Mbalula is not the president of SA

7 June 2023

Fikile Mbalula is not the president of South Africa. Or is he the real president? And is he the real minister of International Relations and Co-operation?

Since when does the man who is charged with running the party organisation get to make major statements relating to international affairs, doing a U-turn on a matter of vital importance to the country’s international reputation and to its overriding trade and economic interests?

The fact is that for once he made sense in repudiating the president, the minister of International Relations, the ANC itself and the envoys sent by the president to the USA and important members of the G7 to explain the inexplicable. The public of South Africa will be profoundly grateful that Mbalula has said President Putin will not attend the forthcoming BRICS conference; this will be the first time that a participating country will not be present.

Mbalula was a disastrous Transport minister and his stints in previous portfolios, notably Police, were equally poor. A sensible statement by him, reported in the Sunday Times, is definitely his high point.

It illustrates, however, that the present government has lost control and cannot be trusted to look after our affairs properly. In power far too long, its leadership is old, tired, bereft of ideas and devoid of principle.

The original statement by Minister Naledi Pandor repudiating the Putin invasion was good. It put us on the right side of world opinion and history. No sooner was it issued than President Ramaphosa repudiated it; the view expressed was contrary to the ANC position. The government has spent the intervening months making itself and our country look increasingly ridiculous and jeopardising vital trade and diplomatic interests. This has been compounded by the Russian ship docking in a naval port and unloading and perhaps loading arms for Russia for use in the Ukraine war (depending on whom one believes – South Africa or the US ambassador).

We are told that SA has a special relationship with Russia for its part 30 years ago in assisting the ANC. But trade between our countries is minuscule and SA has, through the Americans, special access, duty-free, to the enormous American market. Add to that the unanimous condemnation by our major trading partners in Europe of the Putin aggression, invasion and slaughter of the innocents, and one begins to understand that the Ramaphosa government behaviour has been reckless. Again, we have the confusion between the interests of the ANC and those of South Africa. One remembers that President Zuma unblushingly said that the ANC comes first. Does this differ in any way from the Ramaphosa approach?

Some observers who cannot otherwise understand Ramaphosa, have suggested that Russia’ funding of the near-bankrupt ANC (unable to even pay salaries for its party employees last year) loomed much larger in his mind and that of Deputy President Mashatile (up until then the Treasurer-General of the ANC) than the potential loss of billions in trade by our country.

We are told that Mashatile is highly ambitious and is readying himself to push Ramaphosa out immediately after the 2024 election. Both of them must consider the possibility that an increasingly powerful Mbalula, adored by many ANC activists but laughed at by most of the rest of SA, might just get rid of both of them. Mbalula’s problem is that he is far more likely to be the next leader of the opposition than president of SA.

Douglas Gibson is a former chief whip of the opposition and former ambassador to Thailand.

This article first appeared in The Star.