Not entirely a warm welcome home

Yesterday's meeting of the ANC top six officials must’ve surely been an awkward encounter.

The meeting takes place weekly but it is likely that this particular one – loaded as it must have been with hidden resentments and almost certainly with some uncomfortable truths spoken – was the sort of grumpy, difficult type that occurs after a night of heavy indulgence.

In this case those in attendance may well have felt a tad uncomfortable facing each other for the first time after some rather controversial public utterances were made on the weekend past.

For his part the new ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa, fresh from a successful roadshow to the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, has being saying all the right things.

Ramaphosa did not mince his words, telling international broadcasters and potential investors he was very serious about cleaning up South Africa’s sullied image. Fighting corruption and returning the ANC to its glory days are uppermost on his agenda.

Although he may left a few dodgy characters worried the rand was in agreement with him. Our currency rallied to R11.79 against the US dollar by the close of business on Friday – its best performance since 2015.

And around the same time that Ramaphosa was talking about going to the “depths of corruption” and rooting it out, the Hawks were raiding the offices of the new ANC secretary-general, the Free State premier Ace Magashule in Bloemfontein. Also raided were the provincial offices of the department of agriculture.

This was in connection with R218-million which was meant to benefit poor black farmers in Vrede, but instead found landed up in the hands of the Gupta brothers and their associates. It is alleged that it paid for everything from a lavish wedding to buying a new business.

All of this happened on Premier Magashule’s watch in the period that the Gupta stooge and current Minister of Mineral Resources, Mosebenzi Zwane, was the Free State’s MEC for agriculture.

Magashule is no saint. Just like President Jacob Zuma with his son Duduzane, Magashule’s son Tshepiso, is a business associate of the Gupta family and has also been their guest in Dubai.

One does not need to be political scientist to recognise the likelihood of the sons being the proxies of their politically influential fathers.

Magashule was very obviously unhappy about Friday’s Free State raid. He told an ANC Youth League rally in Pietermaritzburg on the weekend that it was part of a ploy to remove him from his position. And he urged his ally, former KwaZulu-Natal ANC chairman Sihle Zikalala to “stay focused on restoring the ANC we know of. It is just a matter of five years as conferences happen every five years. We have to work hard”.

Zikalala’s provincial executive committee (PEC), by the way, was the one that was recently disbanded and replaced by a task team.

Restore which ANC exactly, one must ask?

Clearly Magashule’s comments were directed at Ramaphosa – warning him that he might not be re-elected at the next ANC conference.

But we all now know the kind of ANC Magashule hankers after.

An ANC that allows the Guptas free rein to siphon off more than R1.5-billion in an elaborate corruption scheme that has left our state-owned entities largely bankrupt.

It is the ANC that, under Zuma, apparently gave licence to the Guptas and their cronies to plunder the agricultural resources of the Free State.

Predictably another top six member – one with close family links to the Guptas – also made controversial comments this weekend.

Magashule’s deputy Jessie Duarte told City Press that Zuma would only be leaving office next year when his term officially ends. And, she sought to dismiss Ramaphosa’s comment from Davos – that Zuma was “anxious” – as just the new ANC president “probably expressing his own views on the matter”.

Whilst Ramaphosa has been clear – Zuma must not be “humiliated” – frank discussions about his continued tenure have been taking place at top levels of the ANC.

So, while Ramaphosa surely returned invigorated and determined to get on with the business of making South Africa work again, the utterances by Magashule and Duarte will frustrate and undermine such efforts.

However, he seems to be in control of all of the ANC’s top structures – the top six officials, the national working committee and the national executive committee.

In Limpopo on Sunday the ANC deputy president, David Mabuza, told a gathering of the governing party faithful that Ramaphosa could always count on his support.

Fortunately Ramaphosa is not beholden to anyone as he was elected by a mixture of delegates, not just a faction. But it is evident that he has a fight on his hands and that the Zumas, the Guptas and the Magashules of the world will not easily let go.

For this reason Zuma must be recalled without delay. If this does not happen, Ramaphosa’s words will increasingly ring hollow and he will be seen as an emasculated leader with artificial power.

He has one option only – to forge ahead with his fight against corruption, regardless of who is implicated, regardless of the threats implicit in Magashule and Duarte’s statements.

He will have all corruption loathing South Africans (that is the majority) right behind him.

Sibusiso Ngalwa is the editor of the Dispatch