The Booming Motsepe Bandwagon

There has lately been a booming speculation about the possibility of Patrice Motsepe becoming the next leader of the African National Congress (ANC). Under his popular, market-savvy leadership, it is argued, the ANC would take a far more moderate policy line and would regain the 50% support level it lost in 2024.

There is no doubt that the ANC faces a major leadership crisis. Cyril Ramaphosa’s presidency has been ineffectual and deeply disappointing. Moreover, Ramaphosa emerged as a great deal more naive and lacking in political understanding than his advance billing had promised. His initial promise that he would shrink the size of the Cabinet betrayed a complete ignorance of the ANC’s factional and patronage-based reality, just as his promises of smart cities and super-fast trains betrayed a lack of understanding of the economic and financial facts of life.

Similarly, the fact that he was repeatedly “shocked” by aspects of South African reality suggested he just hadn’t grasped his own or his country’s actual situation. He was, indeed, a far more mediocre man than his praise-singers had promised.

But his potential successors are worse. Paul Mashatile is just a township hustler bent on self-enrichment. It is difficult to take Fikile Mbalula seriously at all. And it is easy to attribute all manner of virtues to Patrice Motsepe only because almost nothing is known of his political or social views, let alone his political and governance capabilities. It is simply assumed that because he has been a successful businessman that he is shrewd and all-round capable. The same assumptions were made about Ramaphosa, quite wrongly, as it turned out.

But a greater concern is that those who imagine a moderate and successful Motsepe presidency simply leave out of account the nature of the ANC. An article in The Common Sense outlined the reforms expected under a President Motsepe: “Improved messaging on security of property rights, a predictable investment regime for inbound capital, accelerated private management of port and rail infrastructure, reformed mining policy, a pragmatic trade positioning with the both the US and China” – all of which, we are told would produce “fixed investment rising sustainably above 20%” and a growth rate over 3%.

How?

This is all very nice but how on earth would Motsepe get such a programme through the ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC)? The security of property rights means repealing the Expropriation Act. Both the uMkhonto weSizwe Party and the Economic Freedom Fighters would shout treason and sell-out and that would certainly find echoes in the NEC, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and the South African Communist Party (SACP).

Similarly, the investment regime for inbound capital is predictable enough: a 30% black economic empowerment (BEE) give-away, all manner of constraints on whom an investor might employ, enforced give-aways to local communities, and to a R100 billion BEE fund, and many other bells and whistles. Virtually all of this needs to be scrapped, but just try getting that past the BEE lobbies and the NEC.

Similarly, COSATU, the SACP, National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, and South African Federation of Trade Unions would all try to block accelerated private management of the ports and railways. Reforming mining policy would mean ditching virtually all of its BEE regulations and undoing the many layers of constraint that Gwede Mantashe has used to block all new mining investment.

Undoing all that would probably mean having to get rid of Mantashe’s whole ministry together with other interested parties. And so it goes…

Bitter Confrontations

In other words, to imagine such a Motsepe programme is to imagine that, once elected, Motsepe would hurl himself into a whole series of bitter confrontations with all the most powerful interests within the ANC – and to further imagine, improbably, that he would win all these battles. One has to ask why someone who is enjoying a successful business career and another one running African soccer would swap all that for a protracted series of bitter political battles, which would result in him being labelled a traitor to the revolution, a sell-out, an agent of the counter-revolution, and much else besides.

Moreover, Motsepe is apparently a good businessman who runs profitable enterprises. He is used to appointing the best and demanding accountability, and would certainly not accept his employees stealing from him. How, then, would he adapt to the very different culture of the South African state, in which cadre deployment outweighs merit, where even people in his own Cabinet will be stealing hand over fist and where there is little sense of accountability? Again, one can foresee endless collisions, the civil service unions up in arms, and the ANC insisting that public employment is its protected zone of control.

Beyond even that, what to do about the vast ANC patronage networks that are used to controlling provincial and municipal government, extracting a massive financial transfer to its own pockets? The party may have run towns, cities, and provinces into the ground but it is only eager to continue doing so. Indeed, that is its true raisond’etre . The harsh truth is that the national interest lies in these groups being permanently excluded from provincial and municipal power and replaced by better qualified and more honest administrations. But one can hardly expect this whole lower stratum of the ANC to enjoy or even tolerate that.

