Dirk Hartford: Cyril Ramaphosa stands as SA’s pillar of hope….

In the wake of a turbulent political landscape, Cyril Ramaphosa emerges as the linchpin of South Africa's aspirations. His recent Presidential address has rekindled the hope of a nation grappling with unprecedented challenges. As detractors like Malema and Zuma wage sophisticated campaigns against him, labelling him a puppet of white monopoly capital, Ramaphosa's steadfast leadership shines through. His journey from a pivotal role in the 1980s anti-apartheid movement to his current presidency underscores his exceptional leadership. Now, more than ever, South Africa looks to Ramaphosa to steer it towards a non-racial, democratic future..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..Join us for BizNews' first investment-focused conference on Thursday, 12 September, in Hermanus, featuring top experts like Frans Cronje, Piet Viljoen, and more. Get insights on electricity and exploiting SA's gas bounty from new and familiar faces. Register here..By Dirk Hartford.Whatever the GNU tribulations going forward, and especially after his majestic Presidential speech, who else can even come close to representing, and hopefully really leading, this unprecedented moment than Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa? .___STEADY_PAYWALL___.No one. Let's face it. No one in the ANC, or in the public perception, or anywhere else comes even close..Ramaphosa was key to the miracle of the free and fair elections South Africans just experienced and we should do everything to strengthen his hand as the leader, as he put it, of all the people of SA..Especially when you see what his real enemies, the EFF and MK (Malema and Zuma) say about him. Every day, in hundreds of ways, in their sophisticated and extensive social media campaigns..Read more: 🔒 UPDATED: The Economist: Another SA lesson in democracy for the world..They are trying to paint Ramaphosa as a "white monopoly capitalist" project whose entire career has been dedicated to selling out the long-suffering black masses..Zuma is framing himself as the revolutionary saviour of the corrupt ANC from the hands of the white monopoly puppet Ramaphosa..And he is doing so successfully as MK's startling electoral success has borne out so far..At the heart of it all is money—who has it and where it came from. Remember, all Blacks had literally no money 30 years ago..Zuma's state capture project as a means of extracting wealth is not judged more harshly than Ramaphosa's BEE wealth extraction project by the impoverished masses.."Ramaphosa's ANC" includes all those, Ramaphosa especially of course, who have benefited from BEE handouts from the white capitalist class in whose interests they are said to serve..Ramaphosa's ANC, through these benefactors, was able to buy the ANC – the Zuma story goes – by bribing David Mabuza to cross over to Ramaphosa and give him power..Lets pause for a moment on who Ramaphosa actually is now. .Ramaphosa, married into the Motsepe family of Patrice, is also the political representative of one of the richest clans in Africa..Ramaphosa is probably the most powerful man in Africa. .This seems to matter little to Malema who, while pretending to Ramaphosa's throne, shamelessly spreads the most outrageous lies and fake news about him..Malema's story on Ramaphosa is more deadly than Zuma's, and it's all over social media right now..In his "small boy" version, Malema seeks to cast aspertions on Ramaphosa's entire life as a political activist..He, Floyd Shivamabu and Carl Niehaus especially, use the fact that he was the son of a policeman and was detained with the likes of Terror Lekota (but was released while Terror and co went to the Island) to insinuate that he was a spy..They say that he knew the Oppenheimers and Mennels back then and went on, at their instigation, to form the NUM. .His meteoric rise in the Mass Democratic Movement thereafter, his key role in the drafting of the constitution, and his ascension to the leadership of the ANC and then business – all had nothing to do with Ramaphosa himself..These early footprints of Ramaphosa are framed by Malema as a big betrayal story and a conspiracy of his puppet masters – ultimately white monopoly capital itself..Of course, this is complete nonsense. .Ask anyone who was there in the '80s, and you will know that Ramaphosa organically emerged via NUM, then Cosatu, then as a leader of the MDM, and then at the side of Nelson Mandela when he emerged from prison because he was exceptional..His leadership at that moment was desired and deserved. He was the very best that the mass democratic movement of the 1980s could manifest from within its ranks..Read more: 🔒 FT: Gideon Rachman – Ramaphosa and South Africa on the edge.He was. There is absolutely no doubt about it. If there was someone else then where are they now?.There is absolutely no-one else in the world right now who could lead us to a non-racial democratic state. There are many who could lead us to its opposite..He is a formidable person—he always has been. He is one of those people who constellate forces around him by the sheer gravitas of their being..He was not an ANC plant in the '80s. On the contrary, he was his own man with roots in the black consciousness and trade union movements. .The underground ANC, like everyone else, including big business, sought to gravitate around and towards him in the final days of the anti-apartheid struggle. He was a magnet..When a small boy like Malema tries to present this as the work of some kind of sell-out, we are obliged to correct him. .Cyril was the real deal and the real representative of the mass democratic movement in the tumultuous events of the '80s and early nineties..It's nearly forty years since Cyril led the three-week-long great mine workers strike of the 1980s. That it ended in the defeat of the mineworkers is not really talked about..But no one who was there can doubt that Cyril led that strike 24/7 for 3 weeks, sleeping in his office every now and then..His Presidential address struck a ray of hope from the Cyril then to the Cyril now. He sounded like the leader people remember from then..His path, especially since he resumed power in the ANC and then government, has been bewildering and disappointing to many of his previous acolytes..Marikana and Phala Phala seemed to confirm the worst. And maybe it does. .The truth is, even in the '80s, Ramaphosa never led from the front but from behind. He's not a visionary leader but one who rather reads the situation and guides his disparate troops to their preferred destination.Maybe now is really the time for the inclusive Ramaphosa leadership of the '80s to shine. .Scorpio that he is, he is nothing if not loyal to the talented "comrades" he gathered around him in the '80s – almost all of whom have gone on to be fantastically successful. .It is time for people of goodwill from all perspectives and parties to gather around him and be "fantastically successful" in forging a new road forward for South Africa..Malema thinks the very fact that Ramaphosa interacted with the likes of the Oppenheimers, Mennels and Hersovs is a crime. He is jealous of course..Where Juju, do you expect social, political and economic power to go in South Africa without talking to each other?.Truth is, unbearable as it might be to the younger black activist generation today, the extremely liberal Oppenheimer, Menell and Hersov families were among the best of the best of white South Africa when it came to "assisting" the black cause under apartheid..Even if their fantastic wealth was also a product of cheap labour under apartheid. Ramaphosa knows this..When in Cosatu he tended to listen and come in towards the end with a proposal that aimed to settle things. .Hopefully, he will do the same with all the forces gathering in and around the GNU. The alternative is too ghastly to contemplate..Read also:.🔒 The Economist: South Africa's future is in the hands of a divided ANC🔒 ANC's coalition conundrum and SA's struggle with power-sharingRamaphosa's empty promises: Can he be trusted? – Ivo Vegter

Dirk Hartford: Cyril Ramaphosa stands as SA’s pillar of hope….

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