SA President Ramaphosa’s criminal case and Mantashe’s glaring conflation of party and state matters

By: Clyde N.S. Ramalaine

– SA Presidency stepping down call must not be made subservient to ANC stepping aside practices and rules –

An observation in the Dinokeng Scenarios publication defines the conflation between party and State as a South African experience with the following words.

“The conflation between leader, party, government and State in the [ANC] ruling party discourse creates a sense of hierarchy and arrogance that is disconcerting. The roles of leader of the ruling party and leader of government are distinct, and the President of the Republic should represent all citizens in the country, regardless of political affiliation.”

South Africa is in more than a crisis with the recently opened case against its President Cyril Ramaphosa. Its constitutional head’s mindless self-interest demands a zillion questions about his fitness to continue leading SA with any claim of legitimate morality. The multiple counts constituting a case Ramaphosa has to answer daily crystallize in our discourse. Former Intelligence boss Arthur Fraser in a 12-page affidavit supported by 26 pages of annexures, photos, WhatsApp messages, and relevant information, corroborates his testimony. While the captured Ramaphosa-friendly journalists tell us Ramaphosa is smooth sailing into a second term, they did not know he would be stepping down six months ahead of the ANC’s 55th Conference. It will take extraordinary gymnastics of a particular kind on the part of the NDPP Shamila Batohi not to soon prosecute President Ramaphosa.

In the aftermath of Fraser registering a criminal case against Ramaphosa, the ANC NWC sat for its usual weekly meeting on Monday. This meeting could not escape the unfolding serious allegations levelled against its President, also the President of South Africa. In this meeting, Tony Yengeni suggested that President Cyril Ramaphosa appear before Parliament’s ethics committee and step aside to allow space for investigations to continue without any perceptions of interference.

At this instance, ANC Chairperson Gwede Mantashe unilaterally dismissed the call. Mantashe used the fact that there is currently no ANC report to warrant the engagement of what Yengeni is proposing. I wanted to applaud Mantashe since what he contended for could be framed around standard party practices. Mantashe did the same a few months ago when NEC member Derek Hanekom called for his fellow NEC member Lindiwe Sisulu’s head for her; Hi Mzansi, have we seen justice yet, an opinion piece. Also, one cannot sacrifice justice in the haste of seeking an immediate decision without a standard report. This argument in the context of a political party is more than fair. However, it simply does not automatically apply to the State.

The adage goes, history repeats itself, the first in a farce, the second in tragedy. We thus need to appreciate that it is not the first time Mantashe though in different positions, ventures into this logic and perhaps self-serving justice quest. It is not the first time Mantashe abused his National Office Bearer’s position, glaringly conflating party and State in his chakalaka interpretation of the ANC and South Africa. Let us, therefore, jog our collective memories.

In 2016 when former State Official Themba Maseko dared to make the first claims of “state capture,” then ANC SG, Gwede Mantashe, invited people with similar allegations to come and report it to the ANC. Mantashe asked for ANC members and leaders in possession of any information to report such to the ANC. By extension, his then SGO since then occupied office as Secretary-General.

Following a lacklustre response, SG Mantashe eventually issued a report that the invitation as extended harvested in total only eight people, of whom one [Maseko] made a written statement. Mantashe thus closed the file, concluding there was no ‘state capture,’ at least as a direct result of his office’s responses as per the invitation. The logic of Mantashe then was that members are free to report to the relevant authorities. The error of Mantashe’s thinking lies in the fact that he knew the ANC by no means presides over any investigative infrastructure and capacity. Yet, he still wanted to make the organisation the departure point of an investigation that falls outside the preview of the same. Beyond most, the confluence of party and State could, in the ‘logic’ of Mantashe’s ANC, be this embedded practice eclipsed only by its brazen, bold, and very public demonstration.

The most logical and sensible thing to do was to refer all to report what they knew to the relevant state structures, which means encouraging them to make affidavits signalling their complaints to the appropriate and suitable law enforcement agencies. Instead, a political party’s Secretary-General (SG) took it upon himself to pretend to investigate and pronounce, bereft of the necessary infrastructure, authority, and capacity on matters of the State. This misplaced and confused logic appropriated a right far beyond his purview and in direct breach of legislation.

It was thus not strange that Mantashe would repeat this illogic because he evidently got away with it once and had learned nothing yet from his ANC organisational led 2016 State Capture forays that attest to a conflation of party and State. So entrenched is his confidence in this illegal confluence that in this week’s NWC meeting, the former SG, now chairperson, firmly transposed his President’s urgent and grave legal processes away from the State and into the fold of party politics.

