Deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa leads the SA delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. It’s a role that suits him and should, theoretically, strengthen his position in the gathering storm that is the ANC leadership contest. Davos is perhaps the most advanced expression of the integrated global ruling elite. The snowy village is where most of the key influencers of the world’s business and politics meet. It is ironic, then, that Davos takes place in the same week that Donald Trump is inaugurated as US president. Trump’s impatience with multilateralism suggests a new era of aggressive isolationism in US politics that will undermine the importance of Davos as an agenda-setting event. Of course, the 63m Americans who voted for Trump do not care about Davos. Nor, for that matter, do the ANC power brokers who decide whether Ramaphosa will succeed President Jacob Zuma. Many in the ANC, perpetually preoccupied with elections and access to patronage, are as little intereste...
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