OPINIONISTA: 2019 Elections: ‘Ramacynicism’ and leaps of faith By Susan Booysen BooysenS2
Ramacynicism centres on the party, the ANC. It means voters do not accept blindly that President Cyril Ramaphosa will pull off the tasks of reinventing the ANC post-election . Despite progress in replacing key, corrupt state officials and Cabinet members, his weaknesses showed tangibly in an inability to forge an untainted ANC candidate list.
Going with the calculated, relative optimism means going with odds that are marginally balanced in favour of the Ramaphosaists in the ANC, and assuming, sometimes against some odds, that there is a calculated strategy in the Ramaphosa ANC to subdue, manage and eventually eclipse the counterforces.
The optimist cleaned-up, new ANC scenario contains elements of appeasing the Zumaists and taking them into Parliament and provincial legislatures where their moves may be watched. And let there be hope that they do not get their hands onto the public purse. The question then is whether the Ramaphosa camp has a strategy to ensure that Magashule and his associates will be quarantined. Voters and citizens concerned with the welfare of the ANC are not told – either because they cannot be told or because there is no such strategy.
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