I had initially decided to wait for the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) meeting before writing this article, but I changed my mind. It occurred to me that in the larger scheme, whether President Cyril Ramaphosa resigns or not, either scenario changes nothing in terms of what South Africans need to do to protect the country’s democracy and the well-being of the people.
The most important thing is for all of us to accept that there is no “better ANC” or “better people in the ANC”. The entire organization is rotten from the top to bottom, with only smatterings of integrity. For those who thought that miraculously Ramaphosa could change the character of the party for the better, I hope they can now see that this was a pipedream.
We also have the benefit of knowing who, were he to resign or be fired, his likely successors are. All of them have been at the epicentre of the rot that has brought our country to its knees since. Some are under criminal investigation, facing criminal charges or curiously have the endorsement of openly corrupt elements.
It is critical that South Africans are not fooled by their false promises to, somehow, be visited by fresh ideas and energy or develop an allergy to corruption when they have fed off it for decades. As Professor Mzukisi Qobo wrote in the Business Day a decade ago, people like Ramaphosa, who are perceived to be clean give ordinary people a false sense of hope that somehow the ANC can be rehabilitated when this is not possible. It is from this perception that the ANC was able to knit together a fragile coalition to carry it to power in 2019, with Ramaphosa as its public face.
Except for die-hard ANC supporters, that coalition is now dead, with many of those elements being disparate and looking for political consensus on their own, and with no horse to back.
Even if Ramaphosa were to survive the chop, he is severely compromised. There is simply no way around bricks of undeclared forex stuffed into couches. That is the stuff of drug smugglers. It is unseemly for the president of any country, especially South Africa that claims to take itself seriously, for the president to place themselves in such a position.
The whole scandal is a further distraction from an already distracted ANC national leadership that has no time to attend to the urgent needs of the people as its agenda is dominated by its own leadership corruption scandals and contestations. There will be further distractions in the future as some of its number face criminal charges for fraud and corruption.
We are truly on our own and must take very clear steps to defend the republic between now and 2024. Here is what we must pay urgent attention to:
First, we must vigilantly watch over the NPA, SARS, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and the Hawks (who are still weak). The most urgent existential threat facing several ANC leaders at national and provincial level is being criminally charged. Avoiding criminal or civil liability means weakening these institutions once more by installing lackeys who will let them off without so much as a slap on the wrist. It is also for this reason that there have been so many pre-emptive strikes at the judiciary over the last few years.
Secondly, civil society organisations and political parties need to fortify oversight of the Electoral Commission. Loss of power is a terrifying possibility for the ANC, which does not only mean being vulnerable to prison but loss of prestige and the eventual death of the party itself. This question is particularly pertinent in the context of a deliberately botched Electoral Amendment Bill process that will create chaos when the election does take place.
Third, we must expect political violence especially the targeting of political opponents of the ANC for assassination to accelerate now that it faces a real prospect of losing national power. Having never been in such a weak position before, it has not previously been necessary to do this on a national scale, but that is changing rapidly.
Within its own ranks, especially in KwaZulu-Natal and increasingly the Eastern Cape, assassinations have been par for the course. This will now become nationally common, and strong voices that are an obstacle to its position in power will be under threat, if not already. There are far too many people with deeply vested interests in its continued incumbency, and some of them face the possibility of going to prison in any event. They will not fall over and surrender. They will fight and do so violently.
This is a point that is likely to be taken lightly until it is too late because it is in the South African fabric to believe in the better angels of all our natures and refuse to acknowledge the signs of peril until it is too late. Were we vigilant, people like Babita Deokaran and many other whistle-blowers would still be alive today.
Finally, our problems remain. Millions are still poor and unemployed. Eskom is still in crisis, and so is our national logistics system (Transnet). Municipalities are still falling apart and roads look like they have been hit by millions of grenades and mortars. In other words, the country is falling apart and being slowly taken over by criminal gangs aided and abetted by their accomplices in the national security establishment.
There is no doubt that the nature of the ANC’s demise may create a dangerous vacuum and hobble nationally important work between now and the 2024 election. That paralysis may continue even if it has lost power and there is a coalition government that may or may not include it.
That paralysis cannot be mitigated by one political party, or just the current party political actors who are preoccupied with removing the President with no discernible plan of what to do thereafter. In any event, none of them have shown the inclination to articulate the basis upon which a new consensus can be built.
Such a consensus is only possible if we can define what the popular South African moral contract should be. In my view, that contract is premised on the idea that both the South African constitution and the values of the majority of South Africans, are social democratic in nature and outlook.
Social democratic values are Freedom, Equality, Justice, and Solidarity. This frame provides space for measures to address our difficult history, continuing inequities and a moral contract premised on the idea that South Africans commit to use public and private assets in various ways to ensure no one is left behind on the road towards prosperity. It provides for private enterprise, integrated human development, appropriate social entitlements, and a strong, capable state whose three branches are the bedrock of democratic participation and accountability.
Therefore, this crisis gives us a golden opportunity to define South Africa’s progressive politics anew, ditching the old ideological dogmas whose preoccupation is contestation to defeat the other at the expense of progress on issues where there is broad social agreement. We must seize the chance to discuss pragmatic approaches that seek to resolve urgently the most serious challenges facing South African society.
I have no doubt that the majority of South Africans want a more representative and accountable political system, and government policies centred on human safety, health, and development so that every South African can reach their full potential.
Whatever happens in the next few days, weeks and months, we must not be naïve nor should we be overwhelmed. The important thing is to be clear-headed about the common threats we face, our continuing priorities and to find ways for patriotic South Africans to work together to keep hope and the country alive with actual solutions, some of which I have stated before on these pages and, for purposes of length and time, do not bear repeating in this article.Songezo Zibi is the Chairman of Rivonia Circle and author of Manifesto – A New Vision for South Africa. He is part of the Rise Campaign. This article first appeared in the Daily Maverick in December 2022.