Africa-Press – Namibia. SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa is in danger of not being re-elected as ANC president at the party’s December 2022 national conference unless he can credibly deal with allegations of breaking the law following a burglary at his farm.
If not, he would, of course, lose out on being the party’s presidential candidate in the 2024 national elections,
Ramaphosa has strongly denied any wrongdoing. Nonetheless, he is facing the biggest fight for political survival since his election as ANC president in 2017.
He is in real danger of becoming another South African president asked by the governing ANC to step aside from the country’s top position.
Opponents of Ramaphosa within the ANC are mobilising to use the step-aside rule – introduced by Ramaphosa himself to compel ANC leaders to withdraw from their official positions when implicated in corruption – to get him to temporarily step aside as ANC leader.
The controversy over allegations surrounding a break-in at Ramaphosa’s Limpopo farm two years ago follows a criminal complaint laid by the former head of South African intelligence, and former correctional services head, Arthur Fraser.
Fraser alleges that millions of US dollars were stolen from the president’s game farm in 2020, and that he failed to report it, did not declare foreign currency in his possession, and used non-legal ways to recover the stolen money.
In provincial ANC elective conferences so far, Ramaphosa has had an unexpectedly smooth re-nomination process, getting provinces which might not have been expected to back him to do so.
THE ZUMA FACTOR
Many of Ramaphosa’s opponents within the ANC appear to reckon that they have finally been gifted a real opportunity to derail the president’s seemingly unstoppable re-election as ANC president in December.
Previous attempts by Ramaphosa’s opponents to implicate him in wrongdoing and bring him down – specifically an attempt to floor him because of donations he received during his 2017 ANC presidential campaign – have all failed.
In the past, Ramaphosa’s opponents, particularly suspended ANC general secretary Ace Magashule, have claimed that the ANC’s step-aside rule was specifically aimed at sidelining potential leadership rivals to the president.
Others forced to step down over corruption allegations include former health minister Zweli Mkhize, who was forced out of his cabinet post, and ANC national executive member Tony Yengeni.
Within the ANC, Fraser is closely aligned to former president Jacob Zuma, and a key operator in the anti-Ramaphosa camp, which includes Magashule, Mkhize and Yengeni, and he has been Zuma’s point man, keeper of secrets, and manager of his intelligence slush fund during the Zuma presidency.
When Ramaphosa was elected president, he did not remove Fraser, keeper of the ANC government’s secrets, from intelligence, despite Fraser being the head of the agency at the centre of skulduggery during the Zuma presidency.
Instead, he moved him sideways to head the prison services.
Fraser, an implacable foe of Ramaphosa, controversially released Zuma from prison early after the former president was jailed for contempt of court for refusing to appear before the Zondo Commission to account for corruption during his presidency.
Ramaphosa did eventually terminate Fraser’s contract as prison chief.
POLICY ‘BOOMERANG’
Immediately after the ‘Farmgate’ allegations broke, Yengeni tried but failed to get the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) to ask the president to step aside while the investigation of the handling of the robbery on the president’s farm was being resolved.
The NWC is the leadership structure which manages ANC affairs between national executive committee meetings.
Despite Yengeni’s inability to get the NWC to debate the issue, the president’s opponents appear to be ramping up their efforts to force the president to step aside.
Ramaphosa has told the ANC national executive committee he will subject himself to the ANC’s integrity commission, a structure responsible for making pronouncements on the behaviour of ANC leaders.
Ramaphosa’s main opponents within the ANC have almost all been tied up in legal battles over allegations of corruption.
Apart from those who have been forced to step aside, there are others who are under pressure to step aside because of corruption allegations.
Opponents previously opposed to the step-aside rule, are trying to use the very same policy to force Ramaphosa to step aside while the farm break-in issue is investigated or cleared up.
EFF ON THE ‘WARPATH’
In addition, Ramaphosa’s opponents outside the ANC are stepping up the pressure on him.
The opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is trying to use the Ramaphosa controversy in the same way they successfully used to publicly take on Zuma.
With Zuma, the EFF launched a ‘pay back the money’ campaign against the former president after he used public money to pay for renovations at his private compound at Nkandla.
This is now Ramaphosa’s ‘pay back the money’ moment.
Opponents inside and outside the ANC will try to repeat an equivalent public campaign to push Ramaphosa out of the ANC presidency.
It is very likely that opposition parties will also press for a parliamentary inquiry into whether Ramaphosa broke any laws.
Nonetheless, despite Ramaphosa’s opponents within and outside the ANC politicking to get him out of the presidential race, the Fraser allegations are serious.
If the president is found guilty, he may be fined and even jailed for money laundering.
* William Gumede is associate professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand, and author of ‘Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times’
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