Piet Croucamp: Ramaphosa fears Mantashe’s knock on the door…

The “embarrassment of being removed” is “foremost” in the thinking of President Cyril Ramaphosa. So says political analyst Piet Croucamp who deems the break between the president and African National Congress (ANC) Chair Gwede Mantashe as irreparable. “Mantashe was the person who knocked on Thabo Mbeki’s door to tell him that time is up - and he was the one who knocked on Jacob Zuma's door to tell him time is up. If there's one thing that Ramaphosa and those around him fear most, it is that one day the National Executive Committee of the ANC makes a decision which could be perceived as a Motion of No Confidence and Gwede Mantashe comes and knocks on your door. And I think that's the big fear that Ramaphosa has.” Croucamp also gives his take on the real reason MKP SG Floyd Shivambu was redeployed; reveals his pick for the next leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA); comments on the performance of the Government of National Unity ((GNU); as well as the Afrikaner Trek to America. He also gazes into the future of South Africa in 10 years’ time. “…there will not be a single party that will govern South Africa alone in the next two or three elections…”.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.The auditorium doors will open for BNIC#2 on 10 September 2025 in Hermanus. For more information and tickets, click here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview .Chris Steyn (00:01.618)It's only June, but South Africans already feel totally battered by the political dramas of 2025. Let us speak to political analyst, Professor Piet Croucamp. Welcome, PietPiet Croucamp (00:17.102)Thanks a lot, nice to be with you.Chris Steyn (00:20.436)Shall we start with former President Jacob Zuma's MKP and the redeployment of SG Floyd Shivambu?Piet Croucamp (00:32.653)Yeah, I think there are a few things to remember there. The first thing is that the MK Party hasn't had a political conference or a leadership conference, which means the hierarchy in terms of decision-making and status and authority is not as established as the party would want it to be. The reason why they don't hold a conference, I think, is because they fear the result in the sense that they have a lot, a number of very strong personalities there, all lobbying and vying for important positions. And the centrifugal forces might just be more pertinent than the party can outlast. I think that's part of the reason why they don't have leadership conference. The other thing is that you have to remember is that within the party, there are those that are considered to be the family of Jacob Zuma, those who established the party. And then there are the newcomers or the incomers. And there's a very specific divide between the two groups. And it adds to the, I think, to the very stressful situation that already exists in terms of the hierarchy of the party. And they've been through a number of secretary generals before, and they also have been through a number of other, in terms of other leadership positions, a number of important individuals. I think Mr Mazwanele Manyi has just been relieved of his duties as the, as I think, the chief whip of the party, or the whip of the party in parliament. Yeah, so there's a lot of instability, but if you look at the more recent electoral outcomes, it seems like they're still doing good and there's still some growth left in the party. So instability does not necessarily lead to decline in the presence amongst the electorate, I think.Chris Steyn (02:20.722)What do you think was really behind Floyd's redeployment?Piet Croucamp (02:26.762)I think Jacob Zuma's children. I think he is, you know, they use the excuse of him traveling north into Africa and meeting people that are obscure people as far as the party is concerned. But I think the real problem is he's accused of trying to drive a wedge in between Jacob Zuma and his children. I think that's the real reason behind it.And, but the other thing is also that the secretary general should be a very bureaucratic position. It is actually better for them to have Floyd Shivambu, a very experienced parliamentarian, to have him somewhere else. And then I think there's a third, there's another factor, that is the salary of…the party doesn't have the money to pay big salaries. And the secretary general, especially given where Floyd Shivambu comes from, where he earned a massive salary and he had access to all sorts of corrupt deals to supplement that income. I think he will get a higher salary or he will be remunerated if he moves to parliament. I think that also plays a role. That's why he's so quiet. I think he's quite happy to go to parliament and at last get a stable income.Chris Steyn (03:45.094)Over to the African National Congress, which faction do you think is going to emerge the strongest in the lead up to the next national conference?Piet Croucamp (03:57.916)Well, you can ask the question which one is the strongest now. I think things may evolve differently as we get closer to the conference. It can change. I think it almost inevitably will change. But Paul Mashatile has Gwede Mantashe on his side. You'll remember that Gwede Mantashe was in the camp of, at least on the list, on the party list of Ramaphosa during the last leadership election. And he's since jumped ship to the side of Paul Mashatile and the main reason is when Ramaphosa relieved him of his duties as the Minister of Energy, well, Energy was under his portfolio and gave that to Kgosientsho Ramakgopa. That break was inevitable, was immediate - and it seems like irreparable. And if you remember, Gwede Mantashe was the person who knocked on Thabo Mbeki’s door to tell him that time is up - and he was the one who knocked on Jacob Zuma's door to tell him time is up. If there's one thing that Ramaphosa and those around him fear most, it is that one day the National Executive Committee of the ANC makes a decision which could be perceived as a Motion of No Confidence and Gwede Mantashe come and knocks on your door. And I think that's the big fear that Ramaphosa is. He wants to serve out his term and he doesn't want to be removed. The embarrassment of being removed is, I think, foremost in his thinking. So that gives enormous power to the side of, call it the faction if you wish, of Paul Mashatile. And Mashatile is behaving very presidential lately. He's addressing a