The accelerating Phala Phala crisis has taught us to start looking at a future post-Cyril Ramaphosa South Africa.
In the days following the Constitutional Court decision to toss the saga back to parliament, these have been dark times for the president.
And, as the saying goes, in dark times, friends are few. He is no longer the beacon of hope he was to many after defeating Jacob Zuma for the leadership of the ANC – and state presidency – at the Nasrec conference at the end of 2017.
His touted “New Dawn” campaign against corruption – mainly from within the ANC circles, we must never forget – now seems like a cheap PR trick on a naïve and trusting South African population.
Even as he gave the country someone to focus on with his promise to lead us out of the valley of Covid despair, the taxpayer funds provided for desperately needed personal protective equipment were being looted left, right and centre.
In the eight years Ramaphosa has been in office, service delivery – in national government, in provincial administrations and, most shockingly, in towns and cities – has declined precipitously.
That has been the result of the comrades “eating” and through the appointment of favoured, but useless, party cadres to critical posts.
A world post-Ramaphosa, however, raises the bitter irony that, ineffective as he has been, the alternatives may be too ghastly to contemplate.
Worst-case scenario: one day we will look back on the Ramaphosa era and say: “Those were the good old days.”
On the other hand, with him seemingly asleep in the wheelhouse instead of steering the ship of state, South Africa has, in many respects, been meandering aimlessly.
Perhaps what we need – for better or worse – is a thorough shaking up of our politics and to bury the status quo.
