‘Rambo-phosa’ will have to hope his voters remain gullible

Bundle out the sick, the halt and the lame. Best of all, herd out the mentally challenged, for those are the ones that the politicians love best. It’s election time.

President Cyril Ramaphosa is putting on his smiley face and is out there, being as resolutely the man of the people as it is possible for a billionaire to be.

The in-your-face nature of electoral campaigning is something of a change for Ramaphosa.

He last engaged up close and personal with the great unwashed almost three years ago, soon after he won the leadership by a short head against Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

Ah, those heady days of the “new dawn”, he surely remembers them with nostalgia.

Ramaphosa would go for his daily trundle along the Sea Point promenade or along a street in Soweto. The citizenry of all hues and party convictions would run next to him, cheering and ululating – all overcome with emotion at the narrow escape from a Zuma dynasty.

It didn’t last long. Mass hysteria rarely does.

But elections change everything. Despite his uninspiring performance over the past three years, Ramaphosa remains the only saleable face of the ANC.

Judging from his reception in Soweto last weekend, this might be changing. Everywhere he went, Ramaphosa was met by voluble complaints about the ANC’s performance.

Mutinous mutterings, including voetsek, were heard for the first time in his presidency.

TimesLIVE reports that the president and his party “were shown the middle finger by residents who said they feel the party only cares when it’s time for elections”.

The report then quotes several angry people railing about rampant crime and, a particular bone of contention, about not having electricity.

Seizing the moment, Ramaphosa slipped into a steaming pit toilet to emerge in full-throated Rambo-phosa mode. He would save Soweto, he promised.

Electricity, he declaimed, would be “priority number one” as a result of his visit.

“Please do not lose hope, I will personally supervise that they solve this issue. If you do not vote, all of the issues you have raised will not be addressed because another party will be in charge and they will not address your concerns.”

There are at least three things about this little electoral vignette which are worth remarking upon.

First is the president’s skin-crawlingly patronising tone towards his constituents.

If a Democratic Alliance politician spoke in this manner to voters, he or she would deservedly be excoriated.

The second is the degree to which the president and the ANC appear to be remote from an understanding of the depth of problems in South Africa.

How can Ramaphosa apparently not know about the electricity problems in Soweto?

The third is the president evading the real reasons behind Soweto’s power problems. By far the most common reason for an area being cut off is because of cable theft, illegal connections and nonpayment for services.

Barely a fifth of Soweto residents pay their electricity bills. After a giant Eskom write-off of almost R8 billion in October last year, Soweto was left owing about R13 billion.

An additional R7 billion of Eskom debt has been incurred, so far, this year.

Ramaphosa’s promises to Soweto are rash and dangerous politicking.

What he is saying, in effect, is that free electricity will be provided to delinquent ANC voters at the cost of everyone else in South Africa.

It’s a promise the president knows he shouldn’t and cannot keep.

It will be revealing to see on 1 November whether the electorate is as credulous as he judges it to be.