Ramaphosa hides ANC rot behind the struggle credentials of its leaders

As the ANC becomes more and more estranged from ordinary South Africans, it is losing what little ability it had to “read the room.”

And, while not wanting to either speak ill of the dead or despoil a solemn ceremony, it looks like President Cyril Ramaphosa was tone deaf in his eulogy yesterday for the late ambassador to France, Nathi Mthethwa.

He dwelt on Mthethwa’s struggle credentials, calling him a man of integrity who believed in the dignity of all South Africans.

This, just over two weeks after Mthethwa’s name emerged at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry into dodgy dealings between cops and senior politicians.

 Mthethwa fell to his death from the 22nd floor of a Paris hotel not long after the commission claim.

 In the same week Mthethwa was laid to rest, Special Investigating Unit raids confiscated property and supercars worth hundreds of millions of rands from those who allegedly looted money from Tembisa Hospital.

 Even as that was going down, there was an anguished social media post from a wife who said that if the looters had bought just one badly-needed dialysis machine instead of stealing the money, her husband would be alive.

What is that? Dignity, ANC-style?

One wonders if an ANC leader will, one day, be as fulsome in their eulogistic praise for Babita Deokaran, the Gauteng health department whistle-blower murdered for revealing Tembisa truths.

 It was to be expected that Ramaphosa would marshal the ANC’s alleged glorious struggle past – by singling out Mthethewa’s contribution – as a way of perhaps trying to burnish the party’s highly tarnished image.

 However, if he and his comrades were able to read the room, they would realise the hospital looting was a watershed, because it showed the ANC up for what it is.

South Africans do not believe them

 Most South Africans don’t believe a word it, or its leaders, say.

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