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The election of Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa as the ANC’s thirteenth president in December 2017 represented a momentous turning point in the history of Africa’s oldest liberation movement as well as of the country which it governs.

The misrule of Jacob Zuma, ably supported by his friends the Guptas and a slew of compromised keepers in key state institutions, brought the ANC within inches of extinction. Under Zuma, the party of Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu became a vehicle for corrupt self-enrichment by a connected elite and compromised its founding values in a bid to shield the man from Nkandla and his detractors. Institutions were emasculated, government policy perverted, and civil servants corrupted to enrich Zuma and his cabal.

The scheme, now baptised “radical economic transformation” (although Zuma himself did absolutely nothing to radically empower black people during his term in office), was brought to an abrupt end at the concrete jungle in Nasrec when Ramaphosa defeated Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma by the narrowest of margins in injury time. The shop-steward-turned-billionaire suddenly became the face of Operation Clean-up and gave millions of South Africans a reason to hope for the first time since Zuma took his oath of office in 2009.

As we at News24 tried to make sense of this historic moment, Ralph Mathekga was by our side to provide the necessary insight, logic and analysis in a moment of great political hype.

In an era of dial-a-quote commentators, Mathekga has distinguished himself as one of South Africa’s foremost thinkers and writers on government, power and politics. Never swayed by the prevailing hype, Mathekga swiftly brought us back to earth by reminding us and our readers that Ramaphosa was no messiah with a magic wand who would fix South Africa’s many ills overnight. This superb book is a continuation of his analysis of Ramaphosa’s stunning victory.

These were also trying times for the media. Under Zuma it became all too easy to accept and follow the clear-cut narrative of good versus bad. Zuma and his coterie of bandits were the baddies; those opposing him under Ramaphosa’s banner were the good guys. But, as Mathekga has often reminded us, there ain’t no easy answers.

In this book Mathekga outlines in a masterly way the challenges that Ramaphosa faces if he is to succeed. He takes us back to the new president’s shaping years as an activist and trade unionist – long before he became a public figure and earned his reputation as a skilled negotiator during the CODESA talks for a new South Africa.

The governing party emerged battered and bruised from the Nasrec conference and, despite the ANC’s best attempts to make the country believe that it had emerged unified from this episode, the cracks were there for all to see.

Will Ramaphosa succeed in bringing together divergent interest groups under one common goal in his new role as president of the ANC and of South Africa?

Following his narrow victory at Nasrec, Ramaphosa opted for an aggressive approach. Even though only two of the candidates on his slate – Gwede Mantashe and Paul Mashatile – were elected with him as part of the ANC’s “top six”, Ramaphosa moved swiftly to eject Zuma from the Union Buildings. This was a calculated risk: Ramaphosa needed to make a symbolic statement to show the country he was in charge, but he couldn’t effect wholesale changes and he was still left with a large chunk of Zuma administration members, who were now running affairs in his name.

In his book Mathekga grapples with important questions: Did Ramaphosa move too fast? Should he not have used the year and a bit before the 2019 national and provincial elections to solidify his power inside the ANC before making deep cuts to undo Zuma’s state capture legacy?

The state-owned enterprises are a case in point. Ramaphosa moved in like an angry buffalo and removed the boards and executives of Eskom, Transnet and Denel in his first hundred days as president. These institutions were at the heart of Zuma’s state capture project, and it will take much longer than a year and a bit to root out the corruption and mould them into functioning entities.

Ramaphosa will furthermore need the criminal justice system to be effective in dealing with the corrupt legacy of state capture. There is no use saying the right things and making the right moves politically, but nobody goes to jail.

There are signs that the Hawks and the National Prosecuting Authority have rediscovered their collective backbone after Ramaphosa’s swearing-in, but the proof lies in the prosecution and imprisonment of the state capturers. This presents another quagmire for Ramaphosa: what is the political cost of going after senior ANC members before an election?

Mathekga interrogates this and other crucial questions. Can Ramaphosa clean up the ANC and South Africa, and win an election at the same time? Will he have to make some compromises along the way to ensure he consolidates his political power before “doing the right thing”?

It is no secret that many of Ramaphosa’s comrades in the ANC were implicated, directly or indirectly, in the state capture project under Zuma. In his first cabinet reshuffle, Ramaphosa fired ten of those ministers deeply implicated in wrongdoing during Zuma’s tenure.

But the fightback has begun and Ramaphosa faces serious opposition from KwaZulu-Natal, and from Mpumalanga, North West and the Free State – the three provinces that formed the backbone of the so-called Premier League, which was hoodwinked at the last minute by Mpumalanga’s David Mabuza to prevent Dlamini-Zuma from taking over the ANC presidency. Can Ramaphosa risk losing the support of these provinces if he cuts too deep before the 2019 elections?

Mathekga’s insightful analysis of Ramaphosa’s many challenges naturally poses the question: why on earth would he want the job?

He earned his stripes in the fight against apartheid; he was a champion of workers’ rights; he was an early pioneer of BEE, which created millionaires out of black entrepreneurs; and he always remained a senior member of the ANC. Was the position of ANC president, for which he was overlooked in favour of Thabo Mbeki after Nelson Mandela stepped down in 1999, the one accolade Ramaphosa always wanted and then finally achieved with the narrowest of margins in December 2017?

Ramaphosa’s election may have saved the ANC from electoral defeat, but the jury is out on whether he can unify the majority of the party behind his vision for both the organisation and South Africa.

Mathekga’s book is an excellent guide to understanding the road ahead for a leader whose time has at last come.

ADRIAAN BASSON

Cape Town, May 2018