Jacob Zuma meets his match in Cyril Ramaphosa

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has been a man on a journey, since he became aware of his political animal instincts. At only 65 years and fabulously wealthy, the world can only be his oyster – barring a catastrophe or a political tsunami on the South African political terrain in the next 14 months or so.

After plotting for many years on how he was going to weave himself back into mainstream ANC politics, Ramaphosa finally captured the party presidency in December 2017, in a battle royale that pitted him against former President Jacob Zuma’s powerful former wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, an influential personality in the ANC ranks and who had also worked overtime to entrench herself among the party honchos.
Ramaphosa, in his fight to capture the party presidency, scraped through the skin of his teeth, when he defeated Dlamini-Zuma by less than 400 votes.

Ramaphosa, a political street fighter, immediately knew he was not in a good place: He had come off with visible scars. True, he had won the party’s top seat, but many of his troops had been walloped. His political animal instincts told him this was not the time to rest on his laurels. He let the December holiday season come and go unperturbed.

RETURNING A COMPLIMENT

As he caressed his bruises, he planned an ambush and a trap for Zuma: It is one of the tactics he had perfected when he was in the trenches, in the trade union movement, as the secretary-general of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in the 1980s.

Yet, also, Ramaphosa knows how to return a compliment – he remembered to pay Zuma in kind, when he ousted him last week as the state president.

As soon as Ramaphosa had defeated Dlamini-Zuma, a protégé of President Zuma, he understood that he could not wait for too long before he completely finished off his opposition that was still lurking within, as long as Zuma remained the president, hence giving Ramaphosa’s enemies succour and room to destabilise his hard-won party presidency.

To finish off his enemies within, he had to go straight for Zuma – and like a predator that had cornered its prey, Ramaphosa went for the kill: It was the classic jugular strangling. Zuma was never going to recover from it. The ambush had been timed well. It was a guerilla move. With the disabling of Zuma, Ramaphosa was finally able to look at Zuma in the eye and as he was collapsing, he must have whispered to him: “Thabo Mbeki sends his greeting.”

CHARMER AND WILY DANCER

In 2009, Zuma, at the apex of his political career, influence and power in the inner sanctum of ANC, pulled a surprise on President Mbeki – just like Ramaphosa ambushed him last week – and dethroned a disbelieving Mbeki at the poisonous Polokwane. Mbeki left, before his term ended, unceremoniously with his head bowed into the horizon.

Zuma, a charmer and wily dancer – of the letha umshini wami (bring my machine gun) fame even in his old age – stabbed Mbeki in the back, and even let the knife stay there for some political effect. President Mbeki, sophisticated and a public intellectual, was confident and sure of himself, and in his tepid cynicism of political brinkmanship and machinations, could not see just how his deputy could pull a fast one on him, let alone plot against him and, therefore, could not stop the fatal blow when it arrived.

To be sure, Zuma, also just like Ramaphosa, was adept at political street fights and was schooled in the art of political survival – otherwise, he could not have survived that long in the treacherous world of (ANC) politics. Zuma’s political gut feelings are legendary – like those of a wild cat.

TRADITIONAL MID-SET

But in Ramaphosa, he met his match. But that ends their similarities. Zuma, a Zulu from Kwazulu-Natal (KZN), is of the traditional mind-set. Having received little formal education, he nonetheless compensated for that with cunning and being street-smart and joining the anti-apartheid struggle in his youth, where he honed his political genius and instincts. A man steeped in the Zulu tradition, like that of marrying multiple wives for example, he could not resist the urge of his forefathers to equally replenish his marriage stable with many women and children.

Like the early anti-apartheid veterans, such as Ahmed Kathrada, Govan Mbeki, Joe Slovo, Nelson Mandela, Ruth First, Ronnie Kasrils and Walter Sisulu, Zuma slipped into exile, where he continued the fight. A good organizer and mobiliser, ANC found in Zuma a man full of gusto and ready to confront the Apartheid juggernaut. So, like the score of ANC rebels in exile, Zuma came back ready to serve in the top echelons of the ANC party ranks. It was not a surprise that he scaled the political heights to reach the zenith of his anti-Apartheid struggle career.

URBANE AND COSMOPOLITAN

Ramaphosa is the representative of the home-grown anti-Apartheid rebels who never left the country, like Steve Biko, whose life was snuffed early in the struggle – he was only 31 years when the Boers killed him. A smart fellow from a minority ethnic community, the Venda from the north of South Africa, Ramaphosa received a good university education, culminating in a law degree. Urbane and cosmopolitan, Ramaphosa, nevertheless, enmeshed himself in the anti-Apartheid struggle, serving as a legal adviser to the mineworkers – the single largest paid labour workforce of Black Africans, who could be easily mobilised to fight the Boers.

As he lays the groundwork for his ultimate goal, that of leading South Africans as their president in 2019, Ramaphosa will be clever to consolidate and marshall his troops in a final onslaught, as he navigates the political minefield, beyond the ANC intra-party fights. This is in view of the fact that the opponents from without have promised Ramaphosa that it will not be a walk in the park, as he looks to be voted by a majority of South Africans, in what promises to be a contest not witnessed since the country gained independence a quarter of century ago in 1994.

Mr Kahura is a senior writer for 'The Elephant', a Nairobi-based publication. Twitter: @KahuraDauti