President Cyril Ramaphosa has defied his growing critics to retain his popularity. Confidence in his scandal-to-scandal Government has plummeted yet, man alone, he has triumphed.

POLITICIANS POPULARITY POLL RESULTS

According to the long-running company Citizens Survey, through their July 2019 poll, Ramaphosa has remained popular despite his biggest allies taking blows.

Minister of Finance Tito Mboweni dropped 6% since last year. Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan dropped 5%.

Possibly balancing those negativities is that Ramaphosa’s internal enemy, ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule, dropped from 16 to 11%. Magashule is the most well-known ally of ex-President Jacob Zuma whose administration sold the country to its knees for greedy fellatio. This past week, Ramaphosa took a step up into Zuma’s stronghold, KwaZulu-Natal. Mxolisi Kaunda, an ally of the President, became the Mayor of eThekwini, the metro that includes over 3.5-million people and the city of Durban.

Leader of the Opposition, Mmusi Maimane, has surprisingly remained constant despite him no longer getting as much unwarranted hype from biased Media. Maybe its just that the DA’s ‘gregarious white voters feel like they too don’t have many options.

The false socialist rhetoric of Julius Malema, the ‘General’ of the EFF, appears to have run out of steam.  He also dropped 5%. But Malema can never be discounted. He is the EFF, the leader of hangers who have to support him to earn a salary. It’ll be interesting to see if he can come up with something as populist and hypocritical as the red overalls, “Pay back the money”, and land expropriation ideas.

FLAWED HOPE IS STILL HOPE

South Africa, like most countries, remains incapable of identifying ideologies and political party identities, subscribing to the cult of personality.

As flawed as President Cyril Ramaphosa is, he remains the dim hope in a dark country where official unemployment has risen to 29%, strikes are as common as flies, state companies suck money like corrupt bankers, loadshedding threatens, and the jewel that is Cape Town has regularly suffered over 40 murders per weekend.

Ramaphosa is more than a Donald Trump or a Boris Johnson… because he has to be.

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