On an ordinary day – that is when talking business, or Sundowns’ weekend performance – Patrice Motsepe is a cardsharp of decorum, tailored suits and a man who does not seem to sweat the small stuff. This is the unguarded personality he usually lets on. That is until some pesky journalist throws an unexpected question to the Confederation of African Football (CAF) president from the gallery or a nosy mole drops a hushed rumour about him harbouring presidential aspirations.
Unless you are an entrepreneur at a business luncheon or amongst SA’s staunch football fans, Motsepe is mostly known as a stinking-rich African, the first to make it on to the Forbes list. That he also happens to be brother-in-law to our billionaire president could’ve generally slipped almost as quietly as the allegations of infidelity with popular actress Katlego Danke a few years ago.
Except amongst headbanging unionists and stiff-neck leftists, that’s exactly how our man rolled, seemingly untouchable by it all. Only when his name began floating around as a possible candidate for South Africa’s highest constitutional office did everyone – from pundits and punters to two-bit councillors and armchair twitterati – begin applying the earnest deep searches.
Through no fault of his own he’d slipped into the cauldron, the most contentious, unforgiving terrain where the sort of rules white-collar Motsepe might have played by simply don’t apply, let alone exist. No matter which way he would choose to announce his political gambit, he will have learnt that SA politics are a rough-and-tumble of long knives, blurred lines, contradiction and baldfaced dishonesty.
On the political front, the lessons would’ve shocked him: Unlike in the boardroom, merit is generally out the window. Trust is suicide. Allies are mostly in it if there’s quick cash or if they believe he can actually win thereby securing a spot for them in future fortunes. Even then, never rule out the possibility of a Machiavellian eleventh-hour betrayal. Just ask both Mbeki and Zuma.
Amongst the business class: just as long as he scraps ‘expropriation’, ‘Bella’ and all race-based poppycock, starts talking the language of free-market Capitalism, ignores the unions and liberation struggle rhetoric, keeps a wide berth with Afro-nationalist parties like the EFF, so too their tribal MKP, cosies up to innocuous theocrats like the SACDP and basically officiates over the ANC’s funeral, then he would be the man for the job.
The case of President Cyril Ramaphosa
Precisely because these were the sort of impossible expectations that rested on Cyril Ramaphosa’s shoulders about a decade ago is exactly why he is now being called a disappointment. It’s why the man is so severely neuted as to of late look down and just sign whatever bill is pushed under his nose. He has become the reactionary president of commissions, piling them on despite failing to act decisively on those which have already been concluded because to do otherwise would likely mean the end of The Buffalo himself. Pleasing both the ‘liberation movement’ and monopoly capital would’ve been virtually impossible.
One of Ramaphosa’s tickets to party presidency were the assurances of the organisation’s unity and ending corruption. In a factionalised ANC, the former was a pipedream and hounding out the tainted would likely see his own head on the chopping board before he’d done good on anything else. It is inconceivable that the cadres would simply stand by and watch as the guillotine began to fall on fellow partners in crime.
Although he would’ve known what is it that needed to be done, he would’ve faced a mutiny in trying to go about it, would’ve lost considerable support from the Alliance and would forever be remembered as a sellout amongst both the old guard and the 2k wokeists.
Why? Because, one of the unironable kinks of our politics is simply how severely polarised, socially segregated, tribal (in the cultural – both whites and blacks – as well as critical race theory sense) and lacking the progressive maturity necessary to effect ground-shifting institutional reforms. On either side, old attituteds and belief systems obstinately refuse to give way to pragmatic necessity. Increasingly, the social adhesive that had bound the nation post-1994 is unravelling, spawning fringe groups so self-absorbed as to happily become fawning bedfellows with leaders and countries who openly have it in for the Republic. In such ambivalence, patriotism is conditional. Foreign allies and national interests are less a product of principle and identity as the political spectrum one finds himself on, and the ideology police subject political campaigns to ludicrous scrutiny.
Recent cases in point are Elon Musk’s incendiary tweets around SA’s government which have aroused so much debate that – amongst a slew of influential voices – former Public Protector Advocate Thuli Madonsela came out to chip in; Julius Malema’s custodial sentence and Helen Zille’s Johannesburg mayoral campaign.
The Democratic Alliance
Notwithstanding an astoundingly effective crusade, Zille still finds herself and the DA at a characteristically domestic crossroads. On the one hand, her constituency: mainly white liberals who largely echo the above-mentioned sentiments of the business class. These are anti-B-BBEE, pro-Trump, pro-Elon Musk, pro-Israel, anti-Putin, anti-BRICS and generally distance themselves from any foreign associations with whom the ANC colludes. The upshot of this is a country of perpetually conflicting sides, all hellbent on having things done their way.
Therefore, the Russian cargo ship Lady R docking at Simonstown in 2022 or that US Marine Corps members were recently seen conducting training exercises in Cape Town despite souring relations with Washington speak to these deep-seated contradictions. How about the ANC vs DA stance on whether what is happening in Gaza constitutes genocide? Musk’s Starlink and the attendant questions around economic redress? Rest assured that any position taken by one side is likely to be rejected by the other.
These are just a handful of issues that get in the way, that make things difficult for anybody who would wish to put SA on a more progressive trajectory. Shadowy figures with money, power and influence are working tirelessly to ensure their preferred horse – or ideology – always comes out first. As I write, the Daily Maverick are running a story around how ‘senior public servants are routinely meeting ANC MPs in these secretive ‘‘study groups’’ ostensibly to undermine the government of national unity. Elon Musk’s call for sanctions on leaders who support B-BBEE has become an online political slogan. Sadly, because they are so hopelessly counterintuitive none of these do anything to improve SA’s fortunes. Instead, what they mean is that whoever should someday take the helm, Motsepe or Groenewald, will have to manoeuvre through an environment that remains stuck in old attitudes that ultimately do not do anybody – including those who harbour them – any good.
Featured Image: Patrice Motsepe at the World Economic Forum in Cape Town 2015. Source: World Economic Forum YouTube.