Allies rally around to save Ramaphosa

Top ANC leaders, including cabinet ministers and premiers, are circling the wagons to protect the president from those seeking his head

● ANC bigwigs have formed a ring of steel around President Cyril Ramaphosa, saying they will defend him against those calling for his head.

Several ministers and senior party leaders told the Sunday Times that Ramaphosa would stay on as president despite damning findings against him by an independent panel appointed by parliament to investigate whether he had a case to answer around the burglary at his Phala Phala farm.

In persuading him not to resign this week, allies urged him to put the country and its citizens first, with senior cabinet minister Pravin Gordhan saying his departure would have severe ramifications.

Gordhan and justice minister Ronald Lamola both said they believed the report was flawed.

“We all need to ensure that we conduct ourselves in a way in which personal ambitions must not override the proper legal and constructive review of the panel report, given that so many legal experts have created doubts about its contents,” Gordhan told the Sunday Times in an interview.

Leaders said to have urged Ramaphosa to stay on include ANC national chair Gwede Mantashe, finance minister Enoch Godongwana, Northern Cape premier Zamani Saul and Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane.

Lamola told the Sunday Times he was “surprised by [the] findings” of the panel, “because from what I have read, the panel had no conclusive evidence”.

He said he could not see how the panel arrived at its findings and recommendations. He added that he believed Ramaphosa should be given a chance to consolidate the work he began in 2018.

“In the past four years the president has led reforms within the economy to create the right climate for investment, [to ensure] that red tape is cut and corruption fought, and that record must not be easily forgotten,” Lamola said.

ANC Mpumalanga provincial secretary Muzi Chirwa said calls for Ramaphosa’s removal were “premature”.

“We have the panel report before us which says the president ‘may have’, and accordingly the president … has not broken any law,” he said.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one of the ministers who consulted with Ramaphosa this week said it was important for him to consider all his options.

“You have to put the country first. This is not just about the president, it’s also about the country. When the rand sinks like it has done during the week, it tells us something is wrong. When people start thinking about leaving the country because of instability, then it’s serious and you have to manage these things in a responsible way,” the minister said.

“On the flipside, you have got people aspiring to his position at the conference,” the minister said, referring to the ANC’s leadership gathering that starts on December 16.

“Whether it’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Paul Mashatile or Zweli Mkhize, for whom this is a short-term thing. For them it’s about getting him out of the way; to them the country does not matter.”

The minister said the evidence of former spy boss Arthur Fraser, who laid the charge against Ramaphosa in June, has not been tested in court.

Attempts to oust Ramaphosa now were opportunism on the part of those “contaminated

When people start thinking about leaving the country because of instability, then it’s serious and you have to manage these things in a responsible way Member of cabinet

by ambitions or grudges that they might have had over time”.

Ramaphosa “has weathered many storms in his life, and this is just but one of them”, the minister said.

While some of Ramaphosa’s close lieutenants closed ranks around him, some senior ANC leaders said they felt vindicated.

One was tourism minister Lindiwe Susulu, one of Ramaphosa’s biggest critics on the Phala Phala matter. She said she would make her views known when the national executive committee (NEC) met tomorrow, but her stance “has not changed”.

Former ANC Women’s League president Bathabile Dlamini, who was found guilty of perjury, said Ramaphosa must “not step aside, he must resign”.

“He has compromised himself, he has compromised the ANC and the country.”

Dlamini said the NEC under Ramaphosa had been turned into a platform for rubberstamping. The structure had the “tendencies of a cult” and the “entire organisation has been made the property of an individual”.

Ramaphosa’s allies are confident that they have convinced him to stay and fight.

They believe they won the first battle at Friday’s NEC meeting where calls for his removal were first made. They believe that when the NEC meeting reconvenes tomorrow Ramaphosa will again emerge victorious.

“The initiative to get rid of Ramaphosa in the first meeting on Friday failed, it died. It was started by the opposition. The Zweli Mkhize and RET [radical economic transformation] group was outmanoeuvred, as always,” said one Ramaphosa sympathiser.

Said another ally: “Cyril is coming to the NEC meeting on Monday. He’s not resigning. He’s contesting [the ANC presidency at the Nasrec conference], and he’s fighting the report.”