BOOK REVIEW: Analysis of Ramaphosa's ascendancy says he lost the power play
Ramaphosa’s Turn: Can Cyril Save SA?Ralph MathekgaTafelberg, Cape Town, 2018 Ralph Mathekga’s book on Cyril Ramaphosa begins with an account of what happened at Nasrec in December 2017, when the then deputy president of SA was elected president of the ANC. Mathekga’s account is mildly shocking and yet plausible: he avers that the real winner of that contest was not Ramaphosa but the so-called premier league, the trio of then provincial leaders who formed an alliance within the ruling party a few years before Nasrec. The book is an analysis of a moment in SA’s political history: the period from the fall of Jacob Zuma up to a few months after the appointment of Ramaphosa as SA's president, looking forward to his possible election in 2019.
It is an account of a transitional phase, and already some of its findings have been overtaken by events, especially the power plays within the ANC and the revelations of the various commissions into state capture...
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