KZN and Gauteng unrest: To rebuild SA, cut the rot from the ANC

We are surprised President Cyril Ramaphosa doesn’t wear a neck brace – so often does he have to swivel to see which of his comrades is about to stab him in the back.

After Ramaphosa confirmed on Friday that the violence and looting in KwaZulu-Natal were more than mere criminality, they were evidence of a “failed insurrection”, his defence minister, Nosivciwe Mapisa Nqakula, jumped in to contradict him, assuring the nation that it was merely “a counter revolution creeping in, in the form of criminality and thuggery.”

Going against your political boss, the president of the country, in public is, in itself, indiscipline.

The minister would know that but went ahead anyway … so the question arises, is she throwing in her hand with Ramaphosa’s opponents in an open challenge?

If that is the case, Mapisa Nqakula clearly believes she will have support from some of her Cabinet colleagues.

Judging from the events of this week, then the worrying possibility is that there are those erstwhile Ramaphosa allies who are potential traitors to him.

Ramaphosa’s Cabinet was notable in its absence for the few first days as KZN and Gauteng burned.

While it would be easy to attribute that to incompetence and there is abundant evidence of that in our Cabinet a more probable, but equally ominous, explanation is that the ministers were waiting to see which way the political wind would blow in the wake of the unrest.

Had the Zuma supporting radical economic transformation faction in the ANC looked like succeeding, the president would have faced plenty of long knives.

That is the way of the ANC. That is the way of scavengers who sense blood.

If Ramaphosa and like minded people in the ANC genuinely want to rebuild SA, they have no alternative.

They must cut out the rot from the party and get rid of the rotten.