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Max Du Preez
It was late 1988 or early 1989. The country was burning and PW Botha was at his finger-wagging best. Jittery South Africans were wondering whether the conflict was about to escalate into a low-intensity civil war.
I was an activist-journalist then, spending my energies on exposing the apartheid state’s atrocities and moral bankruptcy. I got an invitation to lunch with the leadership of a large multinational corporation. I saw them as the enemy then, but thought I might as well give them a piece of my mind.
I arrived at the fancy boardroom, just to discover that there was another guest: the feared (by the hosts) trade union leader and lawyer Cyril Ramaphosa. I made my little speech, darkly warning those suited white men in the room about the consequences of them not forcing the apartheid government into negotiations with the UDF and ANC. My message was not well received; since when did industrialists take radical journalists with long hair and cheap jackets seriously anyway?
And then Ramaphosa took the floor. Now he was their real enemy, not this flaky bearded leftie Afrikaner. I sat back, preparing myself for blood on the walls.
What followed during the next hour was something I had not witnessed ever before. Ramaphosa was warm, smiling and witty. I observed him roping in the “minority white capitalists” one by one with his charm and logic; and, by the end of his speech, he had them all eating out of his hand.
They simply loved him, despite the fact that he had screwed them over many times as negotiator for the National Union of Mineworkers and despite him warning of the disaster facing them if apartheid wasn’t ended quickly and power handed over to the majority. It was a masterful performance.
A few years later I witnessed the Ramaphosa magic at the multi-party negotiations for a political settlement. He was hard-core, even ruthless, but with charm and a real sense of what was possible and what was simply unrealistic.
It was a master class in negotiations. Ramaphosa’s DNA is deeply interwoven with our constitution, also because he was the chairman of the Constituent Assembly that delivered our final constitution in May 1996.
Ramaphosa should of course have been Nelson Mandela’s deputy president after 1994. He represented the millions of people who never left the country, but suffered under the extreme repression of the 1980s and organised themselves into the real force that made the National Party government abandon apartheid and opt for negotiations: the UDF. He was also the ANC’s secretary-general after 1991.
We have paid a very high price for the ANC exiles and the communists’ threats that sidelined him in favour of Thabo Mbeki (and wiped out the UDF’s legacy).
Ramaphosa withdrew from active politics then, some say petulantly so, although he remains a member of the ANC’s national executive committee.
During the past 15 years he has established himself as a highly respected entrepreneur and business leader as head of Shanduka Ltd and the McDonalds franchise, as well as board member of giants like MTN, Standard Bank, Bidvest and SABMiller.
He has been showered with honorary doctorates from all over and has received the Olaf Palme Prize and the National Order of the Baobab. And he only turns 60 in November.
When he does surface on the pages of newspapers, it is because of what he has achieved rather than because he has been accused of corruption, dirty tricks, nepotism or a messy private life.
And here is where I ask you, dear reader, to open the newspapers of the past week. Just the past week; (you don’t have to Google anything) the one shocking revelation after the other of corruption, theft, greed, abuse and neglect of duty by ANC-appointed politicians and officials, and a continuing soap opera of infighting and dirty tricks.
Now who would you say is really the only person left in the ANC with proven leadership skills, charisma, a proud record in the Struggle, dignity, a known commitment to an open society, transparency and accountability – and who is intellectually qualified to lead a modern democracy such as SA? Who has the potential to restore our country’s honour and self-respect and do more than pay lip service to eradicating poverty?
We should all hope that the good people left in the ANC, and there are many, will look honestly at the state of their party and their country, and say it is time for new leadership; untouched by scandal, faction fighting or tribal bias; and a new vision to fulfil our country’s promise of greatness.
I sincerely hope that Cyril Ramaphosa would accept if/when he is asked to stand for the leadership election at Mangaung in December.
He has to realise that SA needs him now and that it is time he got his hands dirty. And we cannot wait until the next leadership election.
