David Makhura at the Breakfast Business and South African Chapter Launch of the Africa Economic Leadership Council (AELC) at Sandton on 5 April 2022. Photo: The Citizen/Nigel Sibanda
Is it unfair to refer to outgoing Gauteng premier David Makhura as the “invisible man” of South African politics?
He certainly didn’t stand out in a field already characterised by mediocrity nor did he ring the changes in the country’s richest province.
What he did seem to have done, and quite effectively too, is ensure that the province – which was initially pushing a “third-way” approach to politics between Cyril Ramaphosa and Jacob Zuma – was gradually won over for Ramaphosa.
That loyalty to Ramaphosa appears to be paying off for the unassuming Makhura who, we report today, is apparently headed for Cabinet.
More confrontational and in the public eye has been the way Makhura’s successor, former provincial education MEC Panyaza Lesufi, has gone about his politics.
He has the uncanny ability to crop up at moments of crisis in schools, with a quote at the ready for cameras and journalists… although the jury is out on whether his “interventions” really made much of a difference.
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He is, though, said to be loyal to Ramaphosa – although not as blindly as Makhura.
Lesufi is known to be ambitious and he represents, even at age 54, the “youth” movement in the ANC.
Yet, at the same time, he is in no position to yet challenge the ANC’s “old guard” which, whether Ramaphosa likes it or not, includes him as president.
Like most career ANC politicians, Lesufi has no option other than the party for his livelihood and, like most of his long-term comrades, has a well-developed ability to sense which way the wind is blowing politically and alter his own course to take advantage of that wind.
Currently, that wind is filling the sails of the Ramaphosa-ship and pushing it toward victory at the end-of-the-year conference.
Lesufi is unlikely to jump overboard now.
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