ANTHONY BUTLER: Mathews Phosa’s memoir contrasts innocent’s optimism with reality

First published in Business Day

29 November 2024

Mathews Phosa. Picture: WYNAND VAN DER MERWE

Devotees of Mathews Phosa have described him as the best president SA never had — though the same sentiment was once expressed about Cyril Ramaphosa, so perhaps we should not read too much into it.

Phosa recently launched a memoir, Witness to Power, the title of which suggests an observer of, rather than a participant in, ANC governance. The compelling central narrative of the book concerns the trials that shaped the protagonist’s character and brought about his moral enlightenment.

The Hollywood movie Forrest Gump follows the transition of a simple-minded rural child into a complex, empathetic adult. This book likewise contrasts an innocent’s unwavering optimism and childlike wonder with the harsh realities of the world he encounters. Like the film, the book incorporates some selected aspects of actual historical events. 

It is also a tragicomedy in which Phosa makes the reader laugh and cry, albeit sometimes unintentionally. Things just kept happening to Phosa. The exiled ANC leadership wanted him to run a legal practice in Zimbabwe, but he wanted to fight the enemy. So Oliver Tambo sent him for military training in East Germany and soon he was a military commander. 

He chatted to a newly freed Nelson Mandela, and was told he would be a key transition negotiator. Then, in 1994, Mandela made him premier of Mpumalanga. The next surprise came, out of the blue, when pesky ANC branches in 1997 nominated him for the deputy presidency. Mandela called him up and told him to withdraw — it was Jacob Zuma’s turn.

Phosa stayed on as Mpumalanga premier, where his trials and tribulations just got worse. He was shocked. “I never for a moment thought that anyone in my administration would see their position as an opportunity for self-enrichment.” 

Thabo Mbeki became jealous of Phosa’s friendship with Mandela and used a trumped-up inquiry to vilify him. Here narrative and reality intersect: “I lost my job for resisting those implicated in corruption and criminality.”

Phosa learnt moral lessons of course, notably that “your friend today could be your enemy tomorrow” and that “some leaders attempt to criminalise and discredit their opponents”.

Of course, sympathisers of the Higher Power will counter that Mbeki may have been paranoid, but Phosa, Ramaphosa and Tokyo Sexwale really were trying to bury him.

Events interceded again in 2007, when Phosa was press-ganged by Zweli Mkhize and then Gwede Mantashe to run on Zuma’s Polokwane slate, as secretary-general or treasurer: “They insisted I had to do something. So I agreed to be treasurer.” 

Phosa helped legitimise a slate topped by a crooked president, but wanted to do good, trying to dissolve the ANC-Chancellor House link that had helped destroy Eskom, and pushing unsuccessfully for party funding reform.

He also saw exactly what the Guptas were up to and kept clear of personal enrichment. Prudently, he “decided not to burden my fellow members of the top six with the details”. 

Every treasurer-general loves a despot doling out petrodollars, and Phosa admits he “played a role” in securing Libyan donations in 2009. But he is mostly concerned to distance himself from billions that allegedly left Libya for SA at the behest of the brother leader and guide of the revolution. This suggests that more may soon come to light. 

Phosa’s best advice about taking breakfast with Zuma? Worried about poisoning, he observes that, “when he dished himself scrambled eggs, we did the same”. 

There are also many lessons for the rest of us from this exceptional man who tried to combine doing good with political survival. Echoing Mandela, he insists that bitterness is “a poison that we cannot afford”.

Perhaps most intriguingly for members of his own party, Phosa asserts that the “cancer of tribalism” once again “threatens to tear the ANC apart”.

• Butler teaches public policy at the University of Cape Town.