In response to NEC member Yengeni’s justified sane request for a precautionary suspension pending swift investigation of the President, Mantashe rose to squash any such request for reasonable due process and insisted that there is no report substantiating the entertainment of what Yengeni raised. Perhaps the error on Mantashe’s part in this instance is his reading of Yengeni’s legitimate call through the lens of ANC factional politics mind.

Mantashe’s illogic renders anything that occurs outside the ANC structures as not applicable to the ANC unless the ANC instigates its own investigation. Despite a criminal case with serious allegations that inculcates several spheres was opened for Mantashe means absolutely nothing. What is cause for grave concern is how out of touch the chairperson of the ANC is with society. What do we mean when we say Mantashe conflates and subjugates State matters to party processes. Arthur Fraser did not lay charges against an ANC president but the leader of an executive in a constitutional democracy defining the State. His case nowhere cites Ramaphosa, the ANC president but a State President. Therefore, reducing the state president to the conveniently narrow ANC president is an act of disingenuity plausibly convenient and potentially with personal political interest at its centre. When corruption allegations surfaced against Minister of Health Zweli Mkhize while he was not charged, this ‘superior’ logic of Mantashe was nowhere present.

Mantashe and the Cyril faction, who in spirited fashion rallied around Ramaphosa in this NWC meeting, fail to appreciate that beyond self-interest politics, cited pertinent legalities raised in the allegations against the SA President, some of which he, in multiple statements directly and indirectly acknowledged, stands the office of a State president. It is office direct by an oath that necessitates him to discharge his duties and responsibilities as the head of State. Note not as President of the ANC.

Even if his faction could continue to rely on their majority in the NWC and NEC to undermine ventilation and action concerning the seriousness of the allegations he stands confronted with, this matter is entirely one for the Republic. The ANC is not the Republic, meaning it is not even in the purview of the factional Integrity Committee from which Mantashe’s logic hopes to harvest an investigation report that will decide his fate. It will be constitutional organs and the citizens of South Africa who increasingly do not vote ANC. The case is against the one who occupies Mahlamba Ndlopfu and Tuynhuis, not Luthuli House.

Mantashe thus, either ignorantly or deliberately for party political reasons, render Luthuli House superior to the office of an SA presidency. In this position as President of South Africa, he is the custodian of law and order. The first citizen of South Africa. The President represents the embodiment of the cumulative aspirations and values of the citizens. This constituency of South Africa must now contend with its President as an alleged violator of law and order as the Fraser allegations lead.

Whatever the ANC political undercurrents, it is of little relevance to the imperative to impress upon the President to maintain the decorum of the highest office of the land by vacating it pending the investigations by multiple agencies of the State. Every day he continues as Head of State is a day harming the governance project. We need an astute leader to curb corruption, turn the economy around, improve our standing among nations, and build the society that South Africans deserve.

Calling for Ramaphosa to step down from his position as SA president is not automatically congruent or equal to asking him to step aside, the latter informed by applying ANC resolutions and policies. The latter can easily be manipulated for whatever reasons and be subjected to the notions of ‘balance of forces.’ Unfortunately, the initial (SA Presidency) has nothing to do with any ‘balance of forces. It pertains to the cold reality of a president that stands criminally accused of defeating the ends of justice. In the manifestation of plausible counts, the details of that claim include contravening the FIC Act on cash, contravening foreign currency regulations, flouting PRECCA, kidnapping, bribery, and Tax evasion. Additional counts include concealing crimes of a robbery, repurposing his Presidential Protection Unit Head Major-General Wally Rhode to get involved in undercover investigations that extended into a neighbouring country, Namibia, and interrogating suspects in the crime of the robbery. Claims of interrogation supposed true would also include a woman who happens to be Ramaphosa’s domestic worker. Therefore, the last mentioned may translate to gender-based violence in the instance of the domestic worker. He bribed all alleged perpetrators, each with an R150K for their silence. Lastly, he potentially may have paid Rhode too.

Lest we forget in 2017 how Gwede Mantashe, while seeking to ensure he is on the Ramaphosa ticket in the laziness of assessment yet maximum arrogance, told ANC and SA people Ramaphosa is rich, he will not steal from SA. This disingenuity is also advanced by Ramaphosa when he, in obduracy, remonstrates he did not steal from the State. He uses this to justify the slew of crimes. The facts are that Ramaphosa never declared the stolen money as income to SARS. If he did not declare this income and its origins, he necessarily stole money that SARS would have earned, so this argument of him not having stolen any state money is also a fallacy and cheap deflection. Tax evasion is theft from the state coffers.

The fundamental reason why Ramaphosa must step down from leading South Africa is that he had already committed to subject himself to law enforcement agencies in their investigations. The problem is that Ramaphosa, as Commander of Charge, is in charge of the military and the police. Any investigation by the police cannot escape him as the head thereof. His ongoing presence in the position of Commander in Charge renders the investigation subservient and questionable for ulterior influence to his benefit. Thus the only way any actual investigation can run its cause is to have him absent from the SA presidency office to afford investigations in free and fair spaces.

Legal analyst and scholar Paul Ngobeni asks a pertinent question. “Did President Ramaphosa violate PRECCA nu not reporting the crime to the right police official? As amended by the South African Police Service Amendment Act, 2012 (ACT 10 of 2012), reporting should be made to a police station in the DPCI in terms of Section 34 (1) of PRECCA. As the Head of PPU, Rhode was not a police officer in the DPCI. The matter was deliberately reported to a wrong police official for the purpose of covering it up.” Paul Ngobeni

Subjecting SA to the questionable, easily manipulated politics of an Integrity Commission is not just disingenuous but insulting to our intelligence. We all know how this IC treats some and how it bows before others. So as citizens, we take no interest if Ramaphosa goes to the IC or not. It is not a prerequisite for us to insist on him stepping down. It is foolhardy to expect us to take refuge in an IC choreographed process that Mantashe assumes will present a report that only then allows for what Yengeni advanced. In case you forgot, in 2019, on the eve of a cabinet appointment, Mantashe appeared before the same committee, and in 2020, we learned it never cleared him and Deputy President DD Mabuza. Notwithstanding that, Mantashe is serving in a Ramaphosa cabinet while not cleared when the same questionable IC never cleared him. Why must South Africans take any refuge in the factional IC processes?

It is more than a fair assessment to say that what Arthur Fraser presented at the Rosebank Police Station was not just an affidavit but details of a docket. Meaning if Mantashe is willing to engage the details of that affidavit, he would easily see his claim of no investigation report stands naked. He should have said that given the damning allegations that detail now a case number, it would be advisable that the SA president step down to afford due process and proper investigations by State institutions to be conducted unhindered. That is a sane approach that guarantees even the party’s integrity.

Instead, on Tuesday, June 7, Africa News Global, in an exclusive, informed us of efforts on the part of Ramaphosa and his coattail riders to influence ANC Members of Parliament. ANG saw the leaked letter signed by ANC Chief Whip Penny Majodina inviting MPs to a meeting with Ramaphosa. The planned meeting between Ramaphosa and senior ANC Members of Parliament (MPs) triggered suspicions that Ramaphosa might be trying to influence ANC MPs ahead of a definite probe into the robbery at his Phala-Phala farm in Limpopo. Subsequent to the breaking of news by ANG, the meeting was cancelled. So instead of Ramaphosa vacating his SA presidency seat, he appears busy with attempts to survive this with scant regard for the laws he flouted.

Therefore, let us irrevocably tell Mantashe and those that depend on an ANC president Ramaphosa’s presidency for their future livelihood that we, as South Africans, will not allow this convenient conflation of party and state affairs. If Mantashe and the ANC Ramaphosa crowd had listened to Yengeni less influenced by their factional minds, they would have conceded that a State President and ANC party president are distinct offices that warrant no conflation. Vibrating in the background of Mantashe’s deliberate conflation of party and State could be personal political survival since he remains flagged by the Zondo Commission as having a case to answer. Are the intentional conflation of State and party in defense of Ramaphosa not Mantashe’s attempt to negotiate with Ramaphosa for a place in the proverbial sun? We may only speculate, but nothing is cynical in politics, particularly ANC politics.

In conclusion, I trust that those who deceptively prognosticate the fallacy of Ramaphosa as the only saviour of the ANC without whom the party would die are less inebriated as the case is not going away. Some accuse Mantashe of lacking revolutionary morality. They contend that despite his presence in the office-bearer role for 15 years, Mantashe was never authentically groomed in the ANC. The truth is Ramaphosa, with all these allegations and the Glencore involvement, cannot remotely represent the face of ANC renewal, nor the opposite of corruption. An ANC would appreciate the separation of party and State even in circumstances that are currently unfolding.

*Clyde N.S. Ramalaine
Political Analyst, Strategy Design Consultant, Social and Economic Justice Activist, Author, and Writer