Executive political leadership: Why a ‘super president’ won’t fix South Africa’s problems

On 8 May 2026, South Africa’s Constitutional Court passed a judgment declaring Parliament’s 2022 decision to reject a Section 89 independent panel report published earlier in the same year as “irrational, unconstitutional, and invalid”, opening the way to impeachment proceedings against President Cyril Ramaphosa.

That judgment brings the Phala Phala scandal to the fore again, highlighting the far cry that Ramaphosa’s executive political leadership has been from the hope he gave many South Africans, immediately after the horror that was the Zuma presidency, and during his inaugural presidential address in 2018, when, quoting Hugh Masekela’s song about “self-sacrifice, individual responsibility and the importance of personal change”, he said to Parliament and millions of South Africans watching and listening in: “Send Me.”

Without denying the injustice of apartheid South Africa, and barring the world’s elder statesman, the Phala Phala scandal raises questions about the quality of South Africa’s post-1994 executive political leadership.

Specifically, because we live in an electoral democracy, the scandal also encourages us to think about how we can get ethical and competent leaders into public office, beginning with the presidency, why this hasn’t already happened 32 years after South Africa’s first democratic elections, and what can be done to mitigate the fallout of the failure to do so.

‘Super president’: A solution to South Africa’s problems?

In Super President: The History and Future of Executive Power in South Africa, a book I recently reviewed, political scientist Bhaso Ndzendze locates South Africa’s post-1994 presidential leadership at the heart of what he correctly describes as the country’s “stagnation, crisis or… decline”.

Counterintuitively, however, the author’s explanation for the state of the nation is that successive presidents haven’t taken advantage of the power at their disposal. His proposed “remedy for South Africa” is that incumbent and future presidents should also hold ministerial leadership positions in their cabinets and, by implication, exercise their power more broadly.

Relying on historical and contemporary examples from South Africa and elsewhere (the former including from the Union, beginning in 1910 and ending in 1961, and the Republic, beginning in 1961), Ndzendze conceptualises super presidents who, altogether, set a “super precedent”, in support of his thesis.

What is a ‘super president’?

In South Africa’s pre-1994 context, super presidents are executive political leaders who had ministerial experience before they led cabinets or, more importantly for this article, assumed ministerial roles while serving as prime minister or president.

In contemporary times, according to Ndzendze, there are at least three foreign countries, comparable to and more complex than South Africa, in which former or current executive political leaders have served or still serve as ministers – among them India, Nigeria and Canada.

In addition to the historical and contemporary country examples that Ndzendze cites, he argues that the “super precedent” can be followed in South Africa because the Constitution doesn’t prevent the president from taking up one or more ministerial roles.

Are the three observations or arguments Ndzendze makes in support of his argument convincing enough? Can we be confident that South Africa’s presidents should, in addition to their presidential responsibilities, also exercise ministerial leadership, thereby becoming super presidents?

Same dual leadership model, but in a very different context

Is the fact that South Africa’s pre-1994 prime ministers and presidents assumed dual leadership roles sufficient reason for the country’s post-1994 presidents to do the same?

Ndzendze acknowledges that the pre-1994 period in which South Africa’s super presidents governed and from which he draws examples in support of what he thinks South Africa’s post-1994 presidential leadership should have looked like and ought to look like, “seem like archaically simpler times”.

Is the simpler past in which South Africa’s pre-1994 executive political leaders governed comparable to the complexity that characterises governance in today’s world? Are the historical case studies Ndzendze relies on relevant in contemporary times?

Ndzendze writes, for example: “The 1990s was a period of great change globally… In the year that Mandela assumed the presidency, the World Wide Web became mainstream.”

Furthermore, referring specifically to South Africa, he recognises that the country today is “more complex than it was during the Union and apartheid periods”. Present-day South Africa “is vastly more populous, operates in a fast-paced, digitalised global environment, and the government itself is a much bigger entity”.

The challenge of dual leadership in complex times

Ndzendze tries to accommodate and respond to the realities of time and increasing complexity, and how they challenge his reliance on South Africa’s pre-1994 executive political leadership as a model for the present day.

He cites India, Nigeria and Canada as contemporary examples of states that, according to him, are comparable to, but more complex than, South Africa, where prime ministers or presidents have played and continue to play a dual executive political leadership role.

Setting aside doubts about the quality of democracy in his three case studies – something Ndzendze raises, casting doubt on the efficacy of dual executive political leadership in these countries; the question of whether any governance success stories are directly attributable to such leadership; and what government performance across the case studies looks like next to comparable countries where executive political leaders haven’t adopted a dual leadership model; the observations that Ndzendze himself makes about growing complexity in an increasingly globalised world question the wisdom of dual executive political leaders in any country today.

The heightened complexity of the contemporary world means there are more demands on civil governments and leadership broadly than in the past. This is why Ndzendze writes that if South African presidents were “to assume direct ministerial control over a ministerial portfolio, they would have to respond to endless crises”.

