Ramaphosa’s in a serious predicament

Not many people would want to be in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s shoes right now. Last week, the High Court in Johannesburg ruled that Ramaphosa might carry some blame for the lead-up to the Marikana massacre in 2012.

The judge said a case could be made that Ramaphosa, Lonmin and the South African Police Service colluded in the events that led to the killings.

While the court ruling stopped short of finding them directly responsible for the deaths, it found that Ramaphosa “participated in, masterminded and championed the toxic collusion” between mining company Lonmin, of which he was a director.

But wait, there’s more… The mystery of the burglary on his Phala Phala game farm in Limpopo, where millions were allegedly stolen in 2020 and not reported to the police, still hangs above his head. Add to this the pressure of trying to calm the public’s frustrations and anger due to rising fuel costs and constant load shedding, which is destroying the economy and its businesses, and you soon feel the president’s pain.

Throw in the mudslinging and dirty campaigning within his own political party ahead of this year’s ANC elective conference and who would want to be the president?

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ANC veteran Mavuso Msimang smelled blood this week, saying: “As a head of state, he has an extraneous burden, which makes it extremely difficult to focus on what needs to be done in resolving these issues, as he still has these swords hanging over his head.”

He added: “I really think it would have been good for the leadership of the party to ask him to just move to the side until his problem is resolved and, in his stead, allow somebody else to run the party and, if the party still has majority in parliament, run government.”

ANC veterans have mostly been in support of Ramaphosa. When that support starts to wane and those loyal to him become impatient with his leadership, Ramaphosa will have to find a way to fight back and restore order and confidence in him.