Sisulu comments stoke ANC jostling

• Ramaphosa opponents emboldened by attack on judiciary • President wary of taking action

President Cyril Ramaphosa is disinclined to fire tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu, whose attack on the judiciary is seen as a precursor to an ANC succession debate that could torpedo efforts to reform a party that in 2021 suffered its worst electoral performance since the advent of democracy.

A source close to the president said even though Ramaphosa has the sole constitutional prerogative to hire and fire those in his cabinet, the president is not keen to fire a potential political opponent without following “due process”.

The person said it would likely require an order of the Constitutional Court for Ramaphosa to act, though it is unclear on what grounds the apex court could get involved.

Various professional bodies put pressure on the president to fire Sisulu after she launched a remarkable attack on judges, accusing them in articles of having a colonial mindset. Her attack, which involved referring to black judges as “house negroes”, prompted acting chief justice Raymond Zondo to reply and defend the integrity of the judiciary.

So far, the president has been silent and ministers have given mixed messages. In an article published over the weekend, justice minister Ronald Lamola said personal and crude racial attacks on judges could not be defended, while mineral resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe said Sisulu had not brought the party into disrepute.

ANC integrity commission boss George Mashamba told Business Day the furore was about political point-scoring and that party members would see through it.

Though factions that would seek to replace the president, who remains much more popular with voters than his party despite the ANC’s dismal performance in the November 2021 election, have not come up with a viable candidate of their own, they have been emboldened by Sisulu’s public attacks.

They have so far failed to elicit a public response from Ramaphosa, who might have calculated that firing Sisulu would play into their hands. The bar for removing a standing president is seen as high.

For investors, the concern is that open warfare, as different factions try to position their preferred candidates to head the governing party ahead of a leadership conference in December, will distract a government that is supposed to be dealing with an economy that shrank in 2020 by the most in a century and lost about a million jobs.

A recovery in GDP growth in 2021 that may have exceeded 5% failed to prevent the country’s employment rate jumping to a record high.

“Our focus should be to solve problems, not debate issues to score political points,” Mashamba said, though he would not discuss Sisulu’s comments, given the possibility she might eventually be brought in to answer to the commission at a later date.

This controversy came a week after Ramaphosa, speaking at the party’s 110-year anniversary in Limpopo, promised a more aggressive implementation of policies aimed at better governance, economic reform and rooting out corruption.

This also comes as Zondo is in the process of finalising his report after more than three years of investigating state capture.

ANC members and Ramaphosa opponents, most notably his predecessor, Jacob Zuma, may be subjected to unfavourable findings and recommendations of prosecution, which may further explain the new zeal to attack judges.

Sisulu, meanwhile, came out on Sunday to defend her view that the constitution is not sacred and the judges in SA are not demigods. These comments were originally published earlier this month in the Daily News, a paper widely distributed in KwaZulu-Natal.

The ANC succession debate is expected to be discussed at the next ANC national executive committee (NEC) meeting and the DA has called on Sisulu to account for her comments in parliament.

Long-term Ramaphosa opponent, suspended ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule, used the funeral of an ANC staffer at the weekend to argue that Ramaphosa had opened the ANC succession debate by not condemning Limpopo premier Stanley Mathabatha when he came out and publicly supported the president for a second term last weekend.

At the same event, ANC NEC member Dakota Legoete defended Magashule saying the ANC’s step-aside rule – which forces leaders who are facing serious criminal charges to vacate office — should be scrapped. “The revolution is being defocused. We are focusing on things that do not help to unify the movement.”

This is in defiance of the ANC’s standing order delivered at the party’s January 8 statement that even if members disagree, they are bound by decisions of party structures.

“Once upper structures decide on matters, whether right or wrong, lower structures must abide by that, that is how the ANC has always worked. A departure from this practice constitutes ill-discipline, and that is what we must root out,” Ramaphosa went as far as to say.