How Ramaphosa's Actions Signal a Shift in ANC Leadership Dynamics

Clyde N.S. Ramalaine

In a striking sequence triggered by General Mkhwanazi’s 6 July press briefing, South Africa finds itself navigating the institutional unfolding of both a judicial commission, led by Justice Madlanga, and a parliamentary Ad Hoc Committee, now wrapped up in hearing testimony, each distinct in mandate but convergent in political effect.

Both are excavating the same fault lines: the infiltration of criminal elements into the police and security apparatus.

At the centre of this unfolding drama stands Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, currently on leave. His appearances before Parliament and the Madlanga Commission have raised more questions than they answered.

When pressed on whether he had informed President Cyril Ramaphosa of his decision to disband the Political Killings Task Team (PKTT), Mchunu claimed he had done so in February 2025. Presented with confidence, this assertion was intended to anchor his decision within the President’s knowledge, if not consent.

Yet Ramaphosa’s recent written submission to the Ad Hoc Committee flatly contradicts this narrative: he did not approve the PKTT’s disbandment. This is not mere bureaucratic disagreement; it is existential. By drawing a line between himself and Mchunu, Ramaphosa transforms the minister from ally to political liability, exposing him to institutional and public scrutiny.

Here lies the tragedy: Mchunu still imagines himself a viable contender within ANC leadership contests, possibly even a future presidential candidate. Social media was flooded with notifications of a prayer gathering arranged in support of him.

This was coupled with reports that Mchunu was about to write to the ANC, urging it to reconsider the decision that rendered him inactive at the organisational level. Meanwhile, Ramaphosa, who inexplicably kept him in Cabinet, with this revelation to the Ad Hoc committee, has signalled the withdrawal of political cover.

To understand Ramaphosa’s conduct, one must move beyond personalities into political theory. This is best read through a composite lens of elite preservation theory, Machiavellian statecraft, and selective institutionalism.

Elite preservation theory posits that political elites act primarily to secure survival, continuity, and historical legitimacy. Reform is rarely neutral; it is selective, preserving the core while sacrificing the expendable. Machiavellian statecraft speaks to method: the use of timing, perception, and controlled ruthlessness.

It is politics as the appearance of hesitation masking decisive action, allowing others to weaken themselves before intervention. Selective institutionalism refers to the strategic use of state institutions not as impartial arbiters, but as instruments activated at precise moments against specific actors to produce politically useful outcomes while maintaining legality’s appearance.

Through this framework, Ramaphosa’s strategy becomes clear. At its heart lies his personal legacy. He is not merely governing; he is curating memory. He seeks to leave office not as a transitional figure burdened by crises, but as the definitive reformer of the ANC, a man who “renewed” a decaying movement.

Yet this renewal must be carefully constructed: it cannot implicate him; it must selectively implicate others. It must make him the hero, and to attain that status, anyone else around him may be sacrificed for this cause.

His silence until now, therefore, is strategic latency, not indecision. By distancing himself from the PKTT disbandment, he is redrawing accountability lines and isolating Mchunu. This is not governance; it is political shedding: declaring that a liability has become too costly to bear.

Ramaphosa’s manoeuvre is not merely a reaction to Mchunu; it is a calculated political weapon aimed at a broader audience. Every ANC contender, factional actor, and ambitious figure is now on notice: proximity to power no longer guarantees protection. His circle of trust is narrowing to personal alliances, loyalty measured less by politics than by reliability, even kinship.

The hot and cold Patrice Motsepe’s contemplated candidacy must be understood in this context.  As I elsewhere contended, this is hardly a Motsepe candidacy. Motsepe may protest as much as he wants, but the same money that produced Ramaphosa and Ramaphosa’s interest will force him to serve.

It signals continuity: Motsepe represents elite consensus politics, distance from mass accountability, and a careful balancing act between capital interests and political optics. In effect, Ramaphosa 2.0 is being engineered, his political DNA replicated through a successor who preserves the order he curated.

Legacy is secured not by disruption, but by containment. Motsepe’s candidacy will stand because its primary aim is to shield and guarantee Ramaphosa from prosecution.

On another score, Ramaphosa’s strategy also ensures he avoids the fate of Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. Parliament’s refusal in December 2022 to act against him despite a prima facie case demonstrated that institutional levers could be neutralised. His choices in cabinet composition, including the appointment of compromised individuals, have long ago safeguarded him from organisational accountability.

A lacklustre and duly biased Integrity Commission within the ANC, duped by the notion of him as a reformer and superior to his predecessor, has shown no appetite to hold him accountable. Ramaphosa’s political deals, both within and outside the ANC, along with the grand coalition “GNU” role players and script, have further rendered the ANC wholly incapable of recalling him.

 The African National Congress has never been this weak at the organisational level, this neutralised in governance, this capitulating to neoliberal ideology, and this dependent on the DA opposition to secure its continued leadership of South African society.

This is exactly what Ramaphosa needed to craft his legacy. He will go down in history as the one who made the ANC malleable and a shadow of the force it once was. Was this not the original reason for him joining the ANC, to render it what it now depicts?

Those now targeted by commissions or institutional scrutiny have long been leveraged to consolidate his hold, guaranteeing that, unlike his predecessors, he is politically untouchable.

The Mchunu distancing sends layered messages. To Paul Mashatile: your ambition is visible and therefore highly vulnerable. To Fikile Mbalula: your prominence as Secretary-General does not equate to power or immunity. To Gwede Mantashe and Nomvula Mokonyane: leverage is not protection; prosecutions are not excluded.

To Panyaza Lesufi: your emergent influence, without central alignment, can become exposure; you are not absolved from targeting. Even his once-trusted deputy minister of state security, Zizi Kodwa, is not spared. The latter is reminded that institutional processes, NDPP decisions, and commissions operate as extensions of the President’s strategic architecture.

This is not a purge; it is a signalling regime anchored in selective accountability. Ramaphosa constructs, piece by piece, a narrative in which he emerges not as a participant in dysfunction, but as its eventual corrector. Institutional mechanisms are marshalled not to rectify ANC decay, but to protect it and its legacy.

By sacrificing Mchunu at this moment, Ramaphosa signals to every ambitious hand in the party: selective accountability is inevitable. Loyalty buys nothing; visibility invites risk; power is exercised at the intersection of patience and ruthlessness. 

Every overt and covert move against whomever in the ANC, every sanctioned prosecution, becomes a brick in the edifice of his self-serving renewalist legacy. Mchunu is only the beginning. Ramaphosa’s South Africa is one where proximity is dangerous, influence can be weaponised, and history is curated with surgical precision.

When the story is told, he will claim credit for saving the ANC from itself, even as those around him burn. This is not politics as usual; this is legacy-making on the bones of the expendable.

* Dr Clyde N.S. Ramalaine is a political scientist and analyst whose work interrogates governance, political economy, international affairs, and the intersections of theology, social justice, and state power.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.