Why persist with the Ramaphosa 2017 campaign when it's obvious he will lose, I asked Pravin Gordhan around June that year. The Ramaphosa campaign was weak and the provincial barons that ran the ANC were on the other side. “You don't fight to win,” he said. “You fight out of conviction; in the end, if you win, you win.”
He had lost his job as finance minister. He was at home in his pyjamas when the TV screens carried the news of a new finance minister in Malusi Gigaba. How he was fired, and persecuted by the National Prosecuting Authority and the Hawks under controversial criminal charges, took a toll on him and his family. At the same time, it catapulted him into being the poster child of the fight against Zuma. It was on the basis of his steadfastness in the political wilderness that a decent campaign for Ramaphosa could be built, and win eventually...
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