Strength and weakness share a chair in a South Africa without calm. Last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa got some good news: he was re-elected as leader of the African National Congress (ANC), which he has ruled since 1994, when Nelson Mandela won the first free elections after the racist apartheid regime.
At the party's national conference held on Monday the 19th, the 70-year-old politician prevailed over his rival, former Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, and ensured that he would lead the favored party in the 2024 presidential elections.
It was more than an internal victory. Since there is democracy in South Africa, voting to choose the party leader means de facto knowing who will be the next president of the country since the ANC has won every election with a dwindling but generous margin.
On paper, Ramaphosa emerges stronger from the internal struggle in his party. The reality is different: South Africa is today more unstable than yesterday.
For the South African analyst Martin Plaut, Ramaphosa is in a situation of greater control of the party but comes out of the process in a fragile position due to the corruption scandals that have erupted in recent weeks and have even threatened his political future.
“Ramaphosa –says Plaut in a telephone conversation- was seen socially as Mr. Honest, far from the corruption that had spread and caused the resignation of his predecessor, Jacob Zuma; but everything changed with the Farmgate (Farm-gate)”.
In June, the theft of some five million dollars in cash that the president hid in some sofas on a farm he owned was uncovered. Although the president alleged that it was legal money related to the sale of cattle, he did not dispel doubts about the case or why he had not declared, as required by law, such an amount of foreign currency.
The journalist Marianne Merten, one of the most scathing South African analysts, warned a few days ago that, despite the victory, Ramaphosa should keep his back as the adjustment of several parallel results (other positions of trust in the body are also voted in congress of power of the CNA) announce fissures in the party. "Relief for Ramaphosa but the wolves lurk at the gates of power," she titled one of her latest analysis.
Both Plaut and Merten venture changes in the government at the beginning of the year in an attempt by the South African president to surround himself with loyal pieces that reinforce his figure in a moment of anxiety. It won't be easy. “The noise, the contestation and, yes, the disunity will continue,” Merten wrote.
Ramaphosa's weakness is not only determined by the internal struggle - the faction of ex-president Zuma's allies is still powerful - but also by the social pulse.
“There is a deep disaffection. At the end of apartheid, there was hope that politics could change people's lives,” explains Plaut. Although in many aspects it has improved, distrust in politicians has increased after the corruption scandals and many opt for every man for himself. They think: if they steal, we will steal what we can too”.
That social anger has reached the polls. In the 2021 municipal elections, the CNA obtained, for the first time in its history, less than 50% of the votes.
Although no one doubts that Ramaphosa will win the next elections, there is a slow decline in support for the government party and the scenario of political alliances is beginning to appear on the horizon. Also radical disenchantment: "We are going to see less support at the polls (for the CNA) but also more protests in the streets," says Plaut.
Ramaphosa himself knows that his chances of stabilizing power and getting the country back on track depend on his ability to convince the disillusioned. The first message from him after knowing the results that established him as party leader was for them. “We have clearly realized that the failure to provide basic services in some parts of the country has diminished our people's trust in the CNA,” he said.
After the dark stage of President Jacob Zuma, who left power after nine years of scandals and shadows of corruption, this new episode of division and cross accusations of malpractice in high places deepens social exhaustion with its politicians. There is also fed up and confusion in the main offices of the country.
For the president of the South African Business Union and professor at the Johannesburg Business School Bonan Mohale, the economic sector has lost hope that the rudder shift will come from politics. "If South Africa is ever going to get out of this deep hole it will be because the business sector has decided that it will run the country."
For many, it doesn't work. South Africa is immersed in a deep crisis – it has ceded first place as the largest economy in Africa to Nigeria and Egypt – and has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, with more than 40% unemployed. Among young people, the situation is desperate: 66.5% do not have a job.
Although South Africa has made indisputable progress on human rights since the end of apartheid, inequality threatens the dreams of the rainbow nation, as Archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu dubbed it. In addition to the fact that a third of the 60 million South Africans live below the poverty line, according to the Human Development Index, wealth is still entrenched in the pockets of a few (mostly white). The richest 10% accumulate 71% of the wealth.
With the 2024 election just around the corner, Ramaphosa has work to do.
