President Cyril Ramaphosa could learn a lesson or two in leadership from Mandela's playbook

Dear DM168 Reader,

It was not Amandla Ngawethu (Power to the People), the rallying cry of the UDF and the ANC that led to the shaping of our democracy, that members of the new MK party, the official opposition, chanted when they traipsed behind Jacob Zuma’s daughter, Duduzile, as they entered the Cape Town City Hall for the opening of the seventh Parliament.

It was not Wathint’ Abafazi, Wathint’ Imbhokodo (You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock), the rallying cry of thousands of women of all races who marched to the Union Buildings opposing the humiliating “dompas” passbook that restricted the movement of black South Africans.

No, the honourable members of the official opposition in Parliament who will be holding the Government of National Unity (GNU) to account will not be doing it on behalf of the causes that millions of South Africans rallied behind in the mass resistance against apartheid. They will be doing it for the man whose name they chanted loudly and repetitively: “Zuma, Zuma, Zuma.”

Telling, isn’t it? They will be doing it for the man who not only betrayed his own party, the ANC, causing the governing party vote split that led to this GNU, but more insidiously the people of South Africa when he presided over the State Capture of our country, the looting spree of patronage for an elite coterie of members, friends and family in the ANC, under the guise of “Radical Economic Transformation” (RET).

Make no bones about it. It was not John Steenhuisen and the DA’s failed multiparty coalition, but the one and only Jacob Zuma – and those members of the ANC, EFF and IFP he convinced to join him – who can be credited with the ANC’s decline to 40% and thus this GNU, uniting 10 parties.

And it is these worshippers of the cult of Zuma and their EFF allies – led by VBS bank heist beneficiaries Julius Malema and his deputy, Floyd Shivambu – who we must now look to, to ensure the promises made by President Cyril Ramaphosa and the GNU will be kept.

Ramaphosa was deliberate in choosing Nelson Mandela’s birthday – dubbed Mandela Day – on Thursday July 18 as the date the seventh Parliament opened at the Cape Town City Hall. He was invoking a legendary leader who made compromises with the National Party to negotiate a peaceful settlement and our constitutional democracy. Not dissimilar to what he is doing with the GNU.

Ramaphosa does not have the charisma or global stature of Mandela, but he was very Mandela-esque in calling on the GNU and all of us to “work together like weaver birds do” to rebuild this messy nest of a country.

The president’s vision for an inclusive economy – that will create jobs and have enough for the start of a basic income grant for those whose hunger cannot wait for the economy – was celebrated by the 70% of Parliament who are in the GNU.

As was his promise of the next stage of Operation Vulindlela to fix and develop municipalities to attract investment for businesses and create jobs.

His argument for this was: “Growth happens at a local level, where people live and work. Our municipalities must become both the providers of social services and facilitators of inclusive economic growth. They must work to attract investment.”

My colleague Ray Mahlaka pointed out that Ramaphosa has been saying this for a while but the government has struggled to get infrastructure projects off the ground because there have not been enough engineers and project managers in local government and provinces to get the job done. What might make it work this time, Ray says, is Ramaphosa has enlisted the help of the National Treasury, government officials in other departments and the private sector.

The thing is, we all need the GNU to work, but we need to face the facts.

The ANC that Ramaphosa leads is a far cry from the ANC that Mandela led. If the many people of integrity in Mandela’s ANC were replaced by modernising, equally servant-of-the-people kinds of social democrats – rather than the opportunists who joined the ANC for a piece of the proximity-to-power-purse, as Judge Raymond Zondo laid bare – South Africa would most likely have edged closer to chipping away the racialised inequality that persists.

Have those with “a loota continua” tendencies in the ANC left the governing party with Zuma and the RET faction? Hell no. ANC luminaries who graced the Zondo Report with their greed for glamour and their idea of the good life are still there.

I can only guess that apart from concessions to the opposition party participants, placating the “our chance to eat” factions in the ANC led to the bloating of the GNU with several deputies and some familiar State Capture faces in Parliament.

Among them: Zizi Kodwa, who was implicated in State Capture for dubious transactions between himself and Jehan Mackay, a former director at technology group EOH; Malusi Gigaba, who Judge Zondo said should be investigated for corruption and racketeering in relation to cash payments allegedly received during visits to the Guptas in Saxonwold between 2010 and 2018; and David Mahlobo, our new deputy minister of water and sanitation who was alleged to have signed receipts for about R80-million in cash from the State Security Agency between 2015 and 2017. his tenure as state security minister.

Let’s not forget ANC deputy secretary-general Mama Action Nomvula Mokonyane, who Zondo suggested should be prosecuted for that lavish birthday bash and monthly payments of R50,000 from Gavin Watson’s Bosasa.

What a mess of a rickety weaver’s nest. Ramaphosa probably can afford not to have this nightmare  job, but leading this mess is his last shot at proving that Mandela was right in choosing him as a preferred successor. He has to act swiftly. Because his time is short. As leader of the  GNU  and as leader of the ANC, which still bizarrely has not expelled Jacob Zuma for his betrayal and still protects and employs the state capture accused in its ranks.  Will the divided ANC kick him out at the next elective conference and replace him with a more Zuma-esque leader who will keep the comrades’ patronage networks well-oiled and put party before country? There are many camouflage- and red overall-clad Gucci revolutionaries leading the opposition benches who would love to get back on the gravy train with their fellow pillagers in the ANC and dismantle this current version of the GNU.

Reams have been written about the more decisive leadership of our founding father of the nation, among which I found a gem written by author Mandla Langa in 2018 on the centenary of Mandela’s birth, that perhaps Ramaphosa can call on if he wants his vision of an inclusive economy to be realised.

In “Head and Heart: The Lessons of Leadership from Nelson Mandela”, Langa wrote how scathing Mandela was of “leaders, even ‘erstwhile revolutionaries’ [who] have easily succumbed to greed, and the tendency to divert public resources for personal enrichment”.

Langa said Mandela lauded the “universal respect and even admiration for those who are humble and simple by nature, and who have absolute confidence in all human beings irrespective of their social status. These are men and women, known and unknown, who have declared total war against all forms of gross violation of human rights wherever in the world such excesses occur.”

That is what the spirit of Amandla Ngawethu means. Not “Zuma! Zuma! Zuma!” or “Pay Us the Money!” for our Gucci revolutionary lifestyles. Nor is it pandering to rich business lobbyists at the expense of the poor and vulnerable. If the political parties are not going to hold the GNU to account, it’s up to the rest of us – journalists, civil society, churches – to make sure it’s the people whose best interests are served by those we put in power.

In this week's DM168,  journalists Neesa Moodley and Lerato Mutsila drag out all the skeletons from the closets of the ANC, SACP and EFF and all those municipalities looted to keep the ATM at VBS Mutual Bank running for the politically putrid who thought they could hoodwink poor pensioners. If you don't understand what this means and why this matters, get yourself a copy of DM168 at your nearest retail store or if you are an insider look out for your e-edition on Sunday morning. Send your thoughts about this column and your views of Ramaphosa's chances to deliver on the promises of the GNU to [email protected] and I will consider publishing it on our readers’ page.

Yours in defence of truth,

Heather

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.