At least two developments help illustrate this complexity and the greater demands that are consequently placed on leaders, beginning with those occupying executive political roles at the national level.

First is the practical outgrowth of the real or, in some cases, perceived need, across countries and over time, for the state to expand in size and multiply its functions. Ndzendze recognises, for example, that the expectations of state rulers have grown since ancient Athens and offers several South African examples of this practical outgrowth.

These include a 70% increase (R240-million) in the presidency’s budget between the 2003/4 and 2004/5 financial years, the fact that the president’s citadel in the Union Buildings is today only occupied by the presidency while it once housed the entire national government, and the steady increase over the years in State of the Nation Address page-counts.

Second is the traction that relatively new concepts and ways of thinking about leadership have gained as leadership scholars have worked to make sense of, and give us ways to navigate more effectively, a changing and increasingly volatile world.

Examples include “VUCA leadership” (leadership that effectively navigates environments characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity), “shared leadership”, “distributed leadership”, “decentralised leadership”, an emphasis on “leadership” as opposed to “leaders”, the related de-emphasis on positional or formal leadership, and finally, “followership”.

Executive political power needs to be exercised more wisely, not more widely

Leaders, first among them, those presiding over governments whose members have committed to a democratic constitution, should, where and when appropriate, share, delegate and coordinate power to and among qualified persons rather than accruing more power unto themselves.

Therefore, Ndzendze rightly argues that in a post-1994 South Africa, “efforts must be made by the government, civic society, and individuals to build a more equitable and inclusive society for all”.

The prospect of such efforts being successful increases to the degree that a South African president recognises and governs according to the leadership models, principles and values cited in the previous section. It diminishes to the degree that a president assumes direct control over affairs ordinarily residing beyond the presidential office, including any number of ministries.

It’s hard to accept that Ndzendze’s argument for South African presidents to assume ministerial leadership roles doesn’t involve such an accrual. He writes that the argument of his book “is not… for increasing the powers of the president”, but “merely making optimal use of” South Africa’s Constitution.

The fact that the Constitution doesn’t explicitly prohibit a president from adopting ministerial roles doesn’t make it beneficial to do so. In South Africa, as in other parts of the world, presidential power needs to be exercised more wisely, not more widely.

Structural change doesn’t automatically equate with constructive agency

Ndzendze writes that “to affect change and institute transparent and effective leadership, South Africa’s presidents, regardless of party, should assume ministerial positions within their own cabinets”.

Among the advantages that Ndzendze lists for a South African president doing so are “more realistic target setting”, “more thoughtful decision-making”, the accumulation of “direct experience on a portfolio”, and increased agility.

This assumes the executive political leader in question possesses, first, the competence to make these advantages achievable in an increasingly complex world, and second, the character to ensure they benefit the collective interest, and not a select few.

A president’s assumption of ministerial positions alone cannot unlock ethical and competent leadership. Being a “super president” and leading a “super country” cannot depend solely on exhausting all of one’s constitutional options for exercising power, however these options may be defined. To believe otherwise confuses structural change with the capacity for virtuous and competent leadership.

Whether perceptions about the leadership of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former and incumbent presidents of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Tinubu, and former prime minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, are accurate or not, South Africans must consider, having virtue and competence in mind, and with the benefit of hindsight, whether it would have been advantageous for any of South Africa’s post-1994 presidents to pursue the dual leadership model that Ndzendze writes about, and adopted ministerial leadership positions.

South Africa needs super citizens, not a ‘super president’

In his book, Ndzendze proposes a structural solution to political and socioeconomic problems resulting less from a leadership failure to navigate government architecture and more from the failure among South Africans broadly, beginning with the President, and then the citizens whose votes bring him/her to power, to exercise their agency in a manner that ultimately protects and advances human dignity.

Contrary to Ndzendze’s argument, a “super president” won’t fix South Africa’s political and socioeconomic problems. In a world as complex and volatile as ours, South Africa’s presidents should exercise power more wisely rather than seeking to exercise power more widely.

The author’s exclusive focus on executive political power in his search for a solution to South Africa’s woes (consider his description of presidents as “saviours and helpers”) leaves no room for considering the role of South Africa’s eligible citizens who possess the heavenly ordained dignity and the constitutionally mandated power to choose their country’s president and other political leaders, even if indirectly, come election time.

Democracy, something Ndzendze fails to give sufficient attention to in his book, depends on democratic leadership and citizenship.

In his commentary on Ramaphosa’s inaugural address to South Africa’s Parliament, during which the President draws on Masekela’s song, “Send Me”, Professor Tinyiko Maluleke writes that “Masekela paints a vision of a future in which ‘the people’ (not the government!) will ‘start to turn it around’.”

Effectively managing the many challenges that confront a country many once called the Rainbow Nation depends less on a “super president” and more on super citizens – South Africans with the intellectual ability and moral courage to recognise and constructively process their collective history so that they can more effectively plot the way for a collective future marked by peace, security and prosperity.

Key to the latter is voting for executive political leadership at all levels of government that can help make South Africa’s transformation into a super country a reality. DM