Zondo pulls the rug from Ramaphosa

We’re stuffed. It’s the devil and the deep blue sea dilemma on an epic scale. It is difficult to imagine any president in any democracy, could survive the scathing assessment by the nation’s chief justice of his integrity and ability. And it leaves South Africa in an existential dilemma of tragic proportions.

If President Cyril Ramaphosa were to resign or be ousted now – as seems possible – the criminal gangs identified in the Zondo commission’s previous findings again immediately seize control of the state and resume their plunder.

Even worse, they would also ensure that, as with Zimbabwe, which the cadres so admire, no democratic election would take place in SA in the foreseeable future to interrupt their criminality.

South Africans could not have expected much of the final report of the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, headed by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo.

ALSO READ: Ramaphosa won’t respond to anything in final state capture report just yet

In its earlier findings, it had already exhaustively and convincingly detailed the depth of corruption. Unfortunately, the processes of accountability and punishment, despite the mantras of police and judicial independence, are largely determined by political, not legal, decisions.

So, in terms of Zondo, we should have no expectations of a public culling of ANC leaders who did nothing more reprehensible than feathering their nests.

To assess the ultimate value of the commission, one needs to decide whether the Ramaphosa ANC, the “good” ANC, is dealt with in the same manner that Zondo torpedoed through the Zuma ANC, the “bad” ANC.

In other words, whether the commission accepted at face value several implausible statements by Ramaphosa during his two appearances before it. A key issue was cadre deployment. Speaking with uncharacteristic passion, Ramaphosa pleaded with Zondo not to find against the party’s deployment practices.

A second key issue was the president’s explanation of his silence about state looting while serving as Zuma’s deputy. His “say nothing, do nothing” approach was motivated not by complicity but was a canny strategy to “resist abuses” but without being “confrontational”, he said. Zondo wasn’t taken in. He deftly skewers Ramaphosa, delivering another blow to a president already under pressure from allegations of personal involvement in criminality, arising from the Farmgate scandal.

While he never directly accuses Ramaphosa of lying, he notes repeatedly that he fails to answer directly the commission’s questions. Zondo questions the “effectiveness” of Ramaphosa’s decision to remain within the state and party: “We must ask ourselves whether [state capture] could not have been arrested sooner if powerful people, like President Ramaphosa, had been willing to act with more urgency.”

ALSO READ: State capture: Ramaphosa’s silence made him complicit, Zondo finds

Zondo scoffs at Ramaphosa’s repeated statements that the ANC had “drawn a line in the sand” against corruption. Ramaphosa “offered no real analysis or explanation” why these promises, made many times in the past 20 years, had failed and might now succeed: “He only stated that it is better late than never.”

Turning to ANC cadre deployment, Zondo found it was clear from minutes that the committee “does not always merely make recommendations but in fact often instructs” and that appointing authorities “including Cabinet” are de facto bound by [its] decisions”.

However, if Ramaphosa – whatever his dismal catalogue of failings, he is no a despot-in-waiting – doesn’t survive until such an election is held, it probably does not matter how the people vote. The fix will be in, Zimbabwe style.