What is ANC’s plan B if Ramaphosa goes?

It’s now a life or death footrace. Which will collapse first, the ANC or SA?

The longer that the ANC thrashes around in its protracted death throes, the more likely it is that the country will be fatally injured.

The sooner that the ANC splits, the better SA’s prognosis for survival.

There are positives to the reputational thrashing the president is getting.

One of them is that it invalidates the convenient narrative of this being a battle between a noble ANC, represented by Cyril Ramaphosa, and a villainous one, represented by Jacob Zuma.

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They are sides of the same coin. This is a difficult situation for the ANC’s dwindling old guard.

Rambo-phosa’s flexed-biceps posturing as a corruption buster has left him hoist lethally high on his own petard.

As an analysis on Polity put it: “Ramaphosa has made no serious attempt to uproot perpetrators of Zumaism from high office and end their practices. It is beyond question that widespread corruption has endured … many departments continue to be dysfunctional.”

This is so self-evident as to be almost trite, were it not that it comes from Raymond Suttner, a lifelong ANC cadre who spent 11 years in jail or under house arrest.

Suttner, an emeritus professor at the University of Johannesburg, has always been a supporter of Ramaphosa.

Acting outside the law “has become the norm”, writes Suttner.

The crumbling of governance and morality has caused “an extraordinary crisis” with the potential for the “disintegration or collapse of the state”.

Of course, Suttner, an old white man, doesn’t carry much clout in the new ANC.

However, it seems that more of those whom Ramaphosa likes to call “our people” – black Africans, probably party members but certainly, historically, party supporters – are losing their faith.

Kaizer Nyatsumba, a former newspaper editor, wrote on BusinessLIVE that despite Ramaphosa’s notorious weaknesses as a leader, he was “the torchbearer in the fight against corruption … our last hope against wholesale turpitude”.

But, “all that is left now is the timing and manner of his departure”.

Cyril’s refusal to provide any explanation as to what happened on his farm two years ago has eroded the confidence of many supporters.

Cheryl Carolus, a former party secretary-general and a Ramaphosa supporter, gives short shrift to this tactic.

She has called on the president to “come clean” and said the “full might of the law” must be used to get answers.

Last week, EFF leader Julius Malema called on Ramaphosa to step down, otherwise there would be dire consequences.

“I want to warn the president. There is more. There is more where money in dollars is counted in a plane. Let them continue to push [Arthur] Fraser. There is more.”

This week, Fraser was once more burnishing his good citizen credentials with a follow-up visit to the Hawks, with supposedly more information about Farmgate.

The issue for the ANC’s spooked reformists is probably no longer whether Ramaphosa goes, but how long his departure can be delayed to implement plan B, if there is one.

When the December leadership conference takes place, they need to have a credible alternative candidate, otherwise the party is heading towards oblivion.