Mbeki will probably never forgive Ramaphosa for being Mandela’s first choice

Former president Thabo Mbeki uses quiet diplomacy selectively.

When Robert Mugabe was stealing elections and brutalising Zimbabweans, Mbeki kept mum.

However, when his long-time rival, President Cyril Ramaphosa, is on the ropes, Mbeki makes a noise. Kick a man when he is down, the comrades’ code.

Mbeki will probably never forgive Ramaphosa for being President Nelson Mandela Madiba’s first choice as successor.

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Remember, Ramaphosa chaired the national reception committee which coordinated activities following Mandela’s release in 1990.

Ramaphosa was chief ANC negotiator in settlement talks.

Ramaphosa chaired the Constitutional Assembly and guided the passage of our constitution through parliament.

He was the man of the moment. Yet he was outmanoeuvred by ANC elders and former exiles who anointed Mbeki as presidential heir.

Fast forward to the recent memorial service for ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte, where Mbeki attacked Ramaphosa, accusing him of having no plan.

Mbeki was wrong. Ramaphosa is not short of plans, he is hopeless on implementation.

Mbeki has no room to talk. His plans to deal with HIV/Aids and Zimbabwe tested the bounds of sanity.

And if he had not scuppered Eskom’s capital expansion plans, we wouldn’t have load shedding.

In December 2007, Mbeki apologised: “Eskom was right and government was wrong,” he said.

By then, Eskom was already 10 years behind schedule and we had our first flickerings of load shedding. Mbeki is grandfather to these power blackouts.

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The curse of cadre deployment, which has ruined government departments, municipalities and state-owned enterprises, can also be laid at Mbeki’s door.

Cadre deployment was adopted as ANC policy at the party’s 1997 national conference, where Mbeki was elected president.

He applied it enthusiastically during his 10 years as party leader, setting SA on a downward path.

Perhaps Mbeki thinks that what Ramaphosa announced on Monday is not a plan, even if it revises the Integrated Resource Plan of 2019.

In fact, Ramaphosa’s speech offers hope for a brighter future, where the lights stay on.

The official opposition says much of Ramaphosa’s speech was “straight out of the Democratic Alliance (DA) playbook”.

Indeed, the president did repeat some of the points raised earlier by the DA, with two exceptions.

First, Ramaphosa excluded a “ring-fenced state of disaster in the electricity sector”, which the DA wanted.

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Second, there was no hint the government will “waive preferential procurement requirements e.g. BEE”, which the DA requested.

Black economic empowerment is a fellow traveller of cadre deployment.

So our glimmer of hope for a way out of the load shedding which Mbeki bequeathed us is dimmed by another part of his legacy – jobs and contracts for pals.

To get rid of cadre deployment – and keep the lights on – we must vote out the ANC.

This prospect is more likely after the divisions on display at the KwaZulu-Natal ANC elective conference.

Mbeki’s attack on Ramaphosa was also divisive.

When cadre deployment is buried with the party, SA’s future will be brighter. Panel discussions and solar systems won’t be pie in the sky.

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