Kevlar Cyril’s Phalamentary gift

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Thursday.

Parliament’s panel convened to ascertain whether President Cyril Ramaphosa has a case to face over the millions he mattrassed at Phala Phala has given our head of state a lovely present for his 70th birthday.

Not satisfied with handing Ramaphosa the traditional pair of socks or a tie for his milestone birthday — he’s now officially a septuagenarian after all — the section 89 impeachment panel, and parliament itself, decided to dig deep and give el jefe a 13-day breather before delivering its decision.

Lovely, indeed, and, when one thinks about it, appropriate. What does one get for the man who has everything: money, buffaloes, Ankoles, a whole country actually — to mark such a significant anniversary?

What better way to say happy birthday, Mongameli, than by cutting him some slack to allow him to enjoy his big day in peace by kicking the can further up the road, a couple of weeks closer to the ANC’s national conference and a decent crack at a second term as president?

Ramaphosa must be pleased with the presidential prezzie, coming as it does hot on the heels of another weekend’s successful bullet-dodging at the ANC national executive committee (NEC) meeting at which his enemies in the party hoped

to force him to stand aside. 

Kevlar Cyril, the bulletproof president.

The drama at the NEC meeting was a bit of a chortle. 

Punters who have spent the last five years fighting against the step-aside rule being implemented against them and their faction members were suddenly arguing — make that demanding — that it be applied to Ramaphosa.

They had clearly forgotten that suspended secretary general Ace Magashule had fought — and lost — the same battle with the NEC over Ramaphosa’s 2017 campaign finances when he was charged over the Free State asbestos removal scandal and decided to fire the president for firing him.

NEC members were ranting publicly about how rubbish the NEC — that’s themselves, by the way — was, while tapping up the comrades at branch level for another five-year term serving on the top leadership as reward for half a decade of being “weak”. 

Logical, not. Comradely, neither. But there is money, power and the avoidance of jail time at stake, so who needs either?

One doesn’t anticipate Ramaphosa getting much in the way of birthday wishes from the so-called radical economic transformation side of the ANC, now that they’ve reappeared after three days in hiding and are baying for his blood again.

No happy happy.

No all the best to you and your family.

Definitely no may you have many, many more.

It’s a bit difficult to imagine Magashule — or Conman Carl — putting their rubles together to buy Ramaphosa a gift for this 70th either; or Tornado Tony and Mervyn Dirks clubbing in to get the lahnee a Glenfiddich 15-year-old to mark the passing of another year.

No wallet.

No coffee mug.

No nomination for a second term in the presidency.

I’m not buying Cyril a present.

It’s not that I hate Ramaphosa the way his comrades in the ANC do.

I’m just too broke — not un-entirely as a result of his failure to go full John Wick on the criminal networks in the ANC from day one of his presidency — to even pay attention, let alone buy Phala Phala a present.

Maybe next year.

The comrades are a strange lot, cruel sometimes, even to their leaders they profess to love.

Look at how the comrades in the kingdom treated former president Jacob Zuma.

Only one of the ANC’s 700 plus KwaZulu-Natal branches — and that was in eThekwini, not even in his home region of Musa Dladla — nominated Zuma for president. One, in the whole kingdom of KwaZuma-Natal.

The timer had called the comrades to his home before the branch general meetings began and had given them their marching — make that voting — orders for Nasrec, the return, expecting them to do as commanded.

It turns out the comrades in the province made the pilgrimage to uBaba, ate his meat, took some selfies at the fire pool and trundled home to nominate Zweli Mkhize as president, ahead of Zuma and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who he had originally punted to take on Ramaphosa again in December.

Cold.

The old man’s own branch nominated somebody else for ANC president, rather than Nxamza himself, according to the spreadsheets released by the province this week.

The members of uBaba’s branch have been voting for the Inkatha Freedom Party — election in, election out — since time immemorial, so was it such an unexpected outcome after all? 

It’s still a touch icy, though, even by the comrades’ standards.

Wenzeni uZuma, indeed.