Ramaphosa leaves his fate to NEC

ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa says his future rests with the party’s top leadership  when it meets on Monday. 

Ramaphosa appeared in public for the first time since he considered resigning after the release of a report by an independent panel headed by retired chief justice Sandile Ngcobo, which found he may have committed a serious violation of the law and serious misconduct in terms of the constitution.

Ramaphosa spoke to the media on the sidelines of the party’s national working committee (NWC) meeting at Nasrec, Johannesburg South, on Sunday. 

“Tomorrow [Monday] I will attend the national executive committee (NEC) meeting,” he said. “It is up to the NEC, which I am accountable to, to take whatever decision.”

On Sunday Ramaphosa was asked to recuse himself from the NWC meeting meant to discuss the report detailing the Phala Phala farm allegations. 

“I have been recused from the meeting because they are going to discuss the panel’s report,” Ramaphosa said. 

“This is to enable members of the NWC to have a thorough discussion on the report without me so that they are free to express themselves as openly and as thoroughly as possible without fear or favour,” he said.

Ramaphosa appeared calm while his detractors sharpen their knives for the NEC meeting on Monday. 

When asked whether the media would see him at the conference, he simply said: “I will see you around.”

This week Ramaphosa was talked out of resigning as the head of state by ANC provincial leaders and some cabinet ministers. 

Ramaphosa told his allies after the release of the panel’s report that he would not want to drag the ANC through the mud as he intended to take it on review. 

After lengthy negotiations with his allies he was finally convinced that they would protect him from the daggers expected at the NEC meeting. 

It would be up to the ANC to decide his fate, he told the media. 

Sowetan's sister publication, The Sunday Times, reported that Ramaphosa had told those around him that he intended to stay in office and stand for election in the ANC’s presidential race later this month.

One of his allies, NEC member and minister of justice and correctional services Ronald Lamola, told the Sunday Times that those calling for Ramaphosa to resign were jumping the gun. 

He said calling for Ramaphosa to resign just days after the release of the report was akin to telling a pilot to vacate the cockpit mid-air. 

“Instead of the airline waiting for the pilot to land at the airport and calling him or her to the office and saying ‘hey ... we believe you must be suspended.’ They ... say, ‘leave that thing,’ the aeroplane will collapse.”

Lamola is expected to defend Ramaphosa at the NWC meeting.

He said Ramaphosa deserved a chance to apply his mind and challenge the report, just as the party had given former president Jacob Zuma space to challenge the public protector’s Nkandla report in the Constitutional Court. 

He argued it took over five years before calls for Zuma’s removal and was perplexed by the rush to get rid of Ramaphosa. - TimesLive