Sunday Times E-Edition

Where are Ramaphosa’s friends, the economy needs them

S ’ THEMBISO MSOMI

“It is just a matter of five years comrades.” So declared one Ace Magashule as he tried to convince his dejected so-called RET troops at a meeting in KwaZulu-Natal that Nasrec was no Battle of Ncome or Blood River. That, unlike their forefathers in December 1838, they still had the chance to turn the tables in their favour at the next ANC conference.

Well, that five years is almost up, and ANC delegates are set to gather again from Reconciliation Day to Monday December 22 to elect a new party president and national executive committee. It is going to be a super-long and dramatic weekend for the troubled ruling party.

The province and venue for the conference is still up for discussion, but what is now clear is that President Cyril Ramaphosa will not get re-elected unopposed.

So much has changed since Magashule uttered those famous words just a few months after the Nasrec conference that — to the shock and horror of Magashule and then-president Jacob Zuma — elected Ramaphosa party leader, paving his way to the Union Buildings.

For starters, Magashule is now out in the cold as the suspended ANC secretary-general and looks set to watch the conference drama on TV like Mosiuoa Lekota, Julius Malema and John Steenhuisen.

A week is a long time in politics, said British prime minister and Labour Party leader Harold Wilson in the 1960s. Five years must be like a lifetime in ANC politics.

Yet this lifetime is seemingly not long enough for the ANC to resolve the crises it was embroiled in as it went to its last conference five years ago. They’re all still prevalent.

Despite removing Zuma and his toxicity from the Union Buildings, corruption in the public sector remains endemic and there has been little improvement in the government’s ability to arrest the country’s economic decline.

When Ramaphosa ran for the ANC presidency in 2017, one of his great advantages over all the other candidates was the assumption that his close ties with big business, as well as his history in the labour movement, would mean an improved working relationship between his future government and these two key stakeholders on the economic front.

They were quite keen on his presidency too. Cosatu unions publicly endorsed his campaign, some giving him public platforms to speak on at a time when Zuma controlled ANC structures in a number of provinces were giving him the cold shoulder. The likes of Nehawu went so far as to donate money to the campaign.

Captains of industry made their way to Orlando, Soweto, one summer evening that year to show their support as Ramaphosa officially announced his bid for the ANC presidency. They enthusiastically endorsed the “new deal” policy blueprint, which contained a 10-point plan Ramaphosa announced during the Orlando gathering.

Thanks to the controversy surrounding the sealing of the #CR17 campaign bank accounts, we now know that business personalities and companies dug deep into their pockets to help Ramaphosa take on opponents whose campaigns are said to have been fuelled through state coffers.

With organised labour and big business on his side, all Ramaphosa had to do was to win the conference. Once that had been done and he had taken over the reins of government, it would be a matter of time before he negotiated a new economic plan that would rescue the country from slow growth, rising unemployment and high levels of poverty and inequality.

Since then there has been much talk about a new “social compact” and very little action. Granted, many of the plans from both the government and the private sector were thrown into disarray when Covid hit us along with the rest of the world.

But since then nothing much has happened to suggest the president is succeeding in getting his government, business and labour to chart a new way forward for SA.

Yet much of the upheaval in our politics is as a result of an economy that is not growing fast enough and is not inclusive enough to make a greater number of citizens feel like real stakeholders.

The sense of exclusion felt by the poor and unemployed becomes fertile ground for all manner of political opportunists and populists to exploit.

If captains of industry really want to stave off the populist tide, they can’t just throw loads of money into their favourite candidate’s party leadership campaign and then fold their arms and hope for the best.

Opinion

en-za

2022-01-23T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-01-23T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://times-e-editions.pressreader.com/article/281956021163584

Arena Holdings PTY