What is the future of the current government of national unity — and the ANC — when President Cyril Ramaphosa goes? Who are the front-runners to succeed him and what will their impact on the ANC’s ideological orientation and strategic direction be?
The party’s national executive committee admitted at the weekend that, following a “brutal” assessment of its electoral performance, it had reached the conclusion many of us have been warning its arrogant leaders about for years: if it does not grow the economy, stem corruption, and renew itself, then it will continue to wither and die.
That project needs a driver, and Ramaphosa won’t be around forever.
We know who will not be running for the position of president of the party when the ANC holds its national elective conference in December 2027.
It will not be Gwede Mantashe, the party’s former secretary-general who is constantly showing us that he is an intemperate, shoot-from-the-hip, foot-in-mouth showman.
When the DA’s equally intemperate federal chair, Helen Zille, rushes to a microphone to say something that endangers the GNU, Mantashe rushes to do the same as though he is a cheap Chinese wind-up toy.
We know the new ANC president won’t be Fikile Mbalula, either.
Like Mantashe, the ANC secretary-general who signed the GNU agreement of intent with Zille in June and thus birthed our current government leadership, also feels the need to respond to anything and everything that Zille says. Why? He is the leader of a party which got double the DA’s votes and yet got an inordinately huge and undeserved number of cabinet and deputy ministerial seats. He got his Pyrrhic victory.
What we now have is a situation where Ramaphosa and DA Leader (and now agriculture minister) John Steenhuisen are the adults in the room.
They do not rush to issue statements (except for an intemperate moment during the negotiations when they traded letters) and they seem to be getting on with the job of governing in a complex environment.
So, what happens when Ramaphosa goes?
By 2027 the GNU may well be history, wrecked by the constant and unwelcome utterances of the Mantashe-Zille-Mbalula Wrecking Ball Threesome.
Our first GNU in 1994 collapsed after two years. Given the stresses constantly imposed on this coalition by the Motormouth Triumvirate, a couple of years may indeed be all we have.
The appearance of an election on the horizon will be a further stress point of the relationships in the GNU.
In late 2026 we will mount the local elections and parties will be vying to be heard and to present a unique voice. The participants in the GNU will find it hard to distance or even disentangle themselves from the GNU brand.
The EFF and Jacob Zuma’s MK Party will pile on the pressure from their loud, acquisitive, leftist platform. And a myriad small parties and splinter groupings from the ANC and other parties will be running for office, too.
GNU participants may want to disentangle themselves from the ANC beforehand.
The 2026 local election will be the last that Ramaphosa (if he isn’t pushed out before then) will contest at the head of his party.
May 29 showed conclusively that the voters of SA don’t believe he has fought enough for them or advanced his economic reform and state renewal programme.
If he wants to see upside in November 2026, he will have to deliver very quickly and very strongly on all fronts — create jobs, revive the economy, curb crime drastically, and make the state efficient. The 2026 election may be local, but the deciding issues will be national.
There is no clear successor to Ramaphosa.
His deputy, Paul Mashatile, is an energetic ANC campaigner but he is so mired in scandals now it is only a matter of time before law enforcement agencies come knocking at his door.
His political base, Gauteng, is divided and clinging on to power by a thread.
Mashatile’s path to power is no longer guaranteed. Even if he wins, it is not guaranteed that Mashatile can rebuild the ANC. The likelihood is that he would hew towards the EFF or even the MK Party for reasons of self-preservation. That will destroy the ANC and return us to state capture days.
To survive electorally and as an organisation, the ANC will need to look towards a younger set of leaders to rescue it.
Indeed, the party may have to totally discard the old ways of doing things and do the unthinkable — pick an entirely fresh set of eyes and hands.
The likes of new International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola, or someone prepared to reform the ANC swiftly and resolutely from a liberation movement to a modern party, may be the ANC’s only option at its next conference.
The alternative is that the ANC continues as it is and turns into a monster trying to cling to power like its ally Zanu-PF in Zimbabwe.
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