Ramaphosa’s image as an anticorruption torchbearer and vote-winner is in jeopardy — and the spectre of coalition politics beckons.
The ANC faces an increasingly uncertain future as the dominant political party in SA following the recent scandal engulfing its leader, President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The party has steadily been losing popular support for the past two decades. It went into the last general elections in 2019 with only one trump card —. He has been the party’s main vote-winner following his predecessor Jacob Zuma’s corrupt reign, which ended in February 2018. The ANC built its 2019 election campaign around Ramaphosa, after polls showed that he was the only leader who had substantial credibility among voters. Even then, the ANCBut Ramaphosa’s image as an anticorruption torchbearer — and vote-winner — is in jeopardy after a controversial former spy boss laidincluding money laundering and defeating the ends of justice — against him in early June 2022. The charges related to the theft of a large amount of cash in US dollars from Ramaphosa’s farm in 2020.