Cyril Ramaphosa's Resignation Gamble a Ruse to Mask Internal Revolt

Clyde N.S. Ramalaine

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s outburst at the African National Congress (ANC) National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting, daring his detractors to name the date on which he should resign, is far from the bold, statesmanlike moment his supporters claim.

It is the unmistakable cry of a president whose leadership capital is haemorrhaging and who resorts to theatrical defiance to disguise his precarious hold on an increasingly fractured organisation. That he chose the Political Overview Report, the NEC’s most formal platform, to issue this challenge speaks volumes about the crisis confronting him.

The ANC stands on the edge of perhaps its most consequential National General Council (NGC), scheduled for December, since the 2005 and 2010 moments that destabilised Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma respectively.

While the NGC does not elect leaders, it functions as the party’s mid-term legitimacy audit, a space where confidence is tested, mandates questioned, and factional balances recalculated. Ramaphosa knows this. His dare is therefore not confidence; it is pre-emptive defence, the performative courage leaders resort to when real power slips.

Traditionally, the Political Overview is a sober assessment of the party’s health, where the president sets tone, direction, and priorities. By inserting a confrontational dare, “If you want me gone, give me the date, I will resign even tomorrow,” Ramaphosa converted this ceremonial space into a battleground, seeking two objectives.

First, he attempted to shame and expose internal opponents by dragging clandestine plotting into the open. When he condemns those “discussing his exit in dark corners like cowards,” he inadvertently reveals the depth of factional mistrust engulfing the party. Leaders with true authority are not preoccupied with whispers; they silence them through performance. Ramaphosa’s public dare signals the opposite: the whispers have become a roar.

Second, by embedding the dare within the Political Overview, he hoped to shield himself behind institutional authority. Any subsequent challenge is framed as organised political action rather than individual discontent. This is narrative control ahead of the NGC: he seeks to be seen as the victim of machinations, not the architect of a faltering administration.

The ANC’s hurried spin that “Ramaphosa is going nowhere” and will remain president until December 2027 is less a statement of fact than political sedation, aimed at calming markets, reassuring donors, and masking internal revolt. It is the language of a party managing instability, not projecting certainty. History shows that whenever Luthuli House insists a leader is secure, the opposite is usually true; such proclamations signal organisational panic, not confidence.

The claim ignores ANC precedent, where presidents served at the mercy of shifting factional coalitions rather than constitutional calendars. Ramaphosa’s survival is not anchored in 2027; it rests on whether he commands authority through the coming NGC and subsequent NEC cycles. To claim he is guaranteed to remain until 2027 is to mistake public messaging for political reality: the ANC cannot promise what internal dynamics can no longer deliver.

The NGC is the proving ground of a sitting president’s internal legitimacy. In 2005, it exposed cracks in Mbeki’s support. In 2015, it signalled the beginning of Zuma’s fall. The NGC does not remove presidents directly, but it weakens them in ways from which recovery is rare. Ramaphosa’s opponents understand this — and so does he.

During his first term, the NGC was steamrolled into inconsequence, aided by procedural delays and a gerrymandered COVID-19 response. That avoidance cannot be repeated indefinitely. Media reports suggesting he intends to resign after the G20 Summit reflect factional leakage, coordinated to sow doubt and test internal opinion. His dare is the clearest sign these rumours reached the NEC from within.

As the NGC approaches, factional groups intensify manoeuvres. The ANC today is not governed by ideology but by fragile alliances built on survival, patronage, and contested control of state machinery. Ramaphosa’s political project of “renewal” has long ceased to function as ideological glue; it now operates as a rhetorical shield, thinning fast. His dare must be read as anticipatory self-defence, aimed at undercutting confidence motions or policy attacks before they crystallise.

Perhaps the most revealing moment of the Political Overview was Ramaphosa’s call for lifestyle audits of all NEC members, paired with the declaration that the ANC must not be run “mafia-style.” In leadership theory, this is a classic manoeuvre: when organisational authority collapses, a leader invokes ethical legitimacy as a substitute for control. Weber warned that such posturing emerges when institutional legitimacy declines.

Not only was this a deflection, but it was hollow. Ramaphosa has promised lifestyle audits throughout his ‘8-Years-of-Miscarriage’ and has yet to demonstrate meaningful follow-through. ANC members treat this as a running joke. By raising audits now, he seeks to recast internal opposition as corrupt actors threatened by accountability. This is strategic intimidation, not renewal, a warning: push me out, and I will expose you.

The Madlanga Commission provides moral cover, but invoking commissions and audits cannot erase reality: corruption continues, institutions remain weakened, and accountability is selective. Ethical posturing now functions as a political tool in a moment of desperation.

Ramaphosa rose to power on a platform of consensus-building and moral authority. But consensus leadership collapses when factions shift. The president who sought to please all now pleases none. Factional loyalty evaporates the moment he cannot secure power for allies. His predicament is a direct consequence of his leadership method.

By daring detractors to set a resignation date, he reveals uncertainty about who supports him, who tolerates him, and who plans to abandon him at the NGC. The theatrics mask a harsher truth: he presides over an organisation he no longer controls. This is not boldness. It is the rage of a wounded incumbent confronting a revolt already in motion. His dare is not a show of strength; it is a plea to confront him openly so he can claim the moral high ground.

In the final analysis, his dare is less a challenge to opponents than a confession: the façade of control has cracked, and the centre of his power is collapsing.

South Africa is witnessing the political unravelling of a president who once enjoyed crafted goodwill, claimed internal trust, and a celebrated mandate to restore the ANC. That moment is over. The NEC’s dare signals the party’s descent into open conflict ahead of the NGC. Opponents will interpret his outburst as weakness; supporters will struggle to defend him against accusations of lost control.

The NGC will not remove him, but it may fatally wound his remaining authority, diminish his influence over government, and set the stage for a forced exit, whether after February 2026 or earlier.

Ramaphosa’s Political Overview was not the act of a confident president; it was the survival instinct of a leader aware that the next major gathering may deliver the most honest verdict on his presidency: he no longer commands the organisation he leads and no longer embodies the renewal he preached.

* Dr Clyde N.S. Ramalaine is a Political Analyst, Theologian, and Commentator on Politics, Governance, Social & Economic Justice, Theology, and International Affairs

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