We must be told the truth Peter Bruce

Writing about President Cyril Ramaphosa on a Friday, for publication on a Sunday, is a little like falling out of an old biplane flying upside down in the hope that it magically loops down to catch you before you hit the ground.

Most of what I know about Ramaphosa and the theft of $580,000 from his Limpopo game farm I learnt long before the three-person panel appointed by the speaker of the National Assembly reported its findings on Wednesday. The panel was asked by the speaker to decide whether Ramaphosa had a case to answer.

The trio decided he did and that it was a pretty serious case too. Its “finding”, though, could have been written by the same people who accused the president of fraud and corruption, based on hearsay, in the first place. The speaker will on Tuesday, the last day before the break, open a debate on the panel’s report and MPs will then vote whether to hold an inquiry into Ramaphosa that could result in his impeachment.

The independent panel produced a poor report and ignored the rules under which it was operating. It was supposed to find “sufficient” evidence of wrongdoing on Ramaphosa’s part. It found “prima facie” evidence instead. But National Assembly rules state that while MPs can initiate a motion seeking an inquiry based on prima facie evidence, the inquiry itself has to find “sufficient evidence” of misconduct. Still, the report was enough to spark a constitutional crisis for which, as I reported here three weeks ago, we are completely unprepared.

Because he has spent his entire presidency claiming to be fighting corruption, Ramaphosa’s instinct was to resign. Supporters directly dependent on him for their jobs pressed him to stay. The ANC national executive committee (NEC) met on Friday for a whole 30 minutes before abandoning the meeting, basically because no-one knew what was going on.

A mess. Ramaphosa, said the excellent news reporter Govan

Whittles, had been consulting his own faction “outside of party structures”. Whittles had just interviewed ANC treasurer Paul

Mashatile, who would benefit directly from a Ramaphosa resignation. Mashatile told him the mood of the meeting, such as it was, was “urgent”. Impatient. You don’t want to piss off the NEC if you’re Ramaphosa, especially if you might want to stay on. It can remove you by a mere show of hands.

Should he have resigned? It would be good to see the backs of Gwede Mantashe and Ebrahim Patel. But, no, for the moment he has to stay despite his instincts. This is a very private man with an almost secret life. What I want, and what the country wants, is for him, just for once, to account; to subject himself to the impeachment process that may follow.

We want to know what happened. His answers to the panel’s questions were full of holes. And as he required of many people in the wake of the fall of Jacob Zuma, we want to see this president explain himself under real crossexamination. Why did he think he could run a business and occupy the highest office in the land at the same time?

Ramaphosa has by any standards been a disappointment as president. Richard Calland and Mabel Sithole, in their new book, The Presidents, call it well: Ramaphosa “is less than the country needs and deserves, but he may well be the best that the ANC has to offer”.

We all know that he has not been good enough and we all know that even though the polls already have the ANC falling below 50% in 2024, without Ramaphosa the party will fall even further. That may be devoutly to be wished, but not at the cost of the truth.

Ramaphosa will sensibly take the report on review. It won’t survive much scrutiny. Still, we must know what happened. Parliament and the party must somehow insist that Ramaphosa stay where he is and that the impeachment process run its course. Hell, there’s even a fair chance he’d survive it. Accusing him of breaching anti-corruption laws, as the panel did, even though there is no evidence of corruption, is just daft.

But if he tries to resign, it should be rejected. If he tries to run, he should be blocked.

Leaders don’t run away anyway and while the politics of the ANC are fascinating, and while the coming elective conference promises to be wild, the country needs to be calm. This is not the end of the world. These are grim times but the ANC is falling apart. It might not be happening quickly enough, but we must take some comfort from the fact that it is irreversible.

What I want, and what the country wants, is for him, just for once, to account