Impeachment plot against Ramaphosa dampened

South Africans — and their President Cyril Ramaphosa — were shocked recently to discover that former president Jacob Zuma had secretly met with powerful pro-Zuma elements in the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party in an apparent plot to oust Ramaphosa.

Since then the plot has, as the saying goes, definitely thickened.

While one of the most prominent figures involved in the secret gathering in a Durban hotel, ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule, subsequently denied the anti-Ramaphosa plot, there was high tension in the ruling party’s upper echelons as details emerged.

Much was kept behind closed doors, but a couple of weeks into the affair there was enough “evidence” that Magashule’s weak excuse that Zuma and some known pro-Zuma characters had met with him as part of “normal party business” was hollow.

In consequence, a week ago Magashule was called to explain himself to the party’s top body, its National Executive Committee (NEC).

CORRUPTION

When Ramaphosa won last December’s toughly-contested leadership race there was about an even split on the NEC between pro-Zuma and pro-Ramaphosa forces.

The Ramaphosa faction has since become evermore firmly entrenched, while the Zuma faction has weakened.

This has not, however, stopped the pro-Zuma forces in the NEC and outside of it in the ruling party from doing all they can to create difficulties for Ramaphosa and his anti-corruption drive — especially as the judicial inquiry into “state capture” has proceeded, leaving key players like Magashule exposed and likely targets for prosecution.

The plot was uncovered, apparently accidentally, when Magashule was spotted and photographed alongside Zuma, with outspoken Zuma supporter and ANC Women's League secretary-general Meokgo Matuba and ousted North West ANC chairperson Supra Mahumapelo, outside the hotel where they had just met.

The widely-read Sunday Times newspaper reported that the party figures were meeting to plot a “coup” against Ramaphosa.

STATE CAPTURE

NEC member Jackson Mthembu tweeted: “The alleged clandestine plot, which regrettably includes the SG, comrade Ace Magashule, undermines the unity and renewal efforts of the ANC.”

“He must apologise to ANC members and the nation for plotting against the president,” one NEC member told media outlets.

Those opposing Magashule said the embattled secretary-general — who has already been implicated as a player in state capture in the inquiry into that system of corruption, influence-peddling and patronage which developed under Zuma — would be inevitably weakened after the NEC dressing down.

The previous ANC's NEC meeting had disbanded the party's North West provincial executive committee, ousting Mahumapelo as chairperson.

Both that region’s party executive and Mahumapelo had been openly hostile to the Ramaphosa administration and equally openly pro-Zuma.

However, their positions have been much weakened by wide-scale public violence consequent to grassroots unhappiness among the province’s citizens over inadequate service delivery from ANC-controlled local, regional and national government structures.

TENSION

So bad were the riots that at one point the border crossing into Botswana was closed and Ramaphosa had to cut short an international investor roadshow to rush back to SA to deal with the crisis.

Magashule, as premier of Free State Province, was also openly pro-Zuma before Ramaphosa’s election.

During his premiership, Magashule was among big government spenders on media owned by the Gupta family, which is alleged to be at the heart of state capture.

He has also been implicated in corruption allegations linked to a dairy farm initiative to empower emergent black farmers from which funds were siphoned off, some being used instead, according to leaked Gupta e-mails, for a lavish Gupta family wedding in the luxury resort of Sun City in 2013.

Pro-Ramaphosa forces in the ruling party have been working to weaken Magashule following his election to the party's “top six” group of officials, and want him removed as party secretary-general.

Magashule said no one could remove him as an elected official, but following last weekend’s dressing down, a mealy-mouthed Magashule came out in public this week with an unconvincing public statement in which he claimed the ruling party was unified.

He dismissed reports that there was tension between him and Ramaphosa.

DIVISIVE

Repeatedly using the word “unity”, he said the only “plotting” he would be doing would be with Ramaphosa and other senior ANC leaders against divisions in the ANC, as well as unemployment, poverty and inequality.

He would not allow any “wedge drivers” to come between him and the president, he added.

While the outcome of the NEC meeting disappointed those who had been expecting a possible showdown between Ramaphosa and Magashule, especially after Magashule appeared to have lashed out at Ramaphosa ahead of the SA president’s trip to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly, there was no doubt that Magashule had had to back down, insiders said.

Ramaphosa used the threat of a probable poor showing at elections due early 2019 to call for a halt to further divisive activities.

Before the NEC gathering, Ramaphosa took a swipe at Magashule over the plot rumours when, without mentioning him by name‚ the SA President said at a union gathering that such things were “counter-revolutionary”.

BIAS

Magashule’s supporters in the top echelons of the ANC feel aggrieved that only some ANC members are being targeted by “selective persecution” over corruption, while others, being Ramaphosa supporters, are alleged to have been given “a free pass”. That is what most SA media are reporting.

But the real story, which the Nation can now reveal, is somewhat more complex.

Several key sources have told the Nation that while Ramaphosa is in the Zuma camp’s crosshairs, he is not their first target.

Rather, they are gunning first for Deputy President of both party and state, David Mabuza.

Mabuza was Magashule’s equivalent in Mpumalanga province as premier before last December’s ANC elective conference.

As such he was able to play both pro- and anti-Zuma forces off each other in order to trigger a surprise swing vote for Ramaphosa as party leader, by which time the pro-Zuma camp had already elected Mabuza as deputy party leader.

The pro-Zuma faction in the ruling party is enraged at Mabuza’s “self-serving” tactics.

TARNISHED

While Mabuza is ostensibly in the Ramaphosa camp, he is trusted by neither side and is isolated.

Given his weak performance as provincial leader, and associated allegations of involvement with known gun-wielding characters said to be involved in assorted misconduct and crimes, Mabuza is considered to be highly vulnerable.

The pro-Zuma faction wants to “nail his hide to the wall”, as one player put it.

The plan was only then to go after Ramaphosa. But that is a tough nut to crack, and getting tougher as various commissions of inquiry and legal processes close in on Zuma and his loyalists.

The removal of Mabuza and Ramaphosa would have left Magashule next in line to be SA President, likely plunging the country back into a renewed round of state capture-style antics.

WEAK

It is not clear if the pro-Zuma camp has a clear strategy for attacking Ramaphosa, some sources saying the secret meeting having been intended to map one out.

But the exposure of the plot has dramatically weakened any efforts to unseat him.

On the other hand, as time runs out for those who played lead roles in the state capture project, there is a growing determination driven by desperation to make a move before it’s too late.

“They (the Zuma camp) have everything to lose if they don’t do something quickly — but it’s getting harder all the time. This plot coming out has really weakened them, but as so much is at stake this is certainly not the end of things,” a source in the Ramaphosa faction said.