Eskom, Eskom, Eskom …

President Cyril Ramaphosa pledged to the country that load shedding would not disrupt December holidays, “right up to January 13”. The hollowness of that promise became clear on Saturday, 4 January, when stage 2 load shedding kicked in two days before many South Africans are set to return to work.

On this occasion, Eskom’s stated reason for the power disruption was “an unanticipated conveyor belt failure at Medupi power station”. In other words, same old: the creaking inability of the country’s old and new power stations to consistently generate electricity after years of inadequate maintenance or poor-quality construction in the first place.

Under these circumstances, Cabinet has asked incoming Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter to start work on Monday, 6 January rather than later in the month as was originally envisaged. De Ruyter faces immediate battles on multiple fronts: in addition to dealing with the structural problems of the power stations, a political storm is looming over the claim that Eskom intends to pay out R1.8-billion in performance bonuses between 2019 and 2022. This comes while the state-owned entity heads to court next week to fight energy regulator Nersa over a R69-billion tariff hike request.

But the president himself is also certain to face tremendous heat over the apparent inability of government to get a firm hand on the problem, despite Ramaphosa’s assurances in December 2019 that a crisis meeting had resulted in promising an “emergency recovery plan”. It is Eskom that increasingly looks likely to be the single greatest albatross of Ramaphosa’s presidency.

The ANC will hold its mid-term policy conference

The biggest internal test of Ramaphosa’s administration will come mid-year, when the ruling party holds its National General Council: an opportunity for ANC leaders to display how much success has been made in implementing policy resolutions made at Nasrec in 2018.

The thought of this conference may well already be giving Ramaphosa and his lieutenants sleepless nights. The resolutions of Nasrec were made in the febrile atmosphere of Radical Economic Transformation (RET), and the progress made to date on matters such as land expropriation is unlikely to be judged sufficient by the party’s RET forces. The draft amendment bill on expropriation without compensation is still out for public comment and the bill may yet face legal challenges.

Add delays on the implementation of National Health Insurance, the wrangling over the handling of state-owned entities and the ongoing unemployment crisis, and Ramaphosa’s foes will be lining up to marshal their forces and take aim.

The public protector will be fighting for her political life

Will Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane see out 2020 in office? Her term, which began in 2016, is only scheduled to end in 2023, but by the end of 2019, with Parliament having adopted rules for the removal of the head of a Chapter 9 institution, the DA had already applied to National Assembly Speaker Thandi Modise for the application of removal proceedings against Mkhwebane. Modise is yet to rule on the matter.

The final days of 2019 also saw the bringing to light by AmaBhungane and News24 of a whistleblower’s affidavit stating that the State Security Agency was intimately involved in the drafting of the public protector’s report ordering the nationalisation of the Reserve Bank, and that Mkhwebane ordered the removal of damning information about Ace Magashule and Mosebenzi Zwane from her Vrede dairy report.

2020 had barely dawned before it was confirmed by the public protector’s office that CEO Vussy Mahlangu had resigned and would finish work on January 31. This is further evidence of internal turmoil in Mkhwebane’s fiefdom, with five senior officials – including chief operating office Basani Baloyi – either dismissed or suspended in October 2019.

The response of the ANC’s parliamentary caucus to opposition attempts to unseat Mkhwebane is hard to predict. The public protector has made very public enemies of President Cyril Ramaphosa and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, but her attempts to protect ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule suggest that she may enjoy the support of the Fight Back faction. This means that Mkhwebane surviving a parliamentary dethroning could speak volumes about the ongoing strength and influence of Magashule’s forces.

The DA will elect a party leader

So comfortably has former party chief whip John Steenhuisen slipped into the role of DA leader that it is sometimes easy to forget that he is only holding the post in an interim capacity. The DA will meet for a full national congress in April 2020 to elect the leader to fill Mmusi Maimane’s shoes.

Only the 160 members of the party’s federal council voted in Steenhuisen as interim leader in November 2019, while the April election will encompass a much broader and larger spread of the party’s national delegates. Steenhuisen will, however, enjoy the advantage of the incumbent: one senior DA insider suggested to Daily Maverick in 2019 that if Steenhuisen succeeded in the interim leadership vote, “he’s going to be almost unbeatable at congress”.

Likely challengers to Steenhuisen have yet to be confirmed, with sole rival Makashule Gana suffering a bruising defeat in the interim vote. There is speculation, however, that close Helen Zille ally Bonginkosi Madikizela – currently the DA’s Western Cape leader – may be throwing his hat into the ring.

Past DA leadership battles have often been bitterly fought affairs, with unsuccessful challengers – such as veteran DA politician Wilmot James – sometimes leaving the party thereafter. DA leaders will be praying that this year’s contest is a more discreet and muted affair, since the last thing the party needs is further public displays of dirty laundry or factional conflict.

Former president Jacob Zuma will get his day in court – probably

After the high court in Pietermaritzburg dismissed former president Jacob Zuma’s application for a permanent stay of prosecution in his corruption case in November 2019, Zuma’s graft trial looked set to proceed in February 2020.

But Zuma’s legal team is not out of ideas just yet. In late December, they turned to the Supreme Court of Appeal to again argue for the right to appeal against the dismissal of Zuma’s permanent-stay application. Experts believe this application will again fail. Bar a last-minute deus ex machina from the Constitutional Court in Zuma’s favour, the former president should still face the corruption charges he’s dodged for 15 years, in a courtroom in 2020.

The pre-trial proceedings are set down for 4 February in the Pietermaritzburg High Court, with supporters planning a “month-long mobilisation” ahead of Zuma’s first appearance alongside a public campaign for funds towards legal costs.

And the unknowns …

The Zondo Commission looks set to run until the end of 2020 if Judge Raymond Zondo’s application in this regard succeeds. The year 2019 chez Zondo kicked off in dramatic fashion with the January testimony of former Bosasa bigwig Angelo Agrizzi: can we expect a similarly monumental start this year? The list of accused State Capture-ites who have yet to testify is long: perhaps foremost among them is Ace Magashule.

Could 2020 be the year in which the Guptas are returned to South Africa by their United Arab Emirates protectors to face the music? We are assured that both the NPA and the Department of Justice are doing everything possible to force the issue, currently fruitlessly – while a startling sign of the Guptas’ apparent feelings of impunity came by way of the Christmas Day revelation that certain members of the family had applied for the renewal of their South African passports, and been rejected.

February 2020 will mark one year of Shamila Batohi’s term as head of the National Prosecuting Authority. Batohi has repeatedly sought to impress upon the public the difficulties she has faced in terms of rebuilding the prosecution authority, but this year there will be renewed calls for evidence of serious action against the apparently politically untouchable. The case of former minister Bongani Bongo – charged with attempting to bribe an Eskom inquiry witness – is set down for 31 January 2020, and will be an early test of the rebooted NPA this year.

Finally, former DA leader Mmusi Maimane and former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba have indicated that they aim to launch their People’s Dialogue movement – with an eye to creating a “people-driven political party” – early in the new year. The first order of business is a “programme of town hall meetings”. Can their talking circles bring something new to the political arena? Many analysts are sceptical; then again, the 2019 election’s depressed voter turnout suggests many South African voters are also deeply gatvol of their current political options. DM