‘Cyril has lost the plot’

ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa has lost the ANC leadership battle before it begins and is busy trying to cover up his political loss with anti-Zuma bluster, a political analyst has said.

Analyst Sipho Seepe said if Ramaphosa and his supporters had hoped for a different outcome on the motion of no confidence against Zuma at the recent national executive committee meeting, they should just give up.

The NEC said Zuma was not going anywhere, despite numerous calls for him to step down.

“If the Ramaphosa train had hoped for a different outcome, this is certainly a blow. This was apparent in his spirited speech at Cosatu’s central executive committee meeting. The bluster could be seen as an attempt to cover up the sense of loss,” Seepe said.

He said Ramaphosa had embarked on a cowardly anti-Zuma campaign, which he should have directed at his real electoral opponent, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

Reacting to the defeat of the motion of no confidence submitted by ANC policy specialist Joel Netshitenzhe and supported by some NEC members, Seepe said the Zuma opponents in the committee had been “captured by fake news and a false narrative emanating from some in the media”.

“In a sense it believed what it read and became emboldened to try again. The outcome of the NEC meeting simply pointed out that this reading was wishful thinking, if not a serious bout of hallucination.

“The strange thing about political humiliation is that instead of giving up, the victims often try harder and become obsessed. So one can expect a manic response to the weekend political miscalculation. It is a form of saving face,” Seepe said.

He said Ramaphosa had built his entire campaign on a judicial commission of inquiry into state capture, when Zuma had already stated that he was not opposed to such a commission.

Because Zuma had undercut his efforts, Ramaphosa was now trying a new tack that it should not be delayed.

“This is an expression of desperation for someone trained as a lawyer. He should know that the State of Capture report has been taken on a judicial review. For a lawyer, his bluster is embarrassing,” Seepe said.

“Bereft of any policy proposal, Ramaphosa spends most of his campaign casting aspersions at President Zuma. But President Zuma is not running for a third term.

This is a cowardly and sexist approach because he hopes that by attacking President Zuma he is attacking Nkosazana,” he said.

Seepe, a frequent analyst on the Gupta-owned ANN7 channel, said the ANC deputy president’s statements on radical economic transformation showed his political and economic bankruptcy.

ALSO READ: 

//

For more news your way, follow The Citizen on Facebook and Twitter.