number of institutions, crowds, he travels overseas, he spoke in France. So, yes, he's building a footprint within ANC.The big question is, does he build a following in the ANC? Can he get the branches behind him? He certainly won't have the branches in KwaZulu-Natal. He won't make much headway in Mpumalanga. There's nothing happening in the Western Cape. In the Eastern Cape, it’s staunch ANC. Western Cape. North-West province. It's a little bit of a 50-50 province. Limpopo goes to Ramaphosa. Gauteng...Piet Croucamp (06:22.256)…is Paul Mashatile. So I don't think he's got the support base amongst the rank and file of the party yet. But for now he is the other faction and he'll be competitive and he'll be destructive. It might be possible for him to destroy Ramaphosa without necessarily being an alternative to Ramaphosa eventually when there's a leadership election.Chris Steyn (06:45.492)Talking about leadership, do you think it's time for the Democratic Alliance to get a new leader?Piet Croucamp (06:55.894)No, not now. Not now. I think eventually they must. Next, they have a new leadership election soon. The only other person in the DA that can step up the plate is…. the mayor of Cape Town. And I think eventually it'll make sense that he replaces John Steenhuisen, but the DA wouldn't want... It's not going to make much of a difference to the support of the party yet. It may just lead to better management of the party eventually and then over time I think Geordin Hill-Lewis has a capacity to build bridges across the racial divide to the community in the Western Cape but also broader. You will have noticed I think in the last local government election there was around about seven percent support for the DA in think in Khayelitsa and that is because he's the only politician in South Africa; they spent more money or who spend more money on people that will never vote for him than he spent on his own constituency. And I think that has an impact, that it does influence people. So I'm not saying he will get the majority of black people to support him, but he only needs significant or sufficient or adequate numbers to really establish him as a possible successor for whoever in the DA, but also perhaps broader in the Government of National Unity. He could play a more prominent role. So I've never been a fan of John Steenhuisen as leader of the party. But I must tell you that he's really covered a few miles as the Minister of Agriculture. He started very slowly, made a few mistakes with appointments in his department, but he has established a good relationship with the farmers. He's doing well in kicking open doors in Russia, China for new markets for agricultural products. He's really doing his best to replace the possible loss of AGOA and the American market by opening up other markets. He's working hard. He's really, really working hard. But the question is a valid one about his leadership and we will replace him and when will it open? Yeah.Chris Steyn (09:10.866)Now do you think the Economic Freedom Fighters could make a bit of a comeback in the municipal elections in 2026?Piet Croucamp (09:20.408)There's no sign of it because like KwaZulu-Nata, most of their support base is leaving for the MK party. So I don't see it in the stats. A number of their leadership has left. The trend is for the walking wounded, those who are marginalised by the ANC because they have been accused of corruption but will never be prosecuted. And they have some support in society.You'll be surprised to see how often very corrupt people have significant support within society. They're all going to the MK party.I think the momentum moves to a real militarised outfit as opposed to a fake one in red overalls. It's just a little bit more credible, more believable, the history of the MK party and the quasi or pseudo-militarised slogan, military slogans of the EFF.I think the momentum is away from them. The biggest enemy now, it used to be the ANC, now their biggest enemy is MK Party because that's where most of their people go, most of their supporters go.Chris Steyn (10:27.112)Meanwhile, how do you feel about the Africana trek to America?Piet Croucamp (10:35.174)There are many ways to look at it. One thing is I have absolutely no problem with people going to America for whatever reason. Look, the principles on which they go there is a lie. There's no white genocide in South Africa. It doesn't mean that these people haven't been traumatised by crime and that they haven't been targeted by specific communities that they may have left in the past. I'm not saying that. I'm simply saying that the political principle is that there is no white genocide in South Africa. If they go in terms of that, they just ride the wave of Donald Trump's export of a big lie, which is something that's never been true. But I don't have a problem if you want to go to America because you think your children will have a safer and a better future there. We're not going to solve the crime problems in South Africa in my lifetime and maybe not even my children's lifetime. I think if you can get an alternative to South Africa for your children…All good. I have absolutely no problem with it. But it is simply not true. The reasons why they're going to America, the political reasons, and what Donald Trump has said is just bullshit. It's just nonsense. It's a lie.Chris Steyn (11:53.165)How much faith do you have in the Government of National Unity?Piet Croucamp (11:58.268)Well, I have more faith in the Government of National Unity than the ANC government. And I'll tell you why. If you look at the work that's been done by Dean McPherson, Solly Malatse, I think all the DA ministers, Gwarube, Education, they've done enormous, they made an enormous difference in the departments that they have taken over.The question is, why is it so difficult for ANC ministers to make a big difference? Because these ministers, they entered the department who probably was a little bit hostile to them because these departments are staffed by ANC people and they still managed to make a massive difference. They still managed to get some work done. Even Pieter Groenewald at Correctional Services could do massive, could make a massive difference. It goes to show that if you want to arrive for work in the morning, you can make a difference even given the circumstances, the corruption. The simple inability to do the most basic tasks, to