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President Cyril Ramaphosa faces three broad strategic choices as pressure mounts over the revived impeachment process – he has chosen the third of these, but it is uncertain whether he could stay that course.

The Constitutional Court ruling last week left Ramaphosa with three options – as this newspaper reported over the weekend.

The first option is resignation. Under this scenario, Deputy President Paul Mashatile would take over, potentially opening the door for the Economic Freedom Fighters and uMkhonto weSizwe to be brought into the Government of National Unity (GNU). That would leave the Democratic Alliance to decide whether to remain in government or walk away.

Such a move would carry significant market and political risk. A leftward shift could see South Africa’s currency and bonds repriced, fiscal discipline weakened, and policies such as national health insurance and expropriation without compensation pushed more aggressively. Living standards would likely come under further pressure, while the vote share of the African National Congress (ANC) could continue to decline.

The second option is for Ramaphosa to accept the impeachment process and testify openly. This would expose both him and the ANC to a prolonged political battering. The reformist image built around Ramaphosa would be dismantled under cross-examination, while further revelations of corruption could deepen internal ANC divisions and increase pressure on the GNU.

The third option is nominal compliance. Ramaphosa could publicly welcome the process as a display of democratic accountability, while privately working to delay and weaken it. This would allow him to avoid testifying for as long as possible and create time for a possible managed transition, potentially to Patrice Motsepe.

President Cyril Ramaphosa seems, for now, to have chosen the third option.

That means nominally complying with the impeachment process while working to delay, narrow, and politically manage it for as long as possible. That strategy buys time, avoids having to testify under cross-examination, and allows space for the ANC to search for a controlled succession plan.

But that choice may change as circumstances shift. What could the trigger for that be?

The most likely trigger that might force a resignation would be if clear information on the source of the foreign currency concealed at Phala Phala came to light and revealed that the source was illicit.

This newspaper has reported that a former director general of the South African intelligence services, Arthur Fraser, has alleged that the cash was illicit foreign currency, illegally brought into South Africa by the president’s close adviser Bejani Chauke on trips to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, and Equatorial Guinea, undertaken on behalf of the president. Fraser alleged the cash was first concealed in a sofa at Chauke’s Hyde Park residence, then transported to Phala Phala, also concealed in a sofa, with the assistance of Major-General Wally Rhoode, the head of the Presidential Protection Unit, and with the president’s full knowledge. Fraser put the amount stolen at between $4 million and $8 million.

Ramaphosa has an alternative explanation, saying that the cash was brought into the country by a Sudanese businessman named Mustafa Mohamed Ibrahim Hazim, who sought to buy buffalo from the Phala Phala farm. Hazim, however, is a man with alleged ties to a number of Middle Eastern governments and there is a dispute over whether the buffalo transaction even occurred.

It would seem that Ramaphosa’s key vulnerability rests on the question of the source of the money and what its purpose was. If an innocent explanation exists, he should be exonerated. However, if the source of the funds turns out to be illicit, it becomes difficult to see how he ultimately outruns the consequences.