Illustrative image | President Cyril Ramaphosa. (Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth - WPA Pool / Getty Images) | City Hall in Cape Town. (Photo: Leila Dougan) | (Gallo Images / Jeffrey Abrahams) 
As President Cyril Ramaphosa prepares to deliver his State of the Nation Address tonight, a curious conundrum has emerged in our politics. There can be no doubt that Ramaphosa is more powerful within the ANC now than at any time since becoming deputy leader in 2012. And yet expectations around the Sona and what he will announce have never been so low.
This is a demonstration of the yawning gap between what the ANC leader of South Africa says and what actually happens. It also shows the depths of despair being felt by so many people daily, as they watch their incomes, their hopes, and sometimes their lives, simply disappear around them. It may also have something to do with his own personal political situation, and perhaps still, the aftermath of the Phala Phala affair.
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Emerging from the ANC’s conference, with a fresh mandate, Ramaphosa is now at the height of his political power. He won more support at Nasrec in December than he did five years before that. In the structures of the ANC, there is no faction that can successfully organise against him. His allies dominate the top seven national officials. The National Working Committee is largely made up of his supporters. Even the National Executive Committee appears to back him very strongly.
And yet, as he walks to deliver his address, both Rampahosa and the ANC have the biggest possible democratic incentive to take drastic action.
It is obvious that the ANC is under more pressure than ever before. Even its own internal polling suggests that it could win only about 40% of the vote in next year’s elections at the current level of support.
At the same time, the mood of the nation is desperate. As has been well documented, people are crying out for electricity, water, better incomes and food. On every single of these challenges, the ruling party has failed miserably over the past many decades.
If Ramaphosa were to announce a bold programme tonight it would be very difficult for anyone to criticise, or believe him. In such a depressed space, the President can’t really boast of his administration’s successes and he is likely to seek to transform his speech into the beginning of the ANC’s 2024 election campaign.
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On Tuesday at the Mining Indaba in Cape Town, in his prepared speech he said that to improve the country several things had to be done: “Firstly, achieve a secure supply of electricity. Secondly, accelerate economic reforms to improve the operating environment. Thirdly, tackle illegal mining and damage to infrastructure. Fourthly, improve the regulatory environment.”
It is likely that anyone listening to him may well have muttered: “Well, do it then!”
And here is the crux of the conundrum: Ramaphosa has made many public statements about fighting corruption, about how he wants to resolve the power crisis, or fix the state.
But if his actions were words, there would be only almost uninterrupted silence. So little of what he has promised before has actually happened.
It is up to his government to achieve a “secure supply of electricity” and yet there is strong evidence that it is his mining and energy minister who has refused to make this happen.
In the past, Ramaphosa has promised “structural reform”, a “social pact” or even “major changes” so often that any audience is likely to yawn behind their hands.
While tackling illegal mining may be very difficult, the fact is that the police have become much weaker on his watch, as is demonstrated by the incredible increase in the murder rate over the past few years.
And of course, improving the regulatory environment is entirely in his power. It is entirely the fault of the many ANC governments that this has not happened.
It may also be Ramaphosa’s fault that he is now in this situation, because he raised hopes and expectations when he first came into office.
While almost all politicians do this in their first big speeches, it was he who promised action and has failed to deliver over the past five years.
Now, instead, there appears to be only paralysis.
The most obvious example of this is the reshuffle. It has been obvious since the day Fikile Mbalula was elected secretary-general of the ANC in December that there must be a reshuffle. David Mabuza has made it well known that he wants to step down as deputy president, yet he has not acted.
Another example, out of so many, is the SABC board. Parliament has agreed on the names, all Ramaphosa needs to do is appoint a chair and a deputy chair. And yet, the SABC has now gone without a board since October 2022.
How is it possible to be this ineffective?
Even worse, outgoing Eskom CEO André de Ruyter pointed out again on Wednesday that Eskom had sent a list of possible directors for its transmission company a year ago. To date, no appointments have been made.
If ever there was a symbol of the government Ramaphosa leads it may be this.
Personal troubles
To many, it is difficult to understand why Ramaphosa and his government are failing to act, particularly when there is so much incentive for action to be taken.
Part of the reason may lie in the President’s personal circumstances.
Just 10 weeks ago it was claimed that he was preparing to resign, after the panel investigating the Phala Phala scandal found that he may have a case to answer. While there has been no progress reported in public, both the South African Reserve Bank and SARS are still investigating why there were undeclared US dollars on his farm.
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This entire issue may well have made him wary of any action, wary of implementing any trade-off that could result in action against him.
There may be other reasons.
One of the questions facing the ANC in that moment last year was what would have happened if Ramaphosa had resigned. It was already clear that Mabuza would have no mandate to lead.
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Even now, with Paul Mashatile elected as deputy leader of the ANC (and presumably about to be installed as deputy president), it is not entirely clear what would happen in the ANC if Ramaphosa were to leave office suddenly.
This demonstrates the fragility of the party, and how there is no real sense of direction within the movement as a whole.
This fragility may be another reason Ramaphosa is unlikely to act tonight – despite the public claims of unity, the ANC is still really an uncomfortable church of disparate agendas.
At the same time, this could also explain why Ramaphosa takes no action against ministers who fail to perform. The ANC could simply be so fragile that it’s hard to predict what consequences there could be to any kind of action.
Also, those in the ANC who are supposed to come up with new ideas could just be tapped out. This is about the lethargy that governments can experience when the same group of people has been in power for way too long. Eventually, it becomes harder to govern in new ways, to come up with new solutions to difficult problems.
The ANC could just be out of ideas and the energy to implement them.
Of course, it may not be like this. Very few people thought that President Lula da Silva’s second term of office in Brazil from 2006 would result in real change, and yet he announced a raft of changes that fundamentally changed that state.
In 1990, in the hours before FW de Klerk opened the apartheid Parliament, it was believed no changes were in store, then he shocked even his own MPs when he announced the imminent release of Nelson Mandela.
Ramaphosa has significant political power, and the stage on which to announce major changes to our nation.
What a pity then that virtually no one expects him to do it. DM