperately and frantically talking to anyone to help him persuade Zuma to attend the Commission to avert the political crisis that will unseat him.