President Cyril Ramaphosa (centre) received by Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana (left) and South African Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago (right) at the Cape Town International Convention Centre ahead of the official opening of the first G20 Finance Ministers and Central Governors meeting on Wednesday.
Image: Picture: GCIS
Prof. Bheki Mnogomezulu
ANYONE can aspire or claim to be a leader. But true leaders emerge in times of crises. Balancing between domestic and global issues needs leaders with a backbone, leadership dexterity, vision, honesty and rationality.
Does President Cyril Ramaphosa have these qualities to perform his leadership duties at a time when South Africa’s domestic challenges and global expectations compete for supremacy?
This is a question which should not be answered with emotion but objectivity.
The year 2025 poses many challenges to Ramaphosa. On the domestic front, the ANC is licking its wounds following the party’s dismal performance in the May 2024 general election. Within that context, a multiparty coalition emerged and must be managed with care given its fragility.
The ANC is frantically trying to respond to the unfavourable outcome of the 2024 election. The reconfiguration of the provincial leadership in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng is one way in which the ANC hopes to change its fortunes.
The fact that provinces like the Western Cape and others which also did not do well are left untouched raises questions about the ANC’s wisdom in targeting the two provinces. Will the strategy produce the intended results? Only time will tell.
Citizens are unhappy about the state of the country’s economy, increased unemployment, and the return of load shedding after both Kgosientsho Ramokgopa claimed at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, that the government had found a way to address intermittent power cuts.
On the education front, at the basic education level, some schools did not receive their stationery on time. Scholar transport remains a challenge. The government’s decision to close many rural schools is producing negative results where some learners are either forced to find temporary rented accommodation closer to the schools they were sent to if their parents can afford it or to quit school thereby perpetuating rural poverty while increasing illiteracy and crime.
At the tertiary level students are struggling to find accommodation and to be cleared for registration. Consequently, many tertiary institutions began the year with strikes and even saw students at Wits University going on hunger strike.
Unexplained challenges in the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) continue to frustrate students. Hundreds of students from poor families have their applications declined on false grounds or do not receive any feedback from NSFAS.
On the broader political front, some people are asking if the Zondo Commission was established with good and genuine intentions or if it was a witch hunt which targeted certain individuals and subsequently died a natural death.
Importantly, citizens are even wondering if corruption is under control and if the rule of law in South Africa does not have eyes where certain people are the untouchables even if there is concrete evidence of wrongdoing.
In this context, Ramaphosa’s name is also tainted by the Phala Phala saga which was miraculously thrown out of the window by various state institutions whose own image has been dented in the public eye.
The unprecedented last-minute postponement of Minister Godongwana’s Budget Speech raised questions about Ramaphosa’s ability to hold the coalition government together. The fact that this incident happened when G20 countries were descending here was a huge concern.
These are just some of the many domestic issues that Ramaphosa must wrestle with.
On the global front, South Africa is the current chair of the G20. While it is true that the initial meetings have gone well thus far, strained relations between Ramaphosa and Trump have raised eyebrows.
Part of the reason is that Ramaphosa made a huge mistake of publicly responding to Trump’s social media statements about South Africa following the signing of the Expropriation Act. Out of excitement and the resolve to convince his supporters that he has a backbone, Ramaphosa mimicked the late Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe telling Trump to keep his America while he kept his South Africa. He went on to say that South Africa will not be bullied.
While these statements were factually correct, they were politically misguided.
The context under which Ramaphosa is operating is different. The person he is dealing with (Trump) is a different character. The current geopolitics are also different with BRICS gaining momentum to Trump’s dislike. Therefore, Ramaphosa should have known better and should have stayed clear of Trump’s social media stunts.
The ongoing political turmoil in the DRC is also testing Ramaphosa's leadership. Some political parties in his coalition government (and those on the opposition benches) have either poked holes into how and why the deployment happened or have called for the remaining soldiers to return home. As the Commander-in-Chief, Ramaphosa must make a firm decision in this regard.
On the Israel-Palestine war, coalition partners hold different views. The ANC has constantly maintained its position that it supports Palestine. The DA openly supports Israel. Other coalition members either support one of the two positions or are silent. Ramaphosa’s leadership must prevail under these circumstances.
Regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Trump got his facts wrong and pronounced that President Zelensky started the war, which was factually incorrect. He even labelled Zelensky a ‘dictator.’
While the world was digesting this unfortunate and misguided analysis by Trump, Ramaphosa announced that he had invited Zelensky to South Africa on a state visit. In principle, there was nothing wrong with this invitation because South Africa is a sovereign state. But in the context of the geopolitics, the timing was inappropriate. It created the impression that South Africa and America are in a chess game where one marks the other’s movements.
Has Ramaphosa managed to juggle domestic and global balls? No!
Domestically, he is struggling to keep the coalition government united because he keeps on reminding his partners that the ANC is in charge. This is a wrong approach.
Against this background, 2025 will be a litmus test for Ramaphosa's leadership. As he approaches his second and final term as leader of the country, it remains to be seen whether he will be able to rescue his legacy.
* Prof. Bheki Mngomezulu is the Director of the Centre for theAdvancement of Non-Racialism and Democracy at Nelson Mandela University.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.