Fuelled and fertilised by African National Congress operations and cultures, Zumageddon brought South Africa to the edge of a grisly future. The turnaround, as it stands in this time of post-Ramaphoria, remains shaky. Since 15 February 2018, South Africa has advanced remarkably from the pre-Nasrec moment, but there are few definitive answers to pressing societal and governance problems, no assurances that post-election 2019 there will be only good people in government, and certainty that opposition parties do not ring in booming multiparty alternatives either.

Ramaphoria has subsided, while the polity has consolidated at a level above the status quo ante. Ramaphosa’s year in the ANC and South African presidencies has moved the ANC’s likely electoral fortunes away from likely slippage out of the electoral majority zone. There is hope that government, holding the hand of commissions of inquiry, can be redeemed out of a pit of corruption. Yet, the anniversary is a reminder that the ANC is a vastly changed organisation, which thrives on the weakness of opposition rather than its own inherent strengths.

It is these convoluted and ambiguous trajectories, crisscrossing party, government and society, which define Ramaphosa’s first year in national presidential office.

A year in power and the CR-ANC has every hope that Ramaphosa’s approval rating as president of South Africa — of around 60% — will transfer to the ANC come 8 May 2019. It is a long time since the ANC has entered a national election under a leader whose popular approval rating is higher than that of the ANC. Yet, South Africans are not convinced that South Africa is heading in the right direction, and that the economy holds good news (these are good predictors of support for the governing party).

Just over a year ago, Jacob Zuma was still bellowing the refrain of “what have I done?”. The distrust in political leadership and state institutions around him resembled scorched earth. In the year that followed Ramaphosa and the post-Nasrec ANC were to be rewarded, quite disproportionately, for exorcising Zuma. The 2019 elections might have been won in December 2017.

Post-Nasrec Ramaphosa’s first task was to move beyond the ANC and change government as well; the divided NEC had to extract Zuma from state power, even if multiple nodes of entrenched Zuma influence would remain. Next, Ramaphosa’s task was to establish control over ANC and government structures across provincial enclaves of ANC-Zuma resistance. This phase of the battle meandered from the heart of KwaZulu-Natal to outposts of the North West and Eastern Cape. Execution continues, in two-steps-forward-one-step-back manoeuvres. There are pushback political parties, comeback plots, mobilisation around Zuma’s court appearances, and virtual all-around denials of complicity.

Much of Ramaphosa’s year one (CR-1) comprised disentangling discredited, captured and often emasculated state institutions, ranging from social security to national security and covering almost everything in between. Ramaphosa’s insertion of a thin end of a wedge between the outgrowths of Zuma capture unfolded amidst accusations of Ramaphosa perpetrating factionalist revenge. Throughout, Zumaist forces remained ready to pounce on Ramaphosa for going against the Nasrec “unity accord”.

Ramaphosa’s balancing act of the year focused on prising open the matrix of compromised state institutions and restoring some credibility, whilst retaining the semblance of one, unified party. Tentative rehabilitation of the state unfolded. The wave moved from Cabinet to the Eskom board, to multiple other boards and governing structures of state institutions. Scattered appearances of public sector respectability reared their heads. Progress, yes, but opinion polls show that South Africans remain to be convinced that their government is worthy of trust again.

The Ramaphosa act continues as multiple commissions work to remove the rot, but also remind South Africans of the depth of the disgrace. As the Zondo and Mokgoro commissions, among others, roll on and Eskom falters (or manipulates perceptions of its failings), South Africans are reminded too that the revelations of state corruption, endorsed by Luthuli House and its predecessor Shell House, have not bottomed out.

The next turn in the CR-1 meander was manifested in SONA 2019. Ramaphosa used SONA to drive home that there will be “structural adjustment” of the state — to save state operational costs, and create the platform to attempt an approximately clean sweep of the corrupt ones who continue to sabotage the New ANC project (while the CR side is confirmed as not that clean either). Part of the Ramaphosa strategy as his first year draws to a close, and Election 2019 looms, is to get tripartite alliance partner Cosatu in to do some of the biddings to reduce the corrupted ones’ ambitions to make it back into a prime trough position. Cosatu called on the ANC’s ethically suspect cadres who aspire to list positions to step aside until their innocence is confirmed.

The Ramaphosa camp’s coal-dance on a blast of radical economic transformation proposals (some so-called, as part of a “poisoned chalice” handed to the CR camp) also marks the year CR-1. There is no escaping, however, that this ANC has to accommodate more radicalised, alienated and angry young citizens and new voters, besides proving its own commitment to social justice.

Ramaphosa’s alliance with business and investors, a trademark of the trickle-down of his economic approach, at the end of his first year in office is held out as the citadel of achievement. From below the gloss protrude the stubborn questions of how long for economic justice, jobs and livelihoods?

The year CR-1 will be hollow if the political victories, the glossy and high-level pinnacles, are not connected with the lower-end needs, promptly. Even the gloss of a victory in Election 2019 will be meaningless without. DM