ANTHONY BUTLER: Egos aplenty in race to succeed Ramaphosa

First published in Business Day and BusinessLive

11 April 2025

Bemused citizens may have been wondering why deputy president Paul Mashatile is trying so hard to destabilise the government of national unity (GNU). The solution to this puzzle lies in ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula’s birthday celebrations on Tuesday. 

There is no credible alternative GNU that excludes the DA. Getting to a bare majority of 201 seats by bringing in minnow parties run by egomaniacs does not provide a necessary voting buffer against absent or rebellious MPs, and guarantees endless blackmail by partners.

A large and fractious alliance in which giant egos jostle for blue-light convoys will also result in electoral wipeout in 2026. Given a deepening global economic crisis and precarious international relations, any coalition with the EFF or Jacob Zuma’s pro-feudalism vehicle is almost inconceivable. 

In contrast, retaining the DA in the GNU requires only modest concessions, mostly already agreed in recent negotiations to end the budget impasse. Without the DA, the KwaZulu-Natal government will probably collapse. Without pro-GNU funders, the ANC will become totally dependent on mafia donors demanding truly unpalatable concessions. The DA has given the ANC an easy ride all year, largely ignoring disproportionate cabinet portfolio allocations and breaches of the initial coalition pact. 

Broad agreement between the parties about the fundamentals of policy is wider and deeper that either likes to admit. Constitutional government (ANC anti-constitutionalists have mostly joined MK or the EFF), strategies to resolve the energy, logistics and water crises, and the expansion of public-private partnerships, are all now common cause. 

The impetus for booting out the DA comes from Mashatile, who has been champing at the bit, desperate for the ANC’s national executive committee to fire the starting pistol in a supposed two-horse race with Mbalula for the ANC presidency. The key proxy issue in the ANC’s latest tiresome succession psychodrama is whether to continue the coalition with the DA, or instead to transform the unity government into a “revolutionary” front that includes the EFF — or indeed anybody but the DA.

The odds on Mashatile have been softening as a result of exposés of his finances and lifestyle, the enduring enmity of KwaZulu-Natal comrades who believe he betrayed them in 2017, and rising competitor Panyaza Lesufi’s expanding ego. Mbalula has meanwhile used the power of the secretary-general’s office to hobble his competitor, reconstituting provincial structures and freezing mobilisation in the regions. 

While the deputy president is a classy sort on his day, he has been out of form recently, finishing well down the field in his last few starts around the national executive committee circuit. The syndicates backing Mashatile are still betting their horse will win by a nose in 2027, but their preference is to bring the meet forward. They believe Ramaphosa has looked leg-weary in recent starts, offering little more than a fading memory of past form. Age has caught up, they claim, and he is now little more than a name on the card. 

The colt Mbalula has serious wheels, flies out of the gate, and makes the others look stationary in early furlongs. But he is barely out of nursery class: on Tuesday he turned just 54. He has not tried to conceal his ambition to be president one day.

However, he probably knows he is not in the race for the ANC presidency in 2027. His goal for that conference will be to secure the deputy presidency as part of a wider slate that brings together the delegate-rich provinces of the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal, under a presidential candidate with more years, and more successful executive experience, under his belt.

Mbalula can afford to wait a decade. By then Mashatile will be an old lag. 

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