ROB ROSE: Of WMC and conspiracies: Zuma’s postcard from the edge
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If, understandably, you’ve cooled on the idea of Cyril Ramaphosa as the messiah delivering SA from evil, you’ll still hardly be heartened by the looterati now lining up with a guillotine calling for his head.
There is, at least, pleasing symmetry in the identity of those first to respond to Ramaphosa’s letter last week calling for the ANC to end corruption in its ranks. Indeed, had he been less diplomatic, these were the people he’d have written to personally.
Still, their sheer chutzpah is hard to beat.
First up, 4x4 enthusiast and ex-con Tony Yengeni called on Ramaphosa to resign, eagerly supported by the periodically orphaned Carl Niehaus. Close behind were Ekurhuleni mayor Mzwandile Masina, embroiled in a R1.9bn toilet tender scandal, and ANC councillor Andile Lungisa, convicted of aggravated assault in 2018.
Finally, on Friday, the kingpin of state capture himself weighed in.
SA’s former president, a man facing 18 criminal charges — including fraud and corruption — wrote a letter to Ramaphosa, accusing him of betraying the ANC and selling out.
“You write for your own desires, to plead for white validation and approval ... I view your letter as a diversion, a public relations exercise in which you accuse the entire ANC in order to save your own skin,” wrote Jacob Zuma.
Yet Zuma’s letter itself is a hodgepodge of conspiracies, pre-emptive strikes at the judiciary, and straw man arguments, in which he mischaracterises Ramaphosa’s argument only to attack that false picture.
“By stating that the ANC stands as ‘accused number 1’ in respect of the charge of corruption, you implicate thousands of innocent members of the ANC who ... have never benefitted from corruption,” he writes.
Zuma, vastly skilled in the dark art of reframing the debate, surely knew that Ramaphosa wasn’t accusing every member of corruption, but rather speaking of the institution itself.
More damagingly, Zuma then accuses Ramaphosa of hiding the truth of the R1bn supposedly donated to his CR17 ANC electoral campaign, money he claimed was donated by white monopoly capital (WMC) to entrench its influence.
Ahead of this past weekend’s national executive committee (NEC) meeting, Zuma’s letter had at least energised the faction loyal to the ANC’s secretary-general Ace Magashule. But, as Stephen Grootes writes in the Daily Maverick (, it’s unlikely to sink Ramaphosa this time around.
It’s a view shared by political analyst Ralph Mathekga, who tells the FM that ...
There is, at least, pleasing symmetry in the identity of those first to respond to Ramaphosa’s letter last week calling for the ANC to end corruption in its ranks. Indeed, had he been less diplomatic, these were the people he’d have written to personally.
Still, their sheer chutzpah is hard to beat.
First up, 4x4 enthusiast and ex-con Tony Yengeni called on Ramaphosa to resign, eagerly supported by the periodically orphaned Carl Niehaus. Close behind were Ekurhuleni mayor Mzwandile Masina, embroiled in a R1.9bn toilet tender scandal, and ANC councillor Andile Lungisa, convicted of aggravated assault in 2018.
Finally, on Friday, the kingpin of state capture himself weighed in.
SA’s former president, a man facing 18 criminal charges — including fraud and corruption — wrote a letter to Ramaphosa, accusing him of betraying the ANC and selling out.
“You write for your own desires, to plead for white validation and approval ... I view your letter as a diversion, a public relations exercise in which you accuse the entire ANC in order to save your own skin,” wrote Jacob Zuma.
Yet Zuma’s letter itself is a hodgepodge of conspiracies, pre-emptive strikes at the judiciary, and straw man arguments, in which he mischaracterises Ramaphosa’s argument only to attack that false picture.
“By stating that the ANC stands as ‘accused number 1’ in respect of the charge of corruption, you implicate thousands of innocent members of the ANC who ... have never benefitted from corruption,” he writes.
Zuma, vastly skilled in the dark art of reframing the debate, surely knew that Ramaphosa wasn’t accusing every member of corruption, but rather speaking of the institution itself.
More damagingly, Zuma then accuses Ramaphosa of hiding the truth of the R1bn supposedly donated to his CR17 ANC electoral campaign, money he claimed was donated by white monopoly capital (WMC) to entrench its influence.
Ahead of this past weekend’s national executive committee (NEC) meeting, Zuma’s letter had at least energised the faction loyal to the ANC’s secretary-general Ace Magashule. But, as Stephen Grootes writes in the Daily Maverick (, it’s unlikely to sink Ramaphosa this time around.
It’s a view shared by political analyst Ralph Mathekga, who tells the FM that ...