fulfill the most basic tasks sometimes of government departments. You can make a massive difference. I think the Government of National Unity, and also if you look at the markets, the markets responded well to that. The Rand, although it's on the back of a weakening US dollar, is holding up. And the stats doesn't look too bad for South Africa. And the bond markets looks well.I think it's got to do with the fact that there's a little bit more confidence in this government as opposed to an ANC government. So as far as I'm concerned, South Africa can't afford to lose the Government of National Unity.Chris Steyn (13:39.614)Do you think the ANC could still renew itself or reset itself before the next election?Piet Croucamp (13:44.953)No, no, it's not possible. The ANC is reliant for its internal cohesion on having opportunistic access to the State, corruption, patronage and entrepreneurship. You can't do without that. You'll remember that until very recently Ramaphosa made a big fuss about renewal of the ANC. Well, for the last year, he hasn't mentioned that. He hasn't mentioned it at all simply because they realised it's not possible to renew the ANC. The only alternative for South Africans is somehow we must get rid of the ANC. So you'll get a lot of people who say, but black South Africans will always vote for the ANC. Well, it's simply not true. In the last election, they got 39.86% of the vote. That's the people that were registered and turned out to actually vote. But if you look at the eligible vote, in other words, all South Africans that could have arrived at the voting booth if they had been registered. In other words, everybody between 18 and 108. Only 15.6% of South Africans voted for the ANC. That's the worst possible mandate that the ANC could imagine. It tells you how South Africans really feel about the ANC. And if you think people who do not vote…because millions of people just didn't vote, they didn't even register. But South Africa is one of those jurisdictions. If you think that the people who do not vote have nothing to say. You make a big difference…big mistake. It is actually a Vote of No Confidence. Why many, many people in South Africa do not turn up to vote eventually and do not participate in politics at all is because they are alienated. That's what you get when you have 40% in terms of the broad definition, unemployment. If you have massive poverty and relative poverty that permeates almost every sector of the human condition in South African politics. Then you alienate people. It doesn't mean they don't have a strong opinion. You just alienated them enough that they do not participate in the normal rituals of a democracy. So the ANC is, as it is, looks like they can recover well. It's quite possible, depending on a number of other factors we can talk about if you want to. Unless something changes, they're on their way down.Piet Croucamp (16:08.867)The question is what will replace them?Chris Steyn (16:12.637)What will?Piet Croucamp (16:15.012)I think there will always be coalition governments in the future. And the question is which political parties will make up that coalition and who will be the dominant ones in that coalition? Will it remain the ANC? What will be the footprint of, is it possible that MK and the EFF could become part of that coalition government? Then we are in really big trouble because then that will marginalise or push out the DA. Or will there be moderate voices that come to the fore and we have a different government, different policies, different budgets. We don't know about the future. We have no clue where we're going to. But we know that there will not be a single party that will govern South Africa alone in the next two or three elections, decade or so.Chris Steyn (17:03.796)Do you think having an outsider as the next president of the party, somebody like Patrice Motsepe, would make the difference?Piet Croucamp (17:12.649)I don't know if it will make a difference, but I think it's nonsense that people speculate about it. Patrice Motsepe is not interested in becoming the next president of South Africa. It's just nonsense. I don't know why people keep on entertaining. You know, with the past, the previous election was the same thing. They also had at that point, one of the branches, the ANC actually nominated him. But if you have one brain cell, there's absolutely no reason to speculate about it because it's simply not in the cards. You don't understand South African politics if you think that's a possibility at all. You don't understand the ANC. You don't understand the relationship between the entrepreneurs and the private sector and ANC if you think that that can happen.It doesn't mean that they can't be coming from the outside, something completely different, but less, not a figure with a historical footprint within ANC. It's quite possible that some charismatic figure can come from somewhere, but it's not going to be Patrice Motsepe.Chris Steyn (18:10.142)So where do you see South Africa in 10 years time? How do you think this country is going to look?Piet Croucamp (18:18.115)It's a dangerous thing to look at a crystal ball and the obvious answer is to tell you I don't have no clue but then I will qualify my answer by saying we're not going to solve our problem with crime anytime soon There's no indication that we will reach economic growth of three four five percent in the next ten years it's we don't have the ability toPiet Croucamp (18:59.371)I don't think we can solve the crime problem in the next 10 years. I do not think we can have economic growth in the next 10 years that will relieve poverty or create unemployment in South Africa, reestablish trust. I don't think that the way the government will be changing in the next 10 years will make a meaningful difference except for managing a relatively depleted budget just a little bit better. So 10 years is a short period of time and it's impossible to turn around the destructive variables in the equation in the economy of South Africa. So I think we will still be in trouble in 10 years from now. There's no indication that that will change meaningful.Chris Steyn (19:42.728)Thank you, was political analyst Piet Croucamp speaking to BizNews and I am Chris Steyn. Thank you, Piet.Piet Croucamp (19:50.743)Thank you very much.

Piet Croucamp: Ramaphosa fears Mantashe’s knock on the door…

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