One would imagine that Motsepe would have discussed Ramaphosa’s own experience: they are brothers-in-law. Ramaphosa came to power promising a much smaller Cabinet and that henceforth the government would make punctuality a key virtue. But he was many hours late when he finally appeared before the cameras to announce his first Cabinet. It was quite visible that he had had a harrowing time arguing his case and that he had been utterly steam-rolled by the NEC’s opposition to his plans. So he announced the first of his many gigantic Cabinets and all talk of punctuality ceased. From then on, it was all downhill. Thereafter Ramaphosa always ran scared of opposition from within the ANC.

Clear Path

Motsepe’s backers talk of whether he will be able to discern a “clear path” to the presidency but really what they need to be discussing is whether he can transform the ANC from an ageing liberation movement with hardened arteries, many criminal tendencies, and a long-frozen ideology into a modern, flexible centrist party shorn of its bad habits, its old ideology, and its criminal connections. This can only be done by getting rid of the SACP and probably COSATU too, expelling a lot of old cadres and almost completely reinventing the ANC. Anyone volunteering for such a task will have to face years of arduous struggle and the clear possibility of defeat.

However, let us imagine this all to be possible. What then? Then South Africa would have joined the already long list of African countries in which the president is either the richest or second-richest person in that country. Countries ruled by liberation movements are no exception: the Dos Santos family was by far the richest in Angola just as the Kenyatta family still is in Kenya, Robert Mugabe was in Zimbabwe and Armando Guebuza was in Mozambique. In South Africa Motsepe and Ramaphosa are the two richest black men, both initially created by BEE “special deals”.

This rapid evolution towards plutocracy is very striking and the fact that it happens with even the most radical “liberation” regimes says no little about the decline of such movements. Ironically, a good part of the appeal of such figures as Motsepe and Ramaphosa is that, in countries racked by chronic corruption, they are often supposed to be immune to the temptations of corruption because they are too wealthy to need to cheat – though all too often such pious hopes are disappointed.

In fact, it makes more sense to see this as part of an almost monarchical evolution. After all, if you are both the richest and most powerful man in a country you are already a sort of king. Add to that the tendency of many African leaders to become rulers for life and one can see that there are indeed strong indicators of a monarchical evolution. All that is missing is the dynastic element.

Already Present

But the dynastic element is increasingly present. In Togo, President Gnassingbé Eyadéma, who ruled for 38 years, was succeeded by his son, Faure Gnassingbé. In Gabon, Omar Bongo, who was notoriously corrupt and ruled as president for 42 years, has been succeeded by his son, Ali Bongo Ondimba. The fact that Ali is one of Omar Bongo’s more than thirty children with a whole succession of wives and mistresses confirms the image of a medieval royal household. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, when Laurent Kabila was assassinated, he was succeeded as president by his son, Joseph Kabila. In Botswana, Ian Khama followed his father, Seretse Khama, as president, just as Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Jomo Kenyatta, became president of Kenya.

In Malawi, Peter Mutharika succeeded his brother as president. In Ghana, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is the son of former president Edward Akufo-Addo. In Mauritius, Navin Ramgoolam succeeded his father, Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, as prime minister. In Congo-Brazzaville President Denis Sassou Nguesso (who has ruled for 42 years) has appointed his son, Denis-Christel, to the Cabinet and he is widely viewed as his successor. The same is true of General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, tipped to succeed his father, Yoweri Museveni (who has ruled for 40 years) as president of Uganda.

As may be seen, there is a distinct African tendency for the concentration of power and wealth among quasi-monarchical dynasties. This is unlikely to go all the way towards an avowed monarchy – though we have already seen Emperor Bokassa of the Central African Empire and Idi Amin of Uganda, “the last king of Scotland”. More striking is what it says about inequality. The African elite is often accused of aping its colonial predecessors, but it is important to note that the inequalities thus produced go far beyond anything seen in colonial Africa. No colonial governors, prime ministers or presidents were billionaires and none of them ruled for 40 years or more.

So before we start applauding the idea of a Motsepe succession we ought to reflect a little on what it means for South Africa if power is coolly passed between two brothers-in-law, the two richest black men in the country. Is that what the New South Africa is really about? It’s certainly not what the opponents of apartheid had in mind as they campaigned for democracy and both the founding fathers of the New South Africa, De Klerk and Mandela, would be horrified.