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President Cyril Ramaphosa and Vice President David Mabuza. (Photo: Waldo Swiegers / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Amid all the politicking in the ANC and the storm of letters, both leaked and ‘open’, one person has been relatively silent. And yet, the future actions of Vice President David Mabuza could be the best indicator / decisive of SA’s future.
Vice President David Mabuza speaks quietly these days and not very often. As someone who can be regarded as a person of ambition, and being the next (constitutionally speaking) in line for the presidency, this makes his future plans difficult to pin down. His tendency to become more obscure about himself will lead to increasing questions about his loyalty, his aptitude for service, and a longer-term agenda. However, his behavior so far has been no different than other vice presidents before him. The moment you change course, if it ever happens, will be very important.
Being vice president in our system can be a bit of an unsatisfied position. It is named by the person who won the last ANC conference and is usually seen by that same person as a threat. Usually, duties that are not exactly fun, and away from cameras, are assigned to Number Twos: Jacob Zuma put Cyril Ramaphosa in charge of fixing Eskom, e-tolls and Lesotho; Thabo Mbeki put Zuma in charge of the Moral Regeneration Movement, which to many seemed somewhere between a vicious joke and outright cruelty. And while everything you say is watched for signs of future ambition, doing nothing in office would be a waste of time and political power.
In Mabuza’s case, things are even more messy for two important reasons.
The first is that he hardly spoke in public even when he was prime minister of Mpumalanga and ran the province as a personal fiefdom, while his enemies have spoken many times, airing strong claims of corruption against the future vice president of SA. As most of his movements have been done behind closed doors, it is difficult to get a first-hand understanding of his actions and beliefs, if any.
And then there are the persistent rumors that Mabuza is seriously ill.
On Monday he tried to refute these rumors. “I got sick for a month, simply because of my health. She was in the good hands of the country’s doctors. So I came back, my health situation is improving so I am thankful that I survived. Some of our people were circulating information that I’m dead, well, I’m still alive. Of course, it was a very difficult situation … if you are sick, it is not an easy situation. “
He didn’t say anything else about his health, which opens the door for speculation. The nature of his “condition” is unknown. But he has said in the past that he was poisoned and received treatment in Russia for it. Many will assume that this incident is related to that. And since you are surely receiving the best medical treatment available in South Africa, that means you are suffering from a serious illness.
This will always raise questions about whether you really have ambitions for the top position. Rightly or wrongly, your enemies will use you against you, who will ask if it is right to choose someone who is not healthy enough to do what needs to be done.
One of the most fundamental questions about Mabuza is the question of where he really stands: does he support Ramaphosa’s campaign to “clean up” the ANC, or not, and is this just a maneuver to get to the top?
Here, his own history and claims against him from his time in Mpumalanga (which once appeared in the cover of The New York Times) lead to cynicism about his suitability as an enthusiastic supporter of any movement aimed at stopping or preventing corruption.
Certainly, by his own account, during Monday’s ANC briefing, Mabuza is far behind Ramaphosa. He summarized the situation like this:
“From where I am sitting, I can say that the ANC has done well since Nasrec, to date. Of course, you will find that in between we take a few steps forward and sometimes we take a few steps back.
“But overall, I think the president has led the ANC very well to date, given all the challenges we had before and after Nasrec. And I have to congratulate the umpires for sticking together in really tough conditions, well I can see it’s tough sometimes. Everything was influenced by our environment, I can tell you that the media was not very helpful … “
(It’s ALWAYS the media’s fault, of course – Ed.)
What may well be key in his comments is his strong declared support for Ramaphosa. He surely sees that the president is important to the public image of the ANC, and that without him the party could find itself in a difficult position. His support also suggests that he would not back any movement against Ramaphosa.
(Stephen, you know history is full of people who were able to stab a leader in the back, but only because they were behind them at the time – Ed.)
But Mabuza’s comment on how he should “congratulate officials for sticking together” is fascinating.
It is not necessarily true that senior officials have stuck together. At least three times the officials appear to openly differ from Secretary General Ace Magashule. The first was Magashule truly puzzling interpretation of an NEC statement on the “quantity reduction”, the second was when it issued a statement condemning the publication of the book about him, Gangster status by Daily maverickPieter-Louis Myburgh himself. The third case was Magashule’s statement, issued on ANC letterhead, that Derek Hanekom was a “wedge driver”, which was later returned by ANC officials.
Cyril Ramaphosa loses third power play to Ace Magashule in less than two weeks
All of this has happened in less than three years. To suggest then that they have “stuck together” certainly seems false. But no more than so many other political comments we’ve seen in recent times.
Mabuza also said Monday afternoon:
“And I’m sure the president is a great help, we are grateful that he is doing everything in his power to really bring the organization together. Of course, with the help of the officials, and I am sure that, later on, we will win this one, although difficult.
“It is difficult, but we are going to win it, it is our mission and I think we are up to the task.”
Once again, Mabuza seems to be saying, within the haze of generic terms, that he is completely behind Ramaphosa.
And then again, on Thursday, while answering questions in a Zoom session of the National Council of Provinces, Mabuza was asked about corruption.
He immediately got behind Ramaphosa, saying, “the money was embezzled, the president has talked about this … we need to build very strong institutions, we need to support the NPA, all its police institutions.”
And then, in a stronger tone, he said: “And it is quite clear that since the advent of democracy we have seen this element of corruption grow. And this probably presents us with an opportunity to take our time and strengthen these institutions to decisively tackle corruption. Otherwise, corruption can destroy all the achievements we have made as a country and as a nation. “
These are hard-hitting comments and exactly what the voters who are watching may want to hear. Certainly one can imagine Ramaphosa nodding as the comments were made.
All of this perhaps points to Mabuza’s main political problem. In order for you to be successful in your senior role, you need the ANC to be a functioning political entity. In other words, you need the party to remain united (as far as possible) and not divide further.
At the same time, he no longer enjoys the full control of the ANC in Mpumalanga that he used to have, simply because he is no longer there full time.
This may mean that he needs Nasrec’s divisions to continue recovering, and to find a way to defuse current tensions and stay in office in the meantime. And for the moment he seems to believe that the best route to achieve this is through the continuation of Ramaphosa’s presidency.
At the same time, it might actually be weaker than it was before. His power (the source of which was only his willingness to betray the “Premier League” and that the branches he controlled in Nasrec made the difference between the factions) is possibly diminishing slightly. The pre-Nasrec factions are not as well defined as they used to be, and certainly the “RET” faction seems to be in the rear.
So, for the moment, Mabuza’s safest option is to be a loyal and public supporter of Ramaphosa.
Ramaphosa: Support for Minister Gordhan
This has happened before. Zuma supported Mbeki and Ramaphosa was exaggerated in his praise of Zuma, although he no longer reads his letters. In these relations, the key moment was when the deputy first opposed the president. For Zuma, this moment was his refusal to resign as vice president of the ANC after Shaik’s trial in 2005. For Ramaphosa, it was probably the moment when he offered his political and personal support to then Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in 2016.
The key indicator to watch out for then is any public suggestion that Mabuza is no longer fully behind Ramaphosa on any issue. That would be a sign of changing winds.
And while that could be a long time in the future, “El Gato” may believe that he still has several lives to wait for. DM
