ANTHONY BUTLER: President Samson Gwede Mantashe has a ring to it
First published in Business Day and BusinessLive
A persistent rumour, troubling to some international investors, suggests that President Cyril Ramaphosa could stand down after the upcoming elections.
Most local observers sensibly view this as implausible. It is true that Ramaphosa was said to have indicated a desire to leave office after the Phala Phala scandal broke. Speechwriters were apparently instructed to write resignation orations, and ANC chair Gwede Mantashe supposedly had to talk his friend out of throwing in the towel. Talk was that once they had considered the dire alternatives, ANC leaders — and many others — rallied round the embattled occupant of the Union Buildings.
Whatever the real story, Ramaphosa still has the job he always wanted. He first declared that he was going to be president more than 50 years ago, as a teenager at a Christian camp on the banks of the Hartbeespoort Dam. He evidently does not yet feel that he has a legacy, and he will surely use any, and all, available time to establish one.
Those who nonetheless still fear his early departure tend to see deputy president Paul Mashatile as his likely replacement. This may be a miscalculation. The position of ANC deputy president offers no guarantee of succeeding to the presidency. While three deputies in the final term of a sitting president have indeed risen to the highest office since 1994, a law cannot be derived from three cases.
The ANC rotates offices between regions. Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki were nominally associated with the Eastern Cape, Jacob Zuma with KwaZulu-Natal, and Ramaphosa with Gauteng and Limpopo. Mashatile is also strongly associated with Gauteng, which currently occupies most of the “top seven” offices. Yet the province is only third or fourth in terms of ANC delegate numbers, and it is about to tank in the provincial elections.
Moreover, investigative journalists claim to have uncovered skeletons in Mashatile’s closet. However unjust these accusations may turn out to be — who among us hasn’t occasionally been uncertain who owns the mansions they live in? — the rattling of bones has caused him reputational damage.
Indeed, Cosa Nostra, a prominent business lobby group in southern Italy, is believed to have instructed lawyers to initiate defamation proceedings against any person who insinuates a connection between Mashatile’s commercial activities and their own, for example by use of the phrase “Alex Mafia”.
The national ANC operates on a two-term cycle, and serious contenders for office have been planning to contest the presidency in 2027. They do not welcome an early Mashatile takeover, especially because he would be a two-term president.
Even politicians in the Gauteng camp, such as Fikile Mbalula and Panyaza Lesufi, are nowadays unlikely to rescue him if he flounders. They now have their own presidential ambitions for 2027, and rats do not habitually join a sinking ship.
Who then is the most likely successor in the unlikely event that Ramaphosa stands down? President Samson Gwede Mantashe has a ring to it. While it is not true that Mantashe has held more positions than those in the Kama Sutra, as some critics have alarmingly imagined, he is a two-term ANC secretary-general and chair, as well as being a memorable minister.
His two masters degrees make him, by some estimations, twice as clever as the EFF’s Floyd Shivambu. Mantashe is also a scientific innovator, having made major contributions in the fields of both “hazenile” and “clean coal”.
With his famously low centre of gravity, both political and physical, he will never be a pushover. It is also to Mantashe’s advantage that he will be turning 69 in just a few weeks’ time. That makes him a plausible one-term president: a “safe pair of hands” who various factional contenders would be willing to tolerate as they prepare for the 2027 national conference.
• Butler teaches public policy at the University of Cape Town.
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