Our president has elevated self-sabotage to an art form.
It’s been an interesting year of media attention for South Africa’s president.
Even Gayton McKenzie, our most astute media hog of a politician, could only conjure up halting the DA from using Liam Jacobs… and then putting him to use in the Patriotic Alliance.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, on the other hand, is so far on another level; he’s playing a different game. Here’s a president who has, for the second time this year, elevated self-sabotage to an art form.
In March, he lamented the state of South Africa’s precious Johannesburg, which was under his party’s rule.
More recently, Ramaphosa has declared DA municipalities more successful, a move that you will not find in the ANC political school handbook.
While it is commendable and in some respects true, it is also not the wisest move of President Fear Fokkol. Clearly, he doesn’t fear his own party, which is probably an unwise position to take given how the internal mechanism is very capable of removing his presidency, as has been done to both of his predecessors, once even to his own benefit.
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It’s no secret that the state of South African municipalities is rubbish and that the rubbish is not being picked up. Whether it’s prudent for the president to make that announcement so publicly or to effectively confess that their biggest political competition is doing a more competent job is not something I wish to speculate on.
Of course, it is refreshing that the president would have this element of self-reflection, presumably to improve the state of South African municipal service delivery. We all know, though, and it has been shown by the reaction, that the effect has been a far cry from improving service delivery and more a blowback on the president himself from within his ranks.
I mean, how dare he say that we’re doing a bad job and that our competitors are doing a good job, when we are in fact doing a bad job and our competitors are doing a good job?
Where does he get off making up the story of lacking service delivery? Did the DA pay him off, or is the president just really exhausted by leading a party that can’t deliver on its promises?
At some point, the ego of just maintaining an office has to meet with the inability to affect anything positive from within that office because all the systems and structures that are the foundation of our president’s power seem to crumble. Not even a dramatic drop in voter support during a national election seems to have awoken that realisation.
Perhaps there are sleepless nights amongst the beds of cadres, but while those beds are still laden with 500-thread-count Egyptian cotton, it’s difficult to make peace and admit that, for all your riches, there are many others suffering as a result. It’s much easier to rely on your tinted windows, avoid eye contact and wait for the robot to turn green.
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Predictably, the DA took Ramaphosa’s comments and ran with them. Unfortunately, that was another indication of political selfishness. You’d hope for an olive branch of GNU proportions. The DA could have at least turned around and said ‘let us show you how’.
Problem is that when one thinks of too big to fail, the ANC is up there. So what are the options? A matter of slowly dying out? Surrendering? Turning the ship around? Time will tell!
Though it doesn’t appear that there is sufficient critical mass to turn the ship around without something drastic happening. Is it drastic enough for Ramaphosa to publicly acknowledge that ANC-run municipalities are underperforming? Is it drastic enough to summon all ANC municipal officials to a stadium and have them account for something that may well just have been an email? Or is there more that needs to be done?
If Cyril is willing to haul himself in front of his NEC for making such profound statements, he should go all the way. If he really wants to crucify himself on this, if this is going to be his Golgotha, it’s not going to be enough to move the needle because we know he’ll just be in trouble with his own.
Would he have the courage to pull his party from contesting the next elections under the auspices of reimagining their governance structures so that they can contest again in 2031? That’s a big ask, but one that may be necessary to complete the arc of the self-sacrificing president who finally caught a wake-up call and decided to improve his party for the betterment of South Africa.
If he’s serious, he should offer the country something better, even if it’s not via his own party.
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