The ‘boiling frogs’ bit
The closest Bruce comes to admitting the profound and distressing continuity between Ramaphosa and his predecessor is this: “His presidency depends on him following the resolutions of the party conference that elected him ANC leader.” Bruce christened himself a “Cyrilist” and the quintessential Cyrilist line is that deep down the president is powerless. “He has no choice.”
The Cyrilist would have you ignore the “boiling frogs” bit; the “original sin” recitations; the “no farm killings” denial. The president has no choice over what he says or said. The Cyrilist admires Ramaphosa for his ability to appease race nationalists, but cannot admit it. Admittedly, Bruce thought “no farm killings” was too much, so he wrote that English is Ramaphosa’s “second language”. All parties should remember how degrading a Bruce compliment can be as he fawns after Ramaphosa as both powerless and the “least worst” man for the job.
The truly galling thing about Bruce, and almost every other Ramaphosa cheerleader, is that they cannot recognise our president’s greatest strength. He is the most popular politician in the country. The asset is invaluable, a product of personal talent, tenacity and good fortune. As a result, Ramaphosa is clothed in immense power.
I make this claim on the basis of eNCA’s political poll at the end of last year, which had Ramaphosa beating Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma handily among ANC voters, and beating her by more than 30% among the poor, the unemployed and those who lack a matric. Across the country, across race and age groups, Ramaphosa was far away the most popular candidate of any party before he got talking about “original sin”.
More recent Institute of Race Relations (IRR) polls show that Ramaphosa has positive favourability among 57% of all voters and more than 70% of ANC voters — and more among those most likely to vote. The DA’s Mmusi Maimane, in contrast, has net negative favourability overall, and positive favourability among only 64% of the much smaller pool of DA voters. Malema is even less popular overall, with nearly twice as many voters taking a negative attitude towards him compared to those who feel positive, though he holds a tight grip over his own sectional party where he is extremely popular.
Ramaphosa’s persistent popularity
Cyril Ramaphosa remained constantly the country’s only majority-popular politician between last December and this one, though in that time something major did change. Ramaphosa became president of both the ANC and the country, institutionalising his power. While Ramaphosa and Dlamini-Zuma were engaged in a party race (with credible polls practically unavailable), it remained possible for the popular candidate to lose on the pretence of not campaigning as well as his opponent among delegates. After the dust settled on Ramaphosa’s victory, in stifled court appeals that logic settled beneath it.
For Ramaphosa to be ousted now would be impossible without pretext. And what kind of pretext would it take? There were ANC cadres desperately machinating to oust an unpopular Zuma on the pretext that the president was demonstrably corrupt; had been censured by the Constitutional Court; and was subject to nationwide #ZumaMustFall rallies. Even then it took until the next five-year scheduled national session (which we will not have for another four years) — and it almost did not work. The ANC is not a party that disposes of its leaders easily.
Yet Bruce would have you believe that Ramaphosa sings “original sin” while Bathabile Dlamini holds a gun to the back of his head giving him “no choice”. Like every other Cyrilist, Bruce is in denial about the fact that the ANC has only one sure way to lose the 2019 election: withdrawing the nation’s darling, Cyril. The ANC could turn off every power generator in the country for a month and not do as badly as they would without him. Ousting Ramaphosa is political suicide for the ANC. But Bruce thinks the ANC is at once smart enough to find the trigger at this late stage, and stupid enough to pull it.
The duplicity of polls
Once the views of people, who lack Bruce’s loudspeaker, are taken into account, the Cyrilists have only three ways to maintain the claim that Ramaphosa is under duress. The first is that “land hunger” is so pervasive it will sway the majority of South Africans against Ramaphosa if he turns his back on no-compensation land reform. You could only think that if you ignored the polls on land.
So second, ignore the polls completely and mumble something about Brexit and Trump discrediting survey science, but every major poll said Brexit would be close and it was 49% to 51%. The FiveThirtyEight online poll master had Trump with a one in three chance to win. Polls weren’t discredited by those elections; precisely those loudmouths who ignored the survey science were discredited by anyone careful enough to notice.