President Cyril Ramaphosa appears nonchalant about his successor in the ANC. However, a question posed to him as he addressed the US-based Council on Foreign Relations last week should compel him at least to think about the potential impact of riding off into the sunset without a care about who will step into his shoes.
Ramaphosa is in his final term as both ANC and SA president. The party is set to elect a new leader in 2027, who will invariably lead it into the 2029 election campaign and — should the ANC emerge as the largest party — take up the post as the country’s first citizen.
Ramaphosa’s election as party president in 2017 was by a slight margin and he presided over a deeply divided national executive committee (NEC), with almost half of it retaining some level of loyalty to former president Jacob Zuma.
Ramaphosa’s 2022 re-election saw a far “friendlier” NEC elected, though Zuma’s formation of the MK party, in outright competition with the ANC, helped lead to the loss of the ANC’s national majority in 2024.
Despite this less hostile NEC that Ramaphosa has worked with since 2022, he has not asserted authority in a meaningful way; he may as well be leading the difficult, divisive lot he was forced to preside over in 2017 and its aftermath. His leadership style is simply not to lead from the front, leaving secretary-general Fikile Mbalula and Luthuli House staff to manage party affairs.
Politically, Ramaphosa continues to move at a snail’s pace, even when doing the obvious. National Prosecuting Authority head Shamila Batoyi made the request to suspend the authority’s Gauteng boss, Andrew Chauke, in 2023. Ramaphosa took two years to act, finally suspending him and announcing an inquiry into his fitness to hold office at the end of July. Predictably, there has been radio silence since then.
— The danger is that whoever takes over from Ramaphosa might slow down or halt those reforms, which would be devastating for the economy and entirely negate the only real upside to his presidency.
The upside of his presidency is undoubtedly the reforms put in place to turn around ailing state-owned entities, located in and driven largely from the presidency. Still, the problem for him is that the damage done to these entities by Zuma and his administration was so severe that the country will only begin to see any real benefits long after Ramaphosa has departed.
The danger is that whoever takes over from Ramaphosa might slow down or halt those reforms, which would be devastating for the economy and entirely negate the only real upside to his presidency.
The president told the Council on Foreign Relations last week that he would like to move faster with reforms. But “sometimes when you try to turn the Titanic it takes a while ... but we have become focused and we are getting there”, he said in response to a question from Deutsche Bank, which had pointedly asked him whether he was worried that reform would be halted or reversed after his departure.
What he should have said is that whether the reforms continue depends entirely on who succeeds him. The front-runner in the race, Paul Mashatile, a practical social democrat, would be likely to continue with them. At the same time, Mashatile faces allegations of unexplained largesse and a lavish lifestyle and its funding, which are subject to investigation by the Hawks.
A Mashatile presidency shrouded in potential nepotism and corruption could derail the presidency’s focus from the urgent reform agenda to a populist one aimed at survival, much like Zuma’s. It is therefore in Ramaphosa’s interests to care about his successor.
Those who know Ramaphosa will say it is likely that after the ANC’s 2027 conference he will graciously give way for the new party president to take up the post. Whether he does so or not, his legacy hinges on who he ends up handing the baton to.
• Marrian is Business Day editor